17 July - Ochre Pits and Ellery Creek Big Hole, West MacDonnell Ranges

17 July 2016 – 179 141

Ochre Pits and Ellery Creek Big Hole, West MacDonnell Ranges

This morning we packed up the van and headed East.  Our first stop was the Ochre Pits, these contained a wide range of colours and shades, from white through yellow, orange, red, brown and almost black.  It appears to be quite chalky in texture.  From here we did the Aranda Walk which

took us from the Ochre Pits to the Larapinta Trail.  This was 8.8km and took a bit over two and a half hours.  This was an enjoyable walk with a lovely mountain pass at the end, however it was not on the scale of beauty of the last two days' walks.  Hayden spotted a small reptile on the path on the way back which was happy to let us observe for a while. 
http://www.macdonnellranges.com/ochre-pits-visitors-information-guide.htm 
After lunch we moved on to Ellery Creek Big Hole where we have camped the night. https://nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/200036/ellery-creek-big-hole-fact-sheet-and-map.pdf
After setting up camp we went for a swim

(primarily to get clean), we went completely under water and scrubbed ourselves down – the water was freezing, although maybe slightly warmer than that at Ormiston Gorge yesterday.  Thankfully the air temperature today has been much warmer than the last few days and we quickly warmed up.  It is actually warm enough to consider a single short sleeved top, rather than five long sleeved tops at once which has been the norm for the last few days.  Time to relax this evening, ahh!

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