Swimming at Ormiston

Keep Left!

Yesterday we caravaned with 5 other families (26 people in all!) to Ormiston Gorge, a well-known waterhole a couple of hours west of Alice.  We all met just outside of town around 9am and hit the road!  We have had quite a decent amount of rain over the last couple of months, and one of the Australian families we went with heard that Ormiston had more water than they had ever seen.  Sure enough, we weren't disappointed!



Kids Spontaneously Posing on Rock Formation at Lookout

On the way to the gorge, we stopped at a couple of different viewpoints and admired how green everything was.  It is quite amazing how green the desert can look after just a week of rain.  But on the flip side, it goes brown quite fast also! 

Beaux and Hannah

Jones and Jax

Jones with Puff

 

View of Mt. Sonder

From there we continued on until we arrived at Ormiston.  There were several people there, and there was also a cafe there that happened to be open.  This was our first time to the gorge, but the other people that we went with said that the cafe has never been open when they were here previously.

 

The first thing we did was a small hike that took us to the top of the gorge.  It was quite beautiful to see everything from up there.  There was a lot more water than we've seen anywhere before.  It is amazing how the water changes the landscape! 

Ormiston Gorge Lookout Point (Jax and Sam are there at the point waiting for us all to catch up..Zoom way in)

View of the Waterhole from Lookout above

View of Ormiston Campground from Lookout

Bottom Lookout Cage

Top Lookout Cage

 

Jones at the Gorge

Down the zig-zag stairs

All the water at Ormiston makes us want to visit all of our old haunts to see what they look like with a bit more water.  After we came down from the top of the gorge, we grabbed all of our food and swimming gear and headed down for lunch and a swim.  The kids all got in first thing while the grown-ups were getting lunch ready.  Once everything was ready, the kids came flooding from the water to devour anything edible and then were quickly back to swimming. 




One of the families we were with brought a kayak type of thing that the kids could sit on and paddle.  There were a couple of inner tubes and a large amount of noodles!  I had aspirations of setting up a rope swing from the massive gum tree right by our picnic area, so I went back to the car to fetch some rope I had brought for just an occasion!  Unfortunately, I noticed a sign saying "No Rope Swings" on the way back, and being a national park, I decided I had better comply with the rules...

On one side of the waterhole, there was a cliff.  The kids had floated over to it at one point and then started screaming about a snake that they had found that was alive!  Of course, being in Australia, this got the attention of quite a few concerned parents, and so we went to investigate.  Sure enough, there was a nice Python curled up on a rock.  It was about 1.5" in diameter and we guess 3-4' long, although it was hard to tell since it was curled up. 

Apparently one of the kids poked it with a noodle to see if it was alive, and it moved and that is when all the kids screamed.  We impressed on our kids that, dead or alive, you should never be within a noodles length of a snake in Australia!  We reminded them that the venomous snakes here can kill you in about 20 minutes without the right treatment!  Pythons are not poisonous, so that is lucky.  Fortunately, ours weren't the kids poking at the snake, not that we would want any of our other friends bitten either mind you!

The day was so beautiful and the water so nice, most of the grown-ups enjoyed the water for a time as well.  There were warm spots and cold spots, but mostly the water was surprisingly chilly.  It took my breath away the first time I got in!  After everyone had their fill of swimming, we packed everything up and headed down the road a bit further to Glen Helen, which is a well-known station that now operates as a campground/hotel/restaurant.  It was almost $25 to get five ice cream bars for our family!  We stayed long enough at Glen Helen to eat our ice cream in a fly-free indoor area and then take a group picture before heading off once again. 

After ice cream, two of the families headed back home while the rest of us scoped out some nearby camping spots for a trip we might do at the end of April with one of the families. 

On the way back, we stopped at the Ochre Pits, which are basically stream beds that have walls of colored clay that the Aboriginal people used for painting their faces and bodies for rituals. 











It's supposedly so significant to the indigenous that there is a $5,000 fine for taking any Ochre rocks from the area!  Jones told us after the fact that he collected a pocket full of rocks from there, but we haven't investigated them to see if any were Ochre rocks or not...  what's a parent to do?!!

 

White ochre is mostly kaolin clay, yellow ochre has a bit of iron mixed in, and red has lots of iron oxide

 

The drive home from there was uneventful.  We did get to use our UHF (Australian) radio for the first time on the trip.  The one Australian family we went with had a radio in their vehicle (as do we), so they led the caravan and we brought up the rear.  Everyone else we've ever gone out bush with has been American with American radios (which are illegal here), so it was fun to finally be able to use ours and know that it works. 

Two Mile Bushcamping Area - Finke River lined with River Gums

 

We got home at 7:30pm, got the kids in the shower, finished dinner at 8:30 and got the kids to bed by 9:00.  Day like this are fun, but it is always nice to come home and rest with a nice cup of your own Starbucks coffee.

Good times,
Trent