Murchison River Gorge - Day 6
The Loop
*Click here to learn more about the difficulty rating.
Soon after reaching the
carpark, Damon and I proceeded to head down '
The Loop', a trail that followed the switchback course of this section of the Murchison River. The path descended down a stairwell that lead to a wide, red bitumen path that wound its way for 600 metres to the iconic 'Nature's Window', a naturally occurring window that seems to perfectly frame the gorge that lay in the distance.
Nature's Window
We carried on walking past Nature's Window and descended down to an area that was completely filled with cairns of all shapes and sizes. The path lead its way up to the ridge with the Murchison River running below on either side. I paused involuntarily here as my gaze was drawn off to my right, looking at the magnificent views of the gorge that we had walked up over the past week, as it disappeared off into the distance.
Walking up on the ridge after a week deep in the gorge left me noticing every single difference between the two, almost as if my senses had been left heightened. I was keenly aware of the height and the precarious drop-offs on either side that seemed to wait for the unwary walker, and the air that would gust every now and then felt, and seemed to even smell, different. The cairns that lay beside the windswept trees continued to line the broad path for a while, along with stalks of purple grevillias
(Grevillea sp.) and yellow Wattles
(Acacia cyclops) that added a welcome splash of colour amongst the otherwise reddish-brown terrain.
