18 July - West MacDonnell Ranges – Serpentine Gorge, Ellery Creek Big Hole and Standley Chasm

18 July 2016 – 179 210

West MacDonnell Ranges – Serpentine Gorge, Ellery Creek Big Hole and Standley Chasm

This morning we went to Serpentine Gorge and did a short walk to a waterhole and lookout (2.7km, 204m ascent, in an hour).  
http://traveloutbackaustralia.com/serpentine-gorge-west-macdonnell-ranges.html/
We returned to Ellery Creek Big Hole where Hayden and I did the Dolomite Walk; we saw tiny spiders’ webs in the spinifex, crickets, and some new flowers that we haven’t seen anywhere else.  Apparently this area has very high biodiversity because on one side of the gully is the red rock common to the area and the other side of the gully is dolomite; as a result the soil produced is richer in nutrients than most local areas.  This walk was 2.8km, and involved 179m of climbing.
https://nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/200036/ellery-creek-big-hole-fact-sheet-and-map.pdf

We packed up and headed to Standley Chasm, where we have camped the night.  We headed straight into Standley Chasm as the light only penetrates into this deep narrow chasm in the middle of the day.  This is impressive and the photos don’t do justice to just how narrow and deep this is – it would be amazing to see this with water flowing through. (2.4km, 50 minutes)
https://www.standleychasm.com.au/

The next walk went straight up, and I do mean straight up, to a lookout with an amazing view – Larapinta Hill Lookout – this had views in multiple directions.  This is part of section 4 of the Larapinta Trail, it looks like this would be a challenging section, very steep up and down.  Last up for the day was the Loop walk, which took us through a different type of country and again up to a lookout.  These two walks combined were 4.4km and took about an hour and a half, with 522m ascent.  Then we got to have showers, I feel so much nicer clean!

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