Day 1: Redbank Gorge to Mt Sondor 06/08/2020

Today we left Alice Springs and headed about two hours west to the start of my walk, the western end of the Larapinta Trail at Redbank Gorge. The mountain range on the way out of Alice Springs had this amazing cloud draping over it and wrapping around it. Stunning.

There are two campgrounds at Redbank Gorge, the first quite sheltered and tucked away in the scrub while the second is perched up with a great view of the surrounding mountains. Even though it was particularly windy, we set our tent up with the view. Thank goodness Jubble ended up being right about the wind dying off at night otherwise it would have been a pretty noisy night.

We walked along a bone dry riverbed to Redbank Gorge. The colours are stunning. When the sun came out from behind the clouds, it lit up one bit of rock you could see through the gorge into a bright, fake looking orange. Apparently you can explore the gorge with an inflatable mattress or tyre tube. You’d want to be braver than me for that – the water was like ice.

After a quick lunch, we started off to Mt Sonder to get there for sunset. After a gentle stroll, the path started to ascend quite steeply for about 3kms. We started to worry it would take us longer than we’d planned and we might not make sunset. But it was just the first few kms that are steep and we picked up the pace after that. Looking back to the starting point from way up high, we could actually see our tent shining in the sun!

It such beautiful country here. The sparseness of the vegetation, the colour of the rocks, the blue of the sky. It’s a really lovely landscape to walk through.

The second half of the walk was windy and cold, a sign of things to come at the summit. Up top it was freezing! Our plans of having some dinner at the summit quickly evaporated and we willed the sun to set so we could start the walk back down. The view was absolutely worth the climb. We could see all the way back across the ranges towards Alice Springs and off further west to NT’s highest peak, Mt Zeil and one of the most beautiful, Mt Razorback.

Walking back down just following sunset, watching the sky slowly darken and change colours was pretty special. The wind started to ease and it was really lovely walking along in the dark with just our head torches. We saw lots of spiders with their shiny eyes reflecting the light of our torches.

And then, just over half way back, it stopped feeling lovely and we both wanted it to end. Our legs were feeling it, with this being the first big strenuous walk we’ve done in a while. We hadn’t eaten since our late lunch – I know, I know, rookie decision. The last 3kms of steep rocky downhill were less fun than they had been on the way up. We were both tired! But as always, nothing lasts forever and we were back at our car.

We both thanked goodness our tent was already set up and we didn’t have to do that in the dark, especially given there were people staying near us who were already asleep. We had a big drink of powerade and an Upbeat cup for dinner and dragged ourselves into bed. I felt relieved we hadn’t disturbed our neighbours too much – the snoring floating across the campground confirmed all was ok!