The Valley of Palms

With the pressure of a 200km drive of dirt and 4wd road today on us, the start today was comparatively early by my standards, but by no means early and nowhere near as early as Dad. For once we were ready before nine, and off to the Valley we went. The drive down through the riverbed was definitely what you could call real 4WD-ing. The 5km drive through and along the rocky river took almost as long as the drive in yesterday.

Once we were in there, it was a 2km walk along the river and up on the plateau to see the actual palms. Whilst they look like any other Cabbage Palms, not only are these palms the only ones around for 1000km, but these Red Cabbage Palms are endemic to the Valley and the area around it over about 10 square km. The second half of the walk took a different perspective, up on the sandstone ridge area and back down to the carpark, where there were plenty of birds to be seen and heard.

After Palm Valley, it was back out for a short visit to Hermannsburg, which proved mainly unsuccessful, due mostly to a high entrance fee cost to the Historical Precinct and a lack of time. After that we were back on the road, heading for Gosse Bluff for lunch.

Gosse Bluff is an ancient impact crater formed by a 1-km wide comet colliding with earth about 145 million years ago. Because it was not a typical meteorite, it disintegrated upon impact, so there is no remnant other than the crater left, which has a slightly irregular shape. The crater that is left is about 6km wide at its largest, and over 100m above the surrounding plain. From a distance it looks just like a mountain range, rising up out of nowhere. After having lunch, we walked up to the lookout, which was just a pile of rubble really, and did the walk around some of the crater, which told you about the Aboriginal story of its formation.

According to them, a group of dreamtime women were dancing along the Milky Way. One of them had a baby with her, which she put down to dance. However, the baby fell, crashing down to earth where it landed with its carrier on top of it, forming the crater. If you think about it, its not really far from what happened at all. What is more ironic is that scientists took more than ten years trying to work out what happened, whereas the Aboriginal people knew all along.

After lunch it was back onto the road for what was 150km of dirt. No attractions, no stops, just dirt. This took two hours, and almost at the end was a lookout over to the range where Kings Canyon lies. This was afternoon tea, and then we got sealed road to the Resort. The resort is very touristy and there are a lot of people there. However, one of my friends from school who is in my class was there, so that was interesting hearing their view on the resort and what they had done.

Louis