“People die out here all the time.”
It was an eerily dark day in Central Australia, a day suffocated by gun-metal clouds, and we were being driven from Alice Springs to Ormiston Gorge, our walk’s start and end point. Our driver continued: “A 20-year-old had a heart attack last week.” Hmm. That’s interesting I thought, quietly checking my pulse, and listening for anything that might be an augury, like, of cardiac arrest.
Most walkers coming to this part of the world are here to tackle the famous Larapinta Trail; we were not most walkers. Instead, we—a Mötley nine-person Crue of which I was the lesser part—were here for an eight-day semi-circumnavigation of one of the area’s geologic centrepieces, the crumpled uprising of the Giles Massif. The massif is part of the Chewings Range which, with the Heavitree and Pacoota Ranges, comprises the 644km-long MacDonnell Ranges, and its Traditional Owners are the Arrernte people. It’s also recognised as an international site of conservation significance. Not far away a fossil of the world’s oldest vertebrate was found, left from the tropical Larapintine Sea which once inundated this ancient land. Fossil invertebrates from 435 to 600 million years old are common. Some rivers here are believed to be the world’s oldest, having followed the same course for 350 million years.
While the sea no longer exists, Sister Water remains and—in a sibling relationship with Brother Rock—is a fundamental determinant of life. The latter captures, stores and distributes the former. The tell is in the soaks and trickles emerging from the ranges, and in diamond-precious waterholes that stud the creek beds. Here, refuge habitats exist, including of human hikers meandering the land.
When there was an inland sea, materials were deposited and compressed into sedimentary
