The East MacDonnell Ranges

 There was no mad rush to leave our campsite at the National Road Transport Museum as our drive today was relatively short, with just three stops along the way before our camp for the next three days. 

We've been to Alice Springs on many occasions. Still, for some reason, we've always explored parts of the West MacDonnell Ranges or Chambers Pillar, situated southeast of Alice Springs in the desert, so the East Macs will be a whole new experience for us.

The Ross Highway is sealed eighty-three kilometres to the Ross River Resort, with all other roads unsealed.

Our first stop was just fifteen kilometres east at Emily Gap, but unfortunately, even though the water looked nice, we could not proceed further to see the remainder of the gap.

We headed to Corroboree Rock and walked the circuit track around this structure, estimated to be over eight hundred million years old.

All sites in NT national parks and reserves must be booked online before arriving. So we booked site 5 for three days at Trephina Gorge in the Panorama Campground after reading reports on Wiki Camps.

After completing the two-kilometre Gorge walk, which takes you around the top of the gorge, we returned to our campsite, walking through the sand of Trephina Gorge and then completing the two-kilometre Panorama walk.

We also drove a short distance to view the ghost gum, which is over thirty-three metres tall and estimated to be over three hundred years old. It's recognised as the most significant ghost gum in Australia by the National Register of Big Trees.

The following day, we drove to John Hayes Rockhole. The four-kilometre access road into the gorge took us half an hour each way, and unfortunately, it was almost impossible to stop the sides of our Chev from being scratched. In hindsight, we should not have tackled this track as it was impossible to turn around until the car park at the end.

We then moved to the Ross River Resort for the next two days, and at thirty-five dollars for an unpowered site, it was a little steep, but then Ros was able to use their water and our washing machine to catch up on six loads of washing so the price then didn't seem so bad.

We ventured out to the Arltunga Historical Reserve on our second day. We started off with our normal bitumen pressures, which are sixty psi. Still, after several kilometres, I dropped these down to forty psi, giving us a more enjoyable ride over the stony and corrugated road.

The Arltunga gold fields were the first significant settlement in Central Australia in the 1880s. Many miners pushed wheelbarrows from the railhead at Oodnadatta with all their belongings on board roughly four hundred and sixty kilometres, and that's in a straight line, so you could probably add another significant amount to that figure. 

Walks at the reserve take you through many of the buildings that have been restored to try and keep them intact.

The following morning, it was a leisurely drive back along the Ross Highway to Alice Springs, where we again camped at the National Road Transport Museum for two days while we restocked.