A walk down-stream produces a different view of the rock.
By the water-side were a few reeds, and they have to be spiky as most plants in Central Australia are.
Not far away was a very impressive strand of river red gums. See how they tower.
These trees have stood the test of time, through drought and floods – because there is occasionally water on the mighty Finke River.
No wonder they’re so anchored to the earth.
We did some exploring on the surface of the clay pan…
Before settling down to study the clay pan itself.
What can a group of artists do on a clay pan? Use the clay as a medium, of course. The clay could be diluted in a bit of water, and used as paint. A great substitute for burnt sienna.
We took a walk one morning across the red sand dunes, through mallee and mulga scrubs.
Our destination was the clay pan.
It’s a one km square clay bed. Perhaps it had been a freshwater lake at one time?
Whatever it had been, its surface was now dry and hard.
Parts of the surface was clear, with only cracks and the odd hard, black stone.
Other parts had pebbles on top and embedded into the surface.
It was beautiful, and intriguing place.
Let’s have a further look at the landscape beyond the camp.
Big river gums loom over the Finke River.
What’s fascinating about these trees were their roots. These were nowhere near the soil, but somehow the tree survives.
Away from the river bed the soil quickly turns to red, red sand.
There was of course the dreaded spiky spinifex (which plagued me up in Queensland), although not as numerous as I thought. This area hasn’t had any rain in the past few months (unlike other areas of Central Australia) and so the livestock have grazed much of the vegetation down.
After my post about swag camping, I was asked whether I had concerns about snakes. We asked our hosts that question very early on, and the answer was that in mid-winter, when nightly temperatures fell to freezing, snakes (or indeed most other critters) weren’t active at all. During the day, we’d fold up the swag to ensure that we had no surprises come nightfall.
We did however have other nightly visitors. We certainly heard plenty of dingoes, although we didn’t often see them in the camp. When they came (and they did explore since I saw their paw prints about camp), they came in stealth. I can report that the dingoes did not steal anything from camp (much less babies).
It was the domestic animals that provided much of the midnight entertainment. Being on a pastoral property, there were cattle roaming about at will. One bull was so curious that he visited us on most of the nights and refused to go! Other visitors were the brumbies (a.k.a. wild horses), who were less confident, but no less curious. We got a good glimpse of them early one morning.
We slept in swags all week at Running Waters. Yes, I was tent-less. Swag camping is a common thing in Central Australia where rain isn’t usually a problem much of the time. Here’s what my swag set up looked like.
The swags were made of canvas, are king single sized, and inside was a full bed set-up – pillow, mattress, sheets, blankets, even a doona. So yes, it was rather cosy in there, and with a hot water bottle, I was very snug.
The advantage of being in a swag is that you have the moon and stars for company every night. I found waking up with the galaxy above me very soothing. And of course I’m there to witness the beautiful sunrises every morning.
I saw the colours change minute by minute in not just the sky, but the trees and cliff too. It was magic every morning.
A series of water holes separate the camp site from the cliff face. It was our source of fresh water, and made for a freezing refreshing dip in the afternoon. By the water were boulders of various kinds, pebbles, sand, grasses, and logs from past storms.
The reflections on the water were delightful, particularly those of the trees.
They were particularly beautiful in the early morning when all was calm.
The trees at Running Waters were eucalypts of course, but very different ones to the ones found in the east. On the sand flats are the river red gums – red because of the colour of its sap. Here is a magnificent specimen.
They tended to grow in strands so there was plenty of shade by the water hole.
On the rocky escarpment were the ghost gums. They grew more singularly.
Sometimes they grew in the most unlikely places, like half-way up the cliff-face.
Our destination, and home for the week, was Running Waters. It’s a series of permanent waterholes on the ancient Finke River. It’s at the edge of the large Henbury pastoral station, almost on the boundary with Finke Gorge National Park. I had visited Palm Valley last time, but this was something very different.
The rocks of the escarpment were a highlight. Because we were camped beside it for a week, we saw all manner of light play upon it. This was later in the afternoon on our first evening.
The next day I started my camp experience. I was picked up by Deb and Charlie, who ran Larpinta Creative Camps, and after a quick run-around to collect the other participants (there were only 5 of us), we headed down the Stuart Highway. It was 130km of bitumen highway, then 50km of all-weather unsealed road, then 50km of 4WD track.
We stopped for lunch in desert oak country, and the sand here was bright, bright red.
Desert oaks are interesting trees as the juvenile (the punked up version on the left) looks nothing like the mature (the big tree on the right). It’s lean in its youth as it needs all its energy to shoot roots far downwards into the water table.
There was the letting down of tyres, since the going was going to get tougher.
I was impressed that the vehicle was named after one of my favourite mega-fauna, the diprotodon.
After lunch the road became a track.
Soon the escarpments appeared. We were almost at Running Waters.
Static and Silence 