Ruby Gap - Take Two

Crossing the Hale River at Ruby Gap

We're attempting to get caught up with keeping up, so I'm doing another post in close succession to our last post.  I know what you're all thinking - this has got to be some kind of record - and you're right, but don't get too used to it!

Several weekends ago, we decided to have another go at visiting Ruby Gap.  If you recall, one of our first Australia posts was about us heading out that way with several friends from work.  At the time we had air suspension in the disco, and one of our air bags blew out and we had to turn around and come back before we got there.  Ruby Gap is famous for an early gem rush (rubies) in the late 1800's, but unfortunately the rubies ended up being only high quality garnets - which are still worth money, only garnets don't bring in enough $$ to make it worth braving the rugged outback to do some mining.  So naturally, a lot of early prospectors had a huge let down when discovering that their high $$ rubies turned out to be garnets.  We still find garnets quite nice to look at!

The last time we went to Ruby Gap, we were just going to do a day trip (everyone else was camping).  This time we decided to camp overnight.  It is a lot of work for just one night of camping, but we are glad we did.  Ruby Gap is about 150km from Alice, but it took just about 3.5 hours to get there, 50km being very rugged 4wd track.  We fit all of our stuff in the disco and headed out.  It was a mostly uneventful drive, and we did make it all the way this time - in fact, Hilary and I thought it laughable that we didn't make it the first time!  Very close to the end of the track, there was a fence and cattle guard that said something like "Disease Control Area - Tuberculosis.  This gate must remain closed."  This is the second time we've seen a sign like this out in the bush and we are very curious about it.  It looked like an official sign and is right on the track to Ruby Gap, so a lot of people go through.  We weren't sure if it is for livestock or what, but we haven't found anyone that knows what it means.

Anyhow, we stopped for about a half hour in a riverbed for lunch to look around for some nice rocks/gems. Little did we know, we were only about 20 minutes from Ruby Gap.  The Hale river flows through Ruby Gap.  When you first get to the river, it is a massive sandy expanse and is very picturesque - it is probably about 500 feet wide with a high rock wall directly across the river.  The track winds in and out of the river bed as you make your way to the camping areas.  On the way in, we saw a few campers.  After awhile we made it to the end of the main road where we saw the sign that vehicles are "not recommended" to go further.  It would be pretty treacherous to continue, but it may have been fun.  However, we didn't go Ruby Gap to go 4-bying - just a means to the end!  We stopped at the sign and walked around to see if we could find a nice spot to camp.  We found one on the other side of the river, where no vehicles had been.  There was one very steep sand bank that we had to climb to get the car up to a flat area that was an awesome area for camping.

After several failed attempts to get up the sand bank with no help, I felt there was no choice but to break out the new winch!  We never got stuck, which surprised me - if any of you have ever driven in very soft sand, you know how easy it is to get stuck!  Our disco seems to be living up to the Land Rover reputation has done quite well in 4 wheel drive situations.  The left side of the sand bank was steeper than the right, so the disco kept slipping sideways.  Anyhow, we had a tree to winch to, so we just pulled the disco and camping gear up the bank to where we wanted to be.  The kids used the large ruts we made as recliners the next day!  Hilary and the kids built a fire pit while I started unloading and setting up camp.  It was quite nice to camp on soft sand - the only downside was securing the tent and canopy to the ground.  The tent had all of our stuff in it, so it was ok, and I used some large rocks and rope to secure the canopy from blowing away.  Stakes were worthless in the sand.

We had hot dogs for dinner after we took a little garnet hunting/exploring walk to the first river bend upstream from our camp.  It was pretty crazy the way we would find a shiny red streak in the sand and then come to find out upon closer inspection that the red streak was actually garnet dust!  There were garnets everywhere, but not very many keepers.  We mostly looked for larger ones, but we didn't really get much time to look around only being there one night.  There is so much to look at and see, so many pictures we should have/could have taken - we may have to go back someday!  We are in fall now, so the days are pretty short, so it got dark pretty soon after dinner.  We built a campfire and enjoyed the peace and quiet while eating s'mores (thanks to the Idaho grandparents!).  Australia doesn't have graham crackers or marshmallows, but we had gotten a care package prior to our trek.  After s'mores, we tidied up around the camp and headed into the tent for the night where we played some games and read some books.  We weren't real fond of this degree of roughing it - no facilities whatsoever.  It is one thing to do it as an adult, but quite another to do with kids!  We've decided to invest in some portable facilities if we decide to do this kind of thing more often!

The next morning we had oatmeal and cinnamon rolls in the dutch oven for breakfast.  This was the first time I had used the dutch oven on a regular campfire instead of charcoal - let's just say the cinnamon rolls ended up with a hard caramel chassis that the kids weren't real fond of.  That is why we brought oatmeal though!  After cleaning up from breakfast, we headed out for our last walk before having to leave in the early afternoon.  Since it had been getting dark at about 5:30pm, we wanted to leave by 3pm so we could get most of the rugged 4 wheel driving done in the daylight.  This was also Sunday, so we stopped after awhile and had a little church service.  I read the story of Noah's ark out of the Bible and we talked about how all of the beauty of the landscape was carved out during the flood.  Then we finished with a rousing chorus of "Awesome God".  It was actually really good.  After church, we continued up the river, intending to make it up to Glen Annie Gorge.  Prior to getting to the Gorge, we realized that the trail actually cut across the land, and we had followed the river.  Both the trail and the river end up at Glen Annie Gorge, but the river walk is substantially longer.  When we got to Glen Annie Gorge, we saw where the trail came out of the bush and decided we would go back that way.

By this time it was about 12:30, so we thought we should probably head back so we could eat lunch and get all packed up in time to make it out by dusk.  At the farthest upstream end of Glen Annie Gorge, there is the grave of an old prospector that allegedly committed suicide.  I hated to be so close and not take a look, so I continued up the gorge by myself and Hilary and the kids headed back to camp.  I ran as much of the 4km as I could, but it was hard going in the soft sand.  I got to the area where the grave is supposed to be and I looked and looked but couldn't find anything.  I only spent about 10-15 minutes looking and then I headed back toward camp.  That was a bummer to not find that, but maybe we'll have more time if we go again.  I have since learned that others have also had trouble locating the grave.  I made it back to camp at about 1:30 and Hilary and the kids were eating lunch.  We ended up getting rolling at about 4pm, but everything went smoothly on the way out.  We stopped at a ranger station/visitors center in the old gold rush town of Arltunga on the way out and had to take our flashlights into the bathrooms with us because the power was all turned off.  Most remote places like Arltunga are not connected to the electrical grid and so they usually shut off their generators at night.

When we got back into town, we had planned to stop at McDonald's for dinner.  We knew it would be late and Hilary and I wouldn't feel like making dinner.  That ended up being a great plan.  It was actually quite a fun trip and something we might do more of when we get back from Hawaii.  It was definitely nicer to camp when it was cooler, and the area was so beautiful, peaceful and quiet!  Hopefully you enjoyed the detail, and enjoy the pictures as well!

In unrelated news, the kids finished school yesterday and are very excited!  Hilary said she hasn't quite felt the relief yet as she still has to do end of year reporting, and she is going to administer some standardized testing just for our own peace of mind.

Until later,

Trent

Climbing the sand bank.  We didn't get any pictures from below, but in this one the sand bank doesn't look so bad.

Getting ready to winch

Kids playing before setting up camp

River gums just grow right in the river bed, which is dry most of the time

Jones in the early morning at the campfire

Jax warms up, too; Jones lets his back catch up

What a life!

Rover ruts in the sand make great recliners!

We didn't see any wallabies or dingoes on this trip, but they were probably there, watching us!

Beaux goes garnet hunting

A small pool to skip rocks in; with Ruby Gap behind

If you look close, the kids are in the picture!

The wind moves the plants so they mark the sand with patterns

Sunday morning outdoor church on the riverbank
Beaux's hat blew off and was within inches of rolling into the water!

The reddish-purple hue of the sand is actually a fine dusting of garnets.  There were large areas where the wind had blown the sand and exposed these garnet layers.

Again, looking for garnets; not collapsed with exhaustion.  

Beaux used her flynet to tie her hat on so it wouldn't fly off again!

Bush melon plant growing in the riverbed; we have heard that they are poisonous.

Great big gum tree in the Hale River

Jax loved to flop down in the sand...

The mouth of Glen Annie Gorge

Very fun rocks to climb on