travel THE RED CENTRE

Spectacular Finke Gorge National Park is a protected area in Australia’s Red Centre, 1318 kilometres south of Darwin. Join us as we take a journey to the remote, red rock wonderland of Australia’s heart.

Words CATHERINE LAWSON Photography DAVID BRISTOW

Beyond Alice Springs, the most popular travel routes loop east and west, skirting the base of the dramatic Macdonnell Ranges and luring travellers south to Uluru. But in this striking Red Centre landscape sits a vast sandstone wilderness that few roads penetrate, and the single sandy track that does follows one of the world’s oldest waterways.

Hidden within a chiselled topography of rarely seen ranges and stark, flattopped monuments lies a verdant canyon oasis and its mysterious thicket of striking red cabbage palms. Far too tropical for this stark, red rock landscape, Palm Valley baffles the brightest scientific minds. But the setting — incongruous and utterly bewitching — is what coaxes travellers out of their comfort zones to throw down swags under the stars in Finke Gorge National Park.

Glowing crimson and gold at sunset, the sandstone outcrops at Kalarranga.

Into this remote, red rock wonderland I go, in a family-sized 4WD filled with substantial supplies of camping gear, marshmallows, firewood and red wine. From the tiny town of Hermannsburg where renowned watercolour artist Albert Namatjira is still revered, we hit the dirt towards Finke Gorge, pulling slowly past a slightly unnerving sign that reads “Severe 4WD Route. Allow 3 Hours”.

Rumbling off the bitumen in a plume of red dust, this ancient artery known as Larapinta Trail leads us on, following a skinny set of tyre tracks along the sandy bed of an invisible river. That the Finke predates dinosaurs baffles the child in my back seat, but all I can wonder is how 100 million years of water flow hasn’t smoothed the way ahead? Despite its invisibility, the Finke’s presence is absolute, fringed by pale river red gums and lofty palms whose roots find the river deep underground.