Mereenie Loop

5 May
We packed up fairly quickly this morning - we are gradually getting quicker as we find a routine. Today was the first day when we are thankful for having a 4WD. The Mereenie Loop is, with a 4WD, no problem but it is not recommended for a 2WD. This means to travel from Kings Canyon to see the sights in the area you have to travel all the way back to Alice Springs if you only have a 2WD. With a 4WD you can take the short cut and travel the Mereenie Loop which is a fairly corrugated unsealed road. It is not particularly long (only about 160km) but in some sections you can only travel about 40km/hr.
We decided to stop for lunch at Gosse's Bluff the site of a clash between a meteorite and the earth about 100 million years ago. You can drive into the centre of the crater and there is a short walk which takes in some of the sights of the the secondary impact where huge slabs of rock (some 100m long) were driven into the ground and then thrust up into the air to rest 100's of meters away. The area is sacred to the Aboriginals so some of the places are off limit.

Gosses Bluff

Continuing along the Mereenie Loop we came across two Argentinian cyclists who were travelling from Kings Canyon to Alice Springs as we were. As a result of all the corrugations one of the bikes had pedals that no longer worked and they flagged us down because they had run out of water. The poor guys were in the middle of nowhere and were towing the second bike to Alice Springs on a severely corrugated unsealed road. All they wanted was some water to continue their journey - I would have been asking for a lift!
Finally we came across a sealed road again and our next stop was Redbank Gorge where we intended to stay the night. There are two campsites in the area - the woodland campsite and one closer to the gorge itself. We scouted both areas and decided on the woodland campsite but decided to see the gorge before we set up camp. The track to the gorge was overgrown and we lost it and started walking down the dry creek bed. Along the way we saw other groups of people who found the gorge but told us there was only a couple of small rock pools with a smelly dead kangaroo next to it, not terribly inspiring, so we decided to turn back and set up camp.
We found a lovely camp in the woodland area with a gas stove and hotplate provided and decided that a camp fire with toasted marshmellows would complete the campsite. Unfortunately we were in a National Park and it is illegal to remove fallen timber so we decided to search some of the other vacant campsites to see if there was any firewood left behind. Jackpot! One of the campers on a site near us had left plenty of wood - ah yes, what a great night!