Saturday 26th May - Finke River National Park

More remote areas

We drove west to Hermannsburg, which was an Aboriginal Mission and is now native title land.  From here we ventured 22kms on a dirt road into Finke Gorge National Park to walk into Palm Valley.  The road was very challenging, in some places there was no road to speak of, just driving over rocks but most of the way following the dry river bed.  John did a fantastic job and I even had a go at driving on the way back out.

The walk goes up the side of the cliff which encloses the gorge so there is a good view of the arid clifftops and down into the lush gorge below. 

The palms in the gorge grow nowhere else in central Australia and are a remnant of the lush rainforest that covered this part of the continent millions of years ago.  The gorge base sits on the water table so it never dries out; this allows an exotic range of rainforest plants to flourish there.  Incredibly beautiful as are so many other areas we have been privileged to see.  As the area is so sensitive to damage, all large feral animals have been eliminated and an electric fence and road grid have been laid right across the gorge to ensure they don't get back in.  The dingoes remain and we saw two near the start of the walk.