Larapinta

I have just come back from a wonderful adventure. For 6 days I have been walking parts of the Larapinta Trail in the Western MacDonald Ranges in Central Australia.

The landscape is very rocky with few trees and lots of spinifex. The mountain ranges look like gigantic dinosaurs.

We walked through narrow gorges…

…that made us feel very small and insignificant.

We listened to the trunk of young red gums and heard them gurgle as they sucked up water from deep underground.

Here my friend Leigh is listening in delight.

We ate delicious food made on an open fire in camp ovens

The lid comes off a potato and vegetable bake.

You felt so free in this enormous vastness

We walked up to 20 km a day and never tired of the amazing scenery

We slept under the stars and learned to recognise the powerful shape of the Black Emu across the sky, waking in the morning to find a light frost on our swags.
The sky at night was just too spectacular for words!
One day we got up at 2 am to climb 8 km to the summit of Mt Sonder by the light of head torches to watch the first light of dawn and sunrise. It was so beautiful and moving!! But with near zero temperatures and a strong chill wind it was really freezing on the summit.

I loved every minute of this amazing adventure