Day 40 Arltunga Tourist Drive

From the Eastern MacDonnell National Park drive two days ago we were escaping the Arltunga Historical Reserve with the Arltunga Tourist Drive for an extra day to not squeeze too many sights into one day. First thing in the morning, driving from Alice Springs to the Arltunga Visitor information center for some information about the area and the different walks available.

First stop in the Arltunga Historical Reserve was the Walk to Government Works, where Stuart discovered a well conserved house and occupied it immediately. There was also a horizonal steam engine and different other housing on display with some information which house was used for what back in the gold mining days.

The next stop along the route was the Historic Mines Walk with the Golden Chance Mine Walk. The walk takes you also up to a nice lookout over the area, in our view the best about the walk, because you can´t see much of the mines except a hole in the ground. The other walk MacDonnell Range Reef Mine Walk was closed.

For our last stop we chose The Joker Gorge stop as the visitor center leaflet described a nice walk along some old houses to a gorge, where one can see black-footed-Rock wallabies all day. There is also a steep climb to a lookout and mine. The walk to the gorge is at first nice and easy to walk but soon turns into stone climbing with lots of flies but no wallabies to be seen.

For going back to Alice Springs, we decided to drive the so called Arltunga Tourist Drive, 125km of gravel road hoping for some nice lookouts and views on the Eastern MacDonnell Ranges. The Tourist Drive is not very exiting nor are there good views nor is there any wildlife around although you might not see another soul on this drive. Only interesting view was some smoke in a distance, probably some fire.