Kalarranga~Mpaara Walk, Finke Gorge National Park - January 2016

Well you may be happy to know that this is the last walk that I have left to write up from our Christmas trip to Central Australia, so no more red rocks and blue skies for a little while. We did this walk on our last day up there before returning home to work. The morning before doing the Kalarranga~Mpaara Walk we'd walked the beautiful Mpulungkinya Walk, one of the best short walks in Australia in my opinion. With the morning having been spent walking and swimming Sam wasn't so keen to accompany me on this stroll, preferring instead to catch up on some reading in the ute while I did the walk. So after re-setting the GPS I wandered off into the desert again.

As the route heads towards the junction of Palm Creek and The Finke River it crosses some of the rock slabs, one of my favourite types of walking.

The Kalarranga~Mpaara Walk is actually two walks in one, the Mpaara Walk is the longer of the two and I walked that first, before leaving the shorter but possibly more scenic Kalarranga Walk until later in the afternoon on my return. Leaving Sam in the ute at the carpark I headed towards the junction of Palm Creek and the Finke River, the track sidles along rock ledges here, above me to my right was a red sandstone bluff that I'd be basically circumnavigating. After passing by an old ranger's out station I got to a post high above the confluence of the two watercourses, this post marked the high water mark of the big 1988 flood. During the flood the rangers abandoned their house and took shelter in a cave in the hills above, it must have been a phenomenal sight though, sitting in their cave and watching the water rushing down the normally dry water course, slowly inundating their house.

It feels a bit wrong but the track passes  right beside the out station.

The post marking the high water mark from the big 1988 flood.

The Finke River was actually flowing on this visit.

The track now followed the south bank of the Finke River for a little while until a spot called Palm Bend in the Finke River. Palm Bend as you would imagine features another grove of Red Cabbage Palms, although the plentiful water in this spot means that they grow three times faster than the palms in the more well known Palm Creek nearby. The walk doesn't actually make it all the way down to Palm Bend but instead turns up the rocky valley of Mpaara Creek and starts to climb fairly gently.

Palm Bend.

These Red Cabbage Palms near Palm Bend grow three times faster than their brothers in the drier and rockier nearby Palm Creek.

The route climbs gently up this valley that drains the small Mpaara Creek.

With late afternoon summer sun beating down on me I was glad to stop every now and again on my climb, this walk features interpretative signs explaining the Dreaming story of Mpaara and Pangkalanga which was all the excuse I needed to have a rest. Eventually I topped out a saddle between some towering red sandstone outcrops, this saddle marked the end of my climbing, well at least on the Mpaara section of the stroll. The saddle also provides for the best view on the Mpaara walk as well, the views down and across Kalarranga Amphitheatre are particularly photogenic, try and get here early in the morning or (very) late in the afternoon for the best photos, its definitely worth the effort.

Looking across Kalarranga Amphitheatre at some of the rock stacks, pity about the late afternoon sun shining straight at me.

The rock in the middle distance is where I'm heading next, that's Kalarranga Lookout.

Leaving the saddle I dropped down to the flat floor of Kalarranga Amphitheatre, the descent down from the saddle follows some rock ledges and is the crux of the walk, being surprisingly steep compared to the rest of the walk. Once down the walk across the flat amphitheatre makes for really easy walking through the low desert scrub. The walk across the amphitheatre towards Kalarranga Lookout features 360 degree views of the various mesa like rock stacks, giving the area a bit of a Wild West feel to it.

The route down from the saddle follows some rock ledges and is surprisingly rough in some spots.

The view south from the floor of Kalarranga Amphitheatre.

Reaching a track junction I headed up onto one of the rock stacks, now on the Kalarranga Loop section of the walk. This walk climbs gently up some more rock ledges, while the effort to climb up to Kalarranga Lookout isn't much the view from the lookout is out off all proportion to the effort needed on the climb. This is the classic Finke Gorge National Park scene, tree lined creeks and spinifex plains framed by red rocky buttresses in almost every direction, this is really spectacular scenery, well at least in my opinion. The north westerly wind had been howling all day and the red dust was making the sky appear purple in most of my photos now, something that I've never encountered before.

The route up to Kalarranga Lookout once again climbs and then traverses these rocky slabs.

Looking back towards the carpark from the Kalarranga Lookout, yeah the Kalarranga Loop section of the walk was only short.

Leaving Kalarranga Lookout I looped my way slowly back to Sam. The track slowly heading around the base of the rock stacks that the lookout is on, once down off the rock it was a short walk along the sandy track back to the ute. Back at the ute and reunited with Sam the days adventures  weren't quite over yet, we still had to get back to Alice Springs that evening. Like the drive in, the drive out over the washed away flooded track was good fun, the purple hazy sky giving me reason to stop and take a few photos. Well we eventually made it back to Alice around 8:30 pm on what had been a very memorable day trip, next day involved a drive south to Port Augusta, the day after that we were home in Melbourne in the late afternoon, oh yeah, and the next day I was back at work, I've got to fund these small adventures somehow!

This is beautiful country in my opinion.

One last look from near Kalarranga Lookout.

Coming to the end of the last walk on our Christmas adventures.

The drive in and out of Finke Gorge National Park was pretty adventurous on this trip.

Searching for an exit in the distance before driving into the Finke River.

The Dirt.

I walked 6.9 kilometres on this stroll and climbed 228 metres on this easy walk. This is another really good short walk in the Northern Territory, the territory seems over endowed with great short walks from where I'm sitting. Like I mentioned above this walk features the Arrernte's Dreaming story of Mpaara and Pangkalanga, the interpretative signs at regular intervals as you climb up Mpaara Creek towards the saddle make for interesting reading. I used the notes and maps out of 40 Great Walks in Australia by Tyrone Thomas and Andrew Close, the maps in the book are great and are all you need to safely complete the walk, the bad news however is that I think the book is out of print. John and Lyn Daly have also written these walks up in their Take A Walk In Northern Territory's National Park, its only available as an e book now days by the look of it. Now I've got some good news, this is probably the last instalment from our sojourn to the Red Centre last Christmas, so no more red rocks or photos of the Feral Walker wallowing in waterholes, well at least until our next trip north.

The dust haze along with the late afternoon sun gave me plenty of excuses to stop and take photos.

Normally this is a pretty cruisey 4wd track, I've been in there pretty easily in a Suzuki Vitara before. Due to flooding this trip was more adventurous than normal though.