Alice Springs – Australia

By Stephen M on July 12, 2014

Date: Saturday 12/07/2014
Weather: Cloudy
Distance covered 0km (unless you count the flight from Melbourne to Alice Springs)
Start: Melbourne
Finish: Redbank Gorge via Alice Springs

Our adventures take us from the South Island of New Zealand to the Red Centre of Australia! The Larapinta Trail is a couple of hundred kilometres in length following the West MacDonnell Ranges from Alice Springs (Northern Territory) to Mt Sonder, the jewel of the West MacDonnell Ranges.

The trail is divided into 12 sections which take approximately 17 days to complete from end to end. Having only a week off work and lining up low cost flights, we planned to pack in as much of the Larapinta trail as possible over 6 days!

Arriving in Alice Springs on the Saturday afternoon, we make our way to pick up a 4WD hire car to drive ourselves straight out to the foot of Mt Sonder. The aim being we would camp the night, pack up in the wee hours of the morning (3am) and head up Mt Sonder to arrive at the top to watch a magnificent sunrise. With a stroke of brilliance, we were also going to have a full moon to illuminate the track! This is our prequel to walking the Larapinta trail as we wouldn’t be making it all the way to Mt Sonder and we didn’t want to miss out on it!