Skip to content →

Tag: outback

“Landscape” view/ much closer view (#12B in series: Painted Desert)

 

This post’s “much closer view” involved almost the very same vantage point as the previous post’s “landscape” image.

You may recognise the particular bush which is present in both photos…but to very different effect.

Comments closed

“Landscape” view/ much closer view (#12A in series: Painted Desert)

 

South Australia’s Painted Desert has to be seen to believed.

It takes some effort to see it; access to this spectacular, very fragile place is restricted, and the Painted Desert is on private property.

Arckaringa Station handsomely meets any reasonable definition of “remote” – more than 960 kilometres from Adelaide, it is more than 100 kilometres north of Coober Pedy.

Comments closed

MacDonnell Ranges (final episode in series: Mt Sonder & surrounds)

 

As previously noted, Mt Sonder is relatively modest in altitude and bulk, but it is particularly beautiful, especially when the sun is not too high in the sky.

What makes it even more beautiful – and this true of almost every mountain, hill, gorge and creek in and around the MacDonnell Ranges – is the fact that it sits within such beautifully-vegetated country.

Almost anywhere you look, it just gets better and better, the more closely you look.

You should never fail to look closely at all layers of whatever landscape you find yourself within – foreground through to horizon.

If you look at the watercolours painted by this region’s most famous artist, you can see that Albert Namatjira (1902-1959) understood this very well.

Comments closed

MacDonnell Ranges (#15 in single image series: flowering, Ormiston Gorge)

 

 

 

After taking the photo featured in #14 in this series, my beloved and I decided to scramble our way up to the path that followed a ridge line, rather than retrace our steps along the gorge’s floor

This proved surprisingly easy.

Less than ten minutes later we were heading back to Ormiston HQ, via a well-made pathway that gave us easy access to the lookout from which I took the image featured in this series’ first chapter.

Comments closed

MacDonnell Ranges (#14 in single image series: well inside Ormiston Gorge)

 

 

To reach the pictured location, you need to be able-bodied, but – in stable weather, at least – it does not involve a very long walk, nor an arduous/particularly hazardous one.

It still surprises me that relatively few visitors to such a magnificent place are prepared to walk more than a very few, very easy steps away from the car/bus park.

Comments closed

MacDonnell Ranges (#13 in series: Big Hole goes green)

 

 

 

In winter, in a “good” year, some places in “The Red Centre” can surprise a first-time visitor by presenting a relatively soft, lush green “face”.

Ellery Creek Big Hole is a striking, dramatic destination at any time, but it does not always look the way it did on 17 June 2023.

Comments closed

MacDonnell Ranges (#12 in single image series: Ellery Creek Big Hole)

 

 

This is a very popular swimming/ picnicking spot, easily accessed, just 80 kilometres west of Alice Springs.

It also offers scenic splendour, complex geology, and good walking opportunities.

Newcomers who lack knowledge of Western MacDonnell Ranges’ water holes will experience a cold shock the first time they enter this one.

Comments closed