Australia So Much to See

South of Alice Springs 2008 with visits to Owen Springs Reserve and Rainbow Valley Conservation Reserve.

Owen Springs Reserve

The Bronco Yard was used for branding young cattle.  After mustering, a horseman would rope the unbranded calf, bring it to the branding platform, where it was roped down and branded.  The whole process could take less than a minute.  

The method of secure the strained wire was unusual.  The wire was secured around metal pins, leaving the post looking like it is covered in hair curlers.  Posts were made from mulga timber. 

The red sandstone is the toughest rock as it has a relatively high content of iron and silica.  The fallen dark brown blocks have the most iron of all and once formed the capping.

Near the homestead ruins are the remnants of an old cattle yard.  This is the oldest known ruin on the reserve.  Many of the posts have rotted away or remain as only a fraction of size they were before.  Rings of wired around them show the size the posts used to be. 

The four wheel drive track traverses what was once a 1780 square kilometre cattle station.  The Owen Springs station was acquired by the Northern Territory Government in 2000 and opened to the public in 2003.  The track is quite firm, apart from the riverbed sand where the track follows the Hugh River through Lawrence Gorge.  Towing at this point would be difficult. 

The historic track through the station follows the route taken by John McDouall Stuart on his explorations between 1860 and 1862, which opened up Central Australia to white settlement.  The telegraph line when constructed followed Stuart’s route along the Hugh River and through Lawrence Gorge in the Waterhouse Range.  

Stuart, William Kekwick and Benjamin Head were the first caucasians to travel through this country. On 11 April 1860, while making their way northwards along the Hugh River, they discovered the large waterhole that Stuart named Owen Springs.

Even before the Line was completed in August 1872, cattleman William Gilbert was on his way from South Australia to establish a cattle station here. The Old Owen Springs Homestead was the first station homestead built in Central Australia.

There are ruins of a station homestead complex near Lawrence Gorge, where the Hugh River cuts through the Waterhouse Range. 

Gilbert's original homestead buildings were made of timber and had thatched roofs. 

It is thought that these stone buildings were built during soon after Thomas Elder acquired the station in 1886.  Some restoration work has taken place on these ruins since our visit and I consider the white rendering has spoilt the appeal of these ruins as we saw them. 

They were used until the 1950s when a new homestead was built further upstream, which is now the Ranger Station.

Both Sidney Kidman and Thomas Elder have owned station during the late 1800s.  Elder at one stage attempted to breed horses for the Indian Army. 

We exited the Owen Springs Drive onto the Stuart Highway, not far from the access road to Rainbow Valley. 

The track through Lawrence Gorge follows along the river bed and can be quite sandy; this part the drive requires a four wheel drive vehicle.  Camping is permitted along this section of the river and at a waterhole which we did not visit.

Owen Springs Self Drive tour

The yellow and orange sandstones have less iron and silica, and are softer.  Those that have been washed away form the dunes that surround the ridges.

The strength of the different layers can be seen at nearby Mushroom Rock, which has broken down on the right side, with the undermining very evident on the left side.  Due to loose sand, there is a boardwalk to Mushroom Rock.

Rainbow Valley, known as Warre to the local Aborigines, is a small but beautiful Conservation Reserve, with coloured sandstone that is soft, smooth and creamy looking.  It is very fragile and the main ridge is slowly dissolving into the claypan, giving it a pink surface.  There are different textures as well as a variety of colours in the beautiful sandstone formation.  These features form part of the James Range. 

The colours of Rainbow Valley formed between eighty and twenty million years ago, when Central Australia had a warm wet climate. Abundant underground water dissolved small quantities of iron and silica from the sandstone.  During dry periods, the evaporation of surface water cause underground water to be drawn upwards and the mineral were deposited at the surface where the iron caused a colourful veneer over the quartz grains in the sandstone. 

Looking beyond the main ridge is a ridge known as Ewerre, still holding much of the dark capping. 

The white zone has had the iron and silica leached out, and is very soft and fragile.  As this layer erodes, the capping becomes undermined and collapses, often falling off in large blocks.

Fairy Martin nests cling to the overhang of Mushroom Rock.

The fragile sandstone is crumbling into the claypan, taking colour from the rocks and leaving a pink surface across the claypan .

The main ridge from behind.  

Along the 22 kilometre track to the Stuart Highway, low ridges of dark red sandstone can be seen alongside ridges of orange sand, with a colourful desert landscape and occasionally clumps of young desert oaks.  As the main ridge at Rainbow Valley also appeared dark red when seen in the distance, these ridges may be just as colourful as those in the Rainbow Valley Conservation Reserve. 

We did not see Rainbow Valley at sunset, but still enjoyed the wonderful colours and textures of the smooth and creamy soft sandstone.

We were privileged to meet and talk to Ricky Orr, a tour guide with Aboriginal heritage.  After becoming aware of the Aboriginal artefacts and petroglyphs in the Conservation Reserve, he established # guided tours to Rainbow Valley from Alice Springs, where participants are given billy tea during the afternoon and treated to champagne and a light meal while viewing the ridge at sunset following being shown the artefacts and petroglyphs not seen by most visitors to the Reserve.  He is also teaching young Aborigines about their culture. 

Textured rock seen on the other side of the main coloured ridge.