We didn’t plan on heading to the East MacDonnell Ranges on our trip, thinking we had seen enough gorges after the West Mac’s, but we got talking to another family at the caravan park in Alice Springs and they couldn’t recommend it highly enough, so we figured we had to go and check it out for ourselves and we are so glad we did! The East MacDonnell Ranges are quite different to the West – there are still plenty of gorges to check out (and we did that too, but that will be in another post,) but probably one of the highlights of our trip so far was the day we spent at Arltunga. Arltunga was officially central Australia’s first town. Now it is a National Park to preserve the remnants of the ghost town that was once a bustling gold mining town.
We were lucky enough to once again make it to a ranger talk led by two real life gold miners who are still mining for Gold at Arltunga today! It was a great one hour talk – really informative on the gold mining process and the history of Arltunga. We then got to play around the Visitor Information Centre before picking up a map and exploring Arltunga – we even got to climb down into an old gold mine shaft which the kids just loved! A really, really great, free, day out!! I’m going to let the photos show you our time there.
Lex playing ‘kitchens’ with some of the old kitchen stuff at the Visitor Centre
Grunda – think you need to make some of these tin ‘trucks’ for the grandies – so simple an ‘olden day’ toy which our kids loved!
Jack ‘dollying’ (crushing up the rock) in preparation for panning for gold
Panning
He wasn’t giving up until he found a nugget!
Not too impressed with just a speck!
Lex getting to wear the gold necklace and gold nugget at the Visitor Centre – she thought she was getting to keep them – hehehehe – the look on her face when she had to give them back!
The old police station – Arltunga
Exploring
I went to see if there were any criminals still in the lockup
Found 3 of the worst kind!
Kids thought it was hilarious to lock me in there
It was a freezing and drizzly day!
This line of quartz (quartz reef) indicates gold is here
Down we go to check out the mine shaft
And another little tunnell to explore – found a dead kangaroo in this one – eek!
East MacDonnell Ranges – Arltunga
Love the photos Matt, especially the old police station. Hope all is going ok and Pete Prado is on the mend. Would never happen to a Nissan!
Easy tiger! Next you’ll be making it public about the time you had to snatch us up the hill! Peter is doing much better, and in his defence, looks like it was Karen camper that blew his alternator in the end. Tried a bunch of new things with the camera at Arltunga, It was a very strange light, had major trouble with my exposure.
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