Larapinta Track

I’ve just returned from walking the Larapinta Track in the West MacDonnell Ranges in central Australia. One of my fellow walkers, Ollie Brown, has submitted this report:“On some websites the Larapinta Trail is euphemistically referred to as a ‘desert ramble’. A ramble suggests leisure, wandering, freedom to linger over a picnic lunch and perhaps to gaze meditatively at the scenery, the birds, the clouds or whatever else takes your fancy.”

But “Do not underestimate the trail, or the time needed” was an instruction in the small print, fortunately taken to heart by Pam without whose realistic assessment of our abilities we’d have been up the boulder-strewn creek without a paddle – and any hope of reaching the next campsite before nightfall.

There are 7 summits over 1000 metres on the trail (surely we climbed all of them) and that, of course, meant down again, down loose scree slopes and mezic gorges which required the agility of a mountain goat and the shock absorbers of a Mack truck. One of our group diligently recorded times and distances at each kilometre marking post, causing us to fluctuate wildly between feelings of elation or inadequacy, depending on the result.

Temperatures remained relentlessly high; never had a muddy wallow shared with hundreds of tadpoles felt so good or an icy gorge swim so blissful. A bush providing a patch of shade and a few centimetres of earth between spinifex clumps was welcome; a grove of trees an absolute oasis.!

Despite being generally well marked , it was easy at times to lose the trail on craggy, rock-strewn slopes or spinifex-studded hillsides where every patch of red earth seemed to beckon in another direction. Occasionally the trail led over areas of sedimentary rock pushed up at right angles by ancient geological forces requiring careful attention to each footstep. No room for error here. We dubbed the stretches of firm, smooth red earth as the “red, velvet carpet”- balm to the knees and ankles!

And those first five days held plenty of surprises – a hole in the chasm wall through which the packs had to be passed, followed by their owners breathing in with feet groping for toeholds; pools of water which had to be negotiated with packs held above heads; long stretches of boulder-hopping – and all this at the end of a day’s hiking when we could reasonably be expected to have done our bit.

Fourteen days in the MacDonnell Ranges marching (rather than rambling) along razor-back ridges, through spectacular valleys and deep shaded gorges, gazing for many hours (we were in bed exhausted by 8pm) at star-filled skies – what an adventure!

Without the assistance af all my companions on the track it would not have been possible. What a trip! What a privilege!

Click here for more photos from this trip