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Australia - 2005-04-21 - 4 - West MacDonnell National Park - Ormiston Gorge Pound Walk (Page 1)
When we got to Ormiston Gorge we were not quite sure what to do for the
walk. It was a hot day & we had already been doing lots of walking in
the past days. We almost just did a small walk, but at the last minute
decided to do the walk that was touted as best in the park. The walk started
rather boringly actually following the road we came in, then it went into
a river bed. However after this first 15 minutes or boring walk, the good
stuff began. The rest of the walk was simply amazing. The colors were
brilliant & vivid. Every where I looked was a picture asking to be took.
Unfortunately, I didn't have a ton of room left on my memory card, so
I had to limit what I took (limit in this situation means only 120 pictures).
I could have easily took a good picture every 2-3 seconds for the majority
of the walk. The best part is when you actually get into the pound itself
& look around. The outside of the pound changes all the way around you
(pictures on the end of page 2). I just stood in amazement looking around
in circles for a while. There were some down sides to the walk as well.
I twisted my ankle at the very beginning which made for a painful walk.
Also near the end you go into a gorge, where the path is not marked. They
had marked the path all the way along so we got confused to whether we
were going the right direction. Adrian ended up walking ahead while I
rested the ankle to check it out & it was the right way so we went. About
5 minutes from the end is a beautiful water hole. I went back to the truck
to get my swimming gear & sun tan lotion, then came back to meet Adrian.
While we were there we found some nice places to rock jump from. We had
a nice system to make sure that the places we jumped from were safe. We
ended up getting fairly high, which was cool. It was a very tough climb
at certain points to get to the jumping point, but it was worth it. Adrian
is a rock climber back home & he usually found the best way to get to
the jumping points. The pictures at the end of page 4 show the jumping
& swimming spot. After doing the jumps we went back to the truck & got
ready to see the next park offering.
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