Day 307 | Fringed Lily Creek: some company tonight
Larapinta Day 9
Rain.
That wasn’t planned.
In fact, due to it being high 30s for the week before I left, and 38ยบ the first two days of walking, I didn’t even bring my raincoat. I do have a waterproof jacket aboard, mostly for chilly autumn early mornings, not yet experienced, it’s not quite the same.
Rain is perhaps giving the precipitation too much credit, drizzle is more accurate, but not of any particularly wetting kind.
It started about 4 pm yesterday and continued most of the night, the last of the drops as I was packing up the tent having waited for it to dry out. But that was it for the day.
And what a day.
More spectacular stuff.
Walking up a narrow boulder strewn creek, cliffs with side as far as the saddle, then out onto Razorback Ridge, a quartzite outcrop extending a few ks with views as far as Ellery Big Hole, 3 days walk away, my point of exit from this little adventure.
Can’t say enough about this stage, it’s just inspiring, and now my feet are starting to act somewhat normal, ie, the blisters are healing, hill climbing is starting to return to be an almost pleasure, coming down, well, that’s a different story.
Eventually the track perched high above the campsite at Fringed Lily Creek with long views up Lateral Valley, tomorrow morning’s route and over the top into Hugh Gorge.
The campsite has a few spots and 300 m downstream is a beautiful pool, running water over polished gneiss rock, highly striated, and then a little waterfall to the pool.
It’s a wondrous experience travelling through this ahistoric landscape, time stands still out here, these little waterholes, I’ve a new appreciation for Central Australia thanks to this excursion into the West MacDonnell Range.