Sunday 24th June 2018
Well we have decided to do 3/4 of Sections 3 of the Larapinta Trail as a day walk. The Larapinta Trail is a 220km hike through the West MacDonnel Ranges from Alice Springs to Mt Sonder, Redbank Gorge. The section we are doing is 19km from Stanley Chasm to Millers Flat camp then the high loop to Tangentyere Junction and then return to Stanley Chasm via the low loop. A big hike but with only day packs totally doable. That is if you get started early. It was so cold this morning, like -1° we struggled to get out of bed, also as it was only our 2nd night in NT and 1.5 hours time change we didn’t wake up till after 7 when it started getting light. When we finally got going on the road it was 10am and we realised it was a 40 minute drive to Stanley Chasm to start the hike.

As we were almost there, my tour manager changed the itinerary to hiking from Stanley Chasm to Millers Flat, setting up camp then doing the loop back to Millers Flat and camping the night. Then hike the 5km back to Stanley Chasm tomorrow. EEEKKK!! this really put me in a bit of a flap as

A. We weren’t organised at all
B. My head wasn’t prepared for hiking with a heavy pack
C. It was going to take time to get packed.

Oh well. Lucky I am flexible. After a little agitation in the next 45 mins to get organised I finally got my head around it and packed my kit. Then I donned my pack and headed to sign in for the walk. DB was still getting organised. I feel like I had my pack on for another 15-20 mins waiting for him. Pretty silly as it is very heavy again. The only difference in weight for an overnight hike to a 3-4 night hike is food. Which isn’t too much.

We started off at about 12.30pm, a little late for our new itinerary. Oh well, we will see how we go. Little did we know the first section was up, up, up and up, we just kept climbing and climbing and climbing. By the time we got to the lookout I was pooped, puffing and ready for a rest. Lucky the view was exceptional, amazing, magnificent and stupendous. How’s that for a couple of adjectives. To say the least was mind glowingly beautiful. I hope you enjoy the pictures and then imaging what it was like because it was 10 times as good.

After a short rest we then headed down. Yes down, which you know what that means, another up. We walked through some beautiful countryside of the West MacDonnell Ranges. Some of it again was challenging, made even more so by carrying a heavy pack. DB kept saying “I have to get this pack lighter”, but we are not quite sure what we can do without. ON the way to Millers Flat we discussed whether to do the loop today or tomorrow morning. Knowing we had to deal with the Car Reg tomorrow we decided on today.

We arrived at Millers Flat at 2.45pm and setup our camp, had a snack and ditched everything we didn’t need for a 3 hour hike and headed on our way. We only had 2 hours 45 mins of daylight so we knew we had to get going fast.

So off we go saying we will take the high road and hike for an hour and turn around and hike back. Not what we really wanted to do but at least we would get to see the view from the ridge. The high side was very challenging. 2.5 hours for 4.3km. We now know why, we are so glad we only have a light pack.It was boulder hopping, cliff climbing up and down and very tough. Even after the tough hikes we have already done. So glad we weren’t carrying overnight packs. Almost at the top we past a young couple heading to Millers Flat who we chatted with and they said make sure we walk across the ridge at the top about 1km as the view is amazing. So that we did. It was even more amazing than the start. This moved the goalpost from about a 4km hike to an 8.3km. We had a long way to go and we were going to run out of daylight. That always causes us a problem as David starts moving quicker and I struggle to keep up, he then stops and waits till he can see me, then goes again, I then travel a little slower as I have to make my own way, even though it is a track I can’t get lost on, I have to make foot decisions which slows me down a bit. And DB gets frustrated and I could feel a NZ cave situation coming on. About 15 mins after the sunset and it was almost fully dark I had a little spat, DB slowed down a bit as he realised we weren’t going to make it before dark and accepted we just need to go at our usual pace as the track was a rocky creek bed and we didn’t need to sprain our ankles. We really thought the low side was going to be a lot easier and as we had done the high loop in 1.5 hours instead of the recommended 2.5hrs with though the low side we would do the same but it was a lot of rocky creek bed fast walking. It was also a little tough. We got to the camp at about 6.45pm. About 30mins of hiking in the dark. We made it. We now had a full camp, another 6 people.

We just had to make dinner now as we had set up the tent before we went walking. As we made dinner I realised I had forgot the measuring cup for our dinner. Oh well, guesstimate is the best we can do. It all worked out ok. With dinner done 30 mins later I headed off to bed as it was very cold, DB had a chat with our fellow on the way.

We were really warm in our tent and good sleeping bags, thermals and beanies. I had a great night sleep.

I will apologise for the number of photos, it truly was amazing, I couldn’t choose.