12th February 2010
It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, words will have to do today since our walk was going to involve a swim through a gorge in order to complete it. Not an ideal environment for electronic equipment, hence no cameras.
Since we have been surgically attached to our camera for the past 5 months, it was oddly liberating to leave it behind for a morning and drink in the beauty of Ormiston Pound and Ormiston Gorge with only our eyes, relying on our memory to capture the moment instead.
Our walk started on an uphill slope surrounded by dots of very sharp spinifex grass, passing many boulders of rock, oxydised red by the action of air on the iron ore within it. As we climbed to the view point at the top we passed a Euro Kangaroo, much stockier and more suited for climbing over rocks than its more famous Red cousin. Without cameras, the wildlife seemed more willing to show itself and we also saw some lovely brown coloured bush pigeons with a fine crest atop their heads. The kangaroo bounded away over the top of the hill and by the time we reached the summit was hidden in the shade of the bushes beneath us. At the summit we were greeted by an outstanding view over the flat inner area of Ormiston Pound out to the craggy peaks surrounding it.
We made our way down into the pound itself, crossing several dry river beds where in some of the trees we saw evidence of the height of the rivers in previous weeks in the form of debris caught in the branches of trees. Today however, the river beds were full of dry sand and rocks.
We made our way across to Ormiston Gorge where the sheer cliff sides changed from the deep red of the top rocks down to the pretty shades of deep and pale purple at the bottom where the river had washed the rocks clean. There were plenty of boulders to scramble over along the bottom of the gorge before we eventually arrived at a part of the gorge actually containing water.
This was the exciting and much welcome bit. We were all a tad hot and sweaty by now, so we packed all we could into our bags and Ed put it on his shoulder to wade through the water. I hate my feet sinking into mud beneath the water so I was swimming quite soon. It wasn’t long before Ed and everyone else had joined me because the water was simply too deep to wade through. There were quite a collection of wet shoes and bags when we got to the other side, but nothing stays wet for long in this heat.
We headed to another waterhole where we were able to swim without bags and enjoy the cool water without worrying about stuff sinking.
After our swim we returned to the carpark for lunch before making a quick stop at the Mount Sondel lookout. While we were at the lookout, the blue skies we had experienced all morning changed and we could see rain on the horizon, the wind also blew up and we could hear thunder and see lightening forks in various places around us. This was not an unwelcome development because firstly the air-conditioning in the van had packed up, so at least if it clouded over we could travel with the windows open and secondly because rain is rare here, so to see it would be something special.
Be careful what you wish for. We left the lookout and the heavens opened. We reached one of the usually dry river crossings and there was a car parked just looking at it. “It’s just a bit of water mate, don’t be soft” quipped Paul our guide in his 4WD bus, motoring on through. He was soon pulled up short though when we arrived at the next river crossing and the water was 10m across and very fast flowing. It was also rising, very fast.
This is the sort of experience that money can’t buy. Rain is not an everyday occurrence in this environment and we spent the next hour and a half watching the floodwaters first advance then recede fairly quickly with various trucks arriving from the hotel and pub down the road filled with locals having a look.
We finally got underway successfully crossing the river after Paul had waded across to check the depth and flow of the water. We then crossed a number of creeks and riverbeds where rocks and debris had been swept across the road.
On a particularly fast flowing crossing we used four wheel drive to get across, but the truck behind us wasn’t so lucky. Driven by a young guy who was mapping the roads for a GPS company, he had come through a bit fast and caused a wave which had swept up over the bonnet causing the car to stop dead. He was stuck in the middle of the water with a soaked petrol engine and not a hope of it drying out to go anywhere soon.
We couldn’t just leave him, so five of us waded into the water and pushed him out. The car was full of water, all the footwells had a good 4 inches and the engine wasn’t even turning over. He and his girlfriend then hitched a lift into Alice with us where we were going to refuel before heading to Oak Valley on the other side of Alice.
The road to Oak Valley was also flooded in parts, the soft sand quickly turning to a red, gooey mud. But with our super-duper four wheel drive bus we simply breezed through them. We managed to get to our campsite in the dry and unload the wood for tonights fire when the heavens opened again. This time it wasn’t stopping so it was quick time to get the swags off the truck and under the shelter. The lads rigged up the tarpaulin to keep the majority of the rain out but our wood was wet so starting a fire for cooking was going to take some time. We had a small woodburning stove which we managed to get going using dry twigs we found on the ground, but then we had to add some wet wood. The smoke was horrendous, stinging our eyes and stinking our clothes, all the while with the rain hammering down outside and flashes of lightening going off, but what an experience. Amazing, to go from clear skies on day one and see the marvels of the universe laid out before you to day four with pounding rain and getting soaked in a second when you go outside and the realisation that there’s no getting round mother nature. We couldn’t have asked for a better tour. 
While we were waiting for the fire to get going and food to be cooked, we emptied the communal alcohol cool box, since it was our last night, we proceeded to finish all the bottles left in it. Tea was the latest yet and we all had to sleep under the shelter in rows, but I for one thought this was great fun.