We have almost come to the end of my trip to the Northern Territory. Today I have the last of the photos from the last day there. Though I still have more photos, but not from NT. The photos in the next couple of posts will be from my favourite part of the trip, however more on that in the next post.
Onto our last day.
Standley Chasm
We had mixed feelings about going here. It was one of the few places that you had to pay to enter or visit. It wasn’t overly expensive, but we wondered if it would be worth it.
In the end, there wasn’t a lot to do so we thought why not. We paid for the pass online and took the drive out there.
When we reached the turn off there was a sign saying it was closing at 2 pm that day and it was then 10 to. We didn’t know what to do but decided to keep going anyway. We reached the gates and a guy there who was controlling the traffic said we could go. Thank goodness.
There is a bit of a walk to reach the chasm and normally Suzzanna and I walked together, but at the start, she was distracted by these birds.
I know how much she loves wildlife, so I just went on without her. I wasn’t sure she would make it with her ankle as the track could be a bit rough, but she did, about 5 to 10 minutes after I did.
The walk to it wasn’t really hard, but it did seem long. They say it is 1.2 km, but it seemed longer to me. Maybe I am just that unfit.
When we were reading about this place they said the best time to visit is midday. We were there a couple of hours later, but I think it was still a good time. The light was reflecting around the very red rock and the colour was stunning.
I’m going to show you two galleries. The first was taken with the Fujifilm GFX 50S II. This includes some photos of the path there.
Next are some very similar photos that were taken with my Fujifilm X-S10 and the Tamron 18-300mm lens.
Can you see what I mean about the colour of the rock? I think at midday the sun would be shining on the rock too much and you wouldn’t see that rich colour.
It was a stunning place. Once again we had to put up with people there again. Not surprising since it is a tourist attraction, however, it is the noise they make that I find so horrible. You can’t just enjoy it because you have people yelling and carrying on. It is such a shame that many people don’t seem to have respect for others anymore.
I am so glad we went. It was worth the price and the walk. If you are interested in reading more, click here.
After here we were back in the car and headed to a waterhole.
Ellery Creek Big Hole
This was also on the list of places we were interested in visiting.
It was a bit of a drive to get there. Unlike the Standley Chasm, we didn’t have to pay to go and it was very close to the carpark.
I didn’t quite get the photos that I hoped to get because lots of people were sitting around it and many were also swimming in it. I didn’t really want people in bathing costumes in my photos. It was fun watching them dare one another to get in. I gathered it was really cold.
The other reason was that I was photographing into the sun and got lots of annoying sun spots in my images. So all the images were taken from around the side.
When we got here it was getting to the end of the day and I think it would have been better to have been there earlier. I wonder what it would have been like in the morning?
Here is a gallery of photos from the S10. I only used that camera in that spot.
Here is a link for you, click here.
After this, we drove back to Alice Springs. We had dinner at the same place we had every night we were there. We went back to our rooms and started the task of packing up again so we could begin our journey home the following morning.
Really the trip was over, but we still had around 25 hours of driving to get there. Was it worth it, well let’s leave that for a final round-up post soon?
As I said at the start of this post, these are the last posts and photos from Central Australia. I mean there might be more, but they won’t be like this. I hope you enjoyed my trip. The next post will be from our first stop on our way home.
Great photos Leanne .. love the colour of the rock, so eye catching!
Thank you Julie, the colour was amazing, I loved it too.
So entirely beautiful
Thank you.
Nice
Thank you.
It was certainly a wonderful trip. I have enjoyed all the photographs. I too love red rocks and those are amazing.
Thank you RJ, it really was. That is really good to hear, I was worried you would be all bored with it all. The red rocks are something else.
What a magic couple of places. The colours are so rich. Great way to end your trip!
They were magical Chris, yeah, nice end to a great trip. Thank you.
I love the colours of Central Australia Great images Leanne 🙂
I do too, have you been there Bushboy? Thank you.
No I haven’t….yet 🙂
I like the sound of the yet.
Like your road trip posts 👏🏻
I guess it‘s pretty normal today that tourists gather at tourist hot spots and usually they all chatter loudly.
Never understand why they not simply enjoy nature and its natural sounds in these locations.
Shooting photos on these crowded locations and avoiding to include the crowds can be sometimes challenging, but you made it 🖖
That is great to Reinhold, I was worried people would be getting sick of them.
I have to agree, why not just take it in and be quite. Listen to the nature around you.
It is very challenging, one of the last photos I took there were some people that were there before me and I waited and waited for them to leave. It looked like they never would so I asked them if they would be leaving soon. The woman looked at me and said, oh you want some photos with no people and I said yeah, so she and her partner moved all their stuff out of the way so I could get those shots. That was really nice of them I thought.
Thank you Reinhold.
Both locations look stunning but the landscape, colours and visual textures of the chasm are especially striking.
I had to laugh about your gripe about people being in the way and being noisy and disrupting the atmosphere because I often have the same gripe. When I am visiting a landscape, I want to be able to appreciate the scenery without all the annoying humans getting in the way. Then I remember that I am very possibly that annoying human to other people too.
Thank you for taking your readers along on your travels. I have really enjoyed seeing places I will very probably never see for myself.
I have to agree Laura, I loved the colour of that rock, couldn’t stop looking at it.
No you couldn’t be annoying, surely not. I like to take in places like that, just look. Like you would in a church. There should be some sort of reverence.
Thank you for coming along with me Laura, I still have a few posts to do, but the major ones are done now. I follow other peoples travels for the same reason.
And what a beautiful place on your last day! Amazing views in the middle of nowhere, Leanne. I know what you mean about loudmouth, rude people. I long for the days when people had respect for others and behaved properly.
It was John, I can imagine it was a bit of a sanctuary for people who found it. It is weird what is out there, like nothing for miles and then you come across that.
There really isn’t, it seems our world is becoming the me society. Thank you John.
I believe the shift toward the Me thing began in the 70s. Not good…
I don’t know, though I also think social media has a lot to do with it too.
Social media made the Me thing explode! Sad, isn’t it…
It really did and how the internet allowed people to be more anonymous.