A walk in the park

The rocky path on the Euro Ridge. Pictures by Jan Clare

Jan and Rick Clare don their walking boots and head to the Red Centre of Australia for six days on the Larapinta Trail. Jan tells the story of their adventures . . .

Australia is full of quirky place names and ‘The Lone Dingo’, a camping and outdoor store on the main street in Alice Springs, is no exception. This was the venue for the pre-trek briefing with our guides and fellow hikers. Of the 14 ‘guests’, just two of us were Kiwis — all the rest were Aussies. The group ranged in age from early 30s to our oldest member who was 78. Cat, Shelby and Patrick were our fresh-faced guides, all in their 20s and in charge of everything — transport, guiding, running the camps, chopping firewood and lighting the campfire, cooking breakfasts and dinners, getting us up on time in the mornings and preparing and carrying our lunch each day. Part of what made our trip very special was getting to know these outstanding young people.

Larapinta (‘flowing water’) is the Aboriginal name given to one of Australia’s great walks. The entire trail is 223km long, and has 12 sections, but our 6-day trek with World Expeditions was just 75km and took in only the main highlights.

The following morning dawned clear and brisk, with an expected high of 15 degrees. Perfect hiking weather! We were collected from our hotel and driven to the historic Telegraph Station, official starting point of the trail. The Telegraph Station marks the site of the first European settlement in Alice Springs in 1871. The station relayed morse code messages between Darwin and Adelaide, and also connected to the undersea telegraph network allowing messages to reach London in as little as 5 hours. Prior to this, messages would be sent by sea and took three to four months.

Our guides got us going with a little ice-breaker. Why have you come on the trek and what would you eat in a midnight feast? (Answer: Because walking is the only ‘sport’ I can do in a reasonably co-ordinated manner, and a perfectly ripe mango).

The trail led west through mulga scrub and witchetty bush. The mulga tree, a type of acacia, is adapted to the arid conditions, having a very deep taproot. The witchetty bush, another tree from the acacia family, is the source of an apparently delicious Aboriginal snack, the witchetty grub. The grub (larva of a moth) is found in the roots and traditionally was an important source of protein.

As the sun climbed higher we crossed the Todd River (dry as usual) and the Adelaide to Darwin railway track used by the famous Ghan passenger train. The Ghan is named after Afghan camel drivers (cameleers) who worked in the Outback in the late 19th and early twentieth century, before the railway was built and the widespread use of motor vehicles. Camels were the only beasts of burden that could cope with the harsh climate and they were responsible for hauling the supplies for inland mines and stations. The cameleers helped to build the railway, erect fences and the overland telegraph line, and acted as guides for several major expeditions.

The highlight of the day’s walk was the climb to Euro Ridge (790m), which provided a lofty viewing platform for the surrounding country — Alice Springs in the distance, and the southern entrance to the town through Heavitree Gap, in the MacDonnell ranges.

Euro Ridge itself is formed from slabs of granite tilted at 45 degrees. Everywhere in this landscape we would see the effects of the incredible forces of nature that shaped the land over millions of years. The local Arrernte people’s Dreamtime story (Yipirinya Dreaming) is of giant caterpillars that formed the ranges, gorges and chasms of this area. Incredibly, on Google Earth, the ‘caterpillars’ can readily be seen.

Day 1 exceeded expectationsDescending from Euro Ridge, we came to Wallaby Gap from where we were driven to our first of the three camps, Nick’s Camp, named after the Australian architect who designed the camps for World Expeditions. We were shown around camp: two-person safari tents with extremely comfortable swags, a covered kitchen and lounge area on a raised platform out of the dust, an esky (also known as a chilly bin) full of our chosen pre-dinner drinks, a campfire circle, hot showers and completely odour-free composting toilets. Yes, we were ‘glamping’ and unashamedly so!

Pre-dinner nibbles were provided that first evening by the wonderful Rayleen Brown, a bush tucker expert, who runs a café and catering company in Alice Springs called “Kungkas Can Cook” (kungka is an Aboriginal name for woman).

Rayleen brought us fried kangaroo steaks to sample, and a delicious platter of rosella aioli, quandong jam, lemon myrtle feta, salt bush pesto, bush tomato relish, dukkah spiced with acacia seeds and wattle seed damper.

She spoke to us about her passion for passing on Aboriginal culinary knowledge to young people. Rayleen inspired us with her vision to have more Aboriginal people involved in indigenous food production — she employs local women to harvest many of her ingredients. Rayleen’s fabulous recipe for Bush Fruit Christmas Cake, containing ground bush tomato, quandong jam and roasted wattle seeds, appears in the Great Australian Cookbook.

We gathered around the campfire after dinner to chat about the day and hear the outline for Day 2. Day 1 had certainly exceeded expectations, we all agreed. Patrick, who designated himself an honorary Kiwi after working as a via ferrata climbing guide in Wanaka, encouraged us to drag our swags outside and sleep under the stars. Overnight it was forecast to drop to below freezing so it didn’t appeal — that was the excuse I told myself anyway. In the back of my mind were images of the deadly snakes we’d seen only two days earlier at the Alice Springs Reptile Centre. — to be continued