Groonki Mark - Mutawintji

Jen & Poppy
Day 9 Saturday 16th May.

The day began once again with Nelleke's delicious homemade muesli. First up we headed to the Mutawinji Gorge, which is a 6km return walk across rangeland country, where we had some close encounters with wild mountain goats. Then the walk continued into one of the park's most picturesque gorges, ending at a large peaceful rock pool enclosed by towering red cliffs. Here we came across our first Euro (kangaroo) relaxing by the edge of the waterhole. We enjoyed our walk back through the Beefwood and the native Cypress pines, which opened out onto the rangelands again where we marveled at the souring wedge tail eagles. With ominous clouds closing in we tried unsuccessfully to obtain information about the weather. After many fruitless phone calls we eventually gave up after NP rage hit boiling point, we decided to do the Thaaklatjika Mingkana Walk to calm down. It was a short easy walk into the splendor of the gorge up to the Thaaklatjika (Wright's cave). Within the rocky overhang are some fascinating examples of aboriginal paintings, stencils and engravings. We were horrified to see that William Wright had defaced an ancient "Groonki Mark" c. 8,000 years old, by painting his initials and date over it (1858). We continued up an arm of the gorge as far as we could go, then began to climb and discovered the Rockholes. Stones being swirled around in the pool by the strong flow of water during wet periods formed this series of holes. We returned to camp at dusk for Nachos and drinks.
Please stay tuned for the next exciting installment from the "YoungOnes"

Poppy & Jen