Rock Scrambling through the gorges on the way to Standley Chasm.
For me photography and adventure go hand in hand. My greatest adventure to date has been the end to end trek of the Larapinta Trail. This trek starts at Alice Springs and finishes at Mt Sonder, taking you through 223km of stunning outback gorges and ridge lines. Some people think that Central Australia is flat. This is not true, we spent many days climbing to the top of 1000m plus ridges before climbing down again. One of my most challenging days was the walk from Jay Creek to Standly Chasm, not a particularly hilly day but walking up a creek bed for the best part of the day is challenging. I have created a book of our adventure on the Larapinta Trail and thought I would share with you my account of the walk to Standley Chasm - enjoy -
"Ouch!! - The polite word to describe day 5. The guide maps describe it as moderate to difficult. It was difficult, difficult, difficult, but also stunningly beautiful. The day began early with some sunrise photos before heading up the river bed for the next 5km. It began nice and pleasant – sandy creek bed and not too hard to walk, it then turned into rock hopping, quickly followed by boulder scrambling – so much boulder scrambling – before finally climbing and traversing a 5m wall. I was very nervous and Andy was gentlemanly enough to take my pack up the wall for me. Later he told me he was afraid I would freeze, I must admit while traversing the wall I kept telling myself “I’m not scared, I’m not scared”. I was terrified and felt like crying! I didn’t cry then saving tears for later. It took us hours to get to this point and we still had 8km to go to reach Standley Chasm. It was the one day when I actually thought the walk would break me and at one point had me in tears heading into Standley, everything hurt and I was simply exhausted.
Heading into Standley was beautiful but so hard, it was up 50m of stairs to go down 50m of stairs, up again and down again before finally arriving at Standley Chasm. Tomorrow was going to be our first rest day and first food drop – both incentives to keep going through the hard stuff. Standley is a little green oasis in the middle of the red centre. With soft grass, toilet and shower we set up camp in the dark, dinner and an early night, looking forward to a sleep in and a day to do nothing."