Redbank Gorge – Finke River
Woke at 6am, packed and breakfasted. A glorious sunrise was a portent for a good day of walking ahead. We were off at 7.30am. Sam from Hobart joined us.
Morning walk was to Rocky Bar Gap. A generally flat walk. Overcast conditions made walking pleasant. Sam had planned to camp here, but, after seeing that it was just a empty dust bowl, happily continued walking with us to Finke River.
We then went through a gap in the range. Once through the gap there were views of the eastern side of Mt Sonder. Very nice indeed.
The track then climbs 250m to a nice lookout. On the way we passed some other couples who said that their itineraries were aligned so they were walking as a disparate group.
There was a large school group at the lookout but they moved on before we had begun our lunch. I discovered that I hadn’t packed lunch for today so made do with leftover grissini and a bit of trail mix, the equivalent of “hard rations”.
After lunch was a steep descent to the south of the lookout, followed by an undulating walk. The 10km in the afternoon felt longer than the 16km in the morning.
My knees are holding up ok but I was not confident enough to stretch out so my walking pace was average. Only Sue was slower. She had Covid three weeks ago so hasn’t had a chance to get any walking under her belt.
Camp site tonight is a dry river bed next to the Finke River. There are some light spots of rain. We gathered as a group with our friend Sam and had dinner on the sand. It did get a bit damp in the rain and we all brought out our rain jackets, but it wasn’t wet enough to dampen our spirits.
