Destinations > MacDonnell Ranges

Gosse Bluff is 4WD-only from the main road. Travellers turn off and return the same way so it's a 22km excursion over bone-shaking corrugations. Is it worth the round trip? To be frank, no.

You can get inside the bluff's meteor ring, but once inside access is so heavily restricted it's impossible to get the complete feel of the place. There's an information shelter and a short walk to a lookout.

In the shelter visitors can read the two different explanations, from two different cultures, of how Gosse Bluff was formed - they're so similar it's eerie.

Scientists reckon some time about 130-140 million years ago a comet plummeted through our atmosphere and slammed into this spot. The blast was calculated to be 750 times that of the Hiroshima bomb.

This sudden impact would have killed most things within a 100km radius, and the debris shot back up into the atmosphere would have affected world weather patterns for years. The resulting crater was originally 20km in diameter but erosion has reduced this until only the central impact point is left.

The Aboriginals also believe in this sudden impact theory. They believe the stars making up the Milky Way are women. One mother, during a ceremonial dance, put her baby aside in his turna, a wooden baby carrier. It toppled over the edge of the dancing area and hit the earth so hard he disappeared into the ground. So violently did the turna crash that rocks were forced up forming the circular walls of the Bluff. The distraught parents couldn't find their baby and are still looking, the mother as the Evening Star and the father as the Morning Star.

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From Gosse Bluff travellers can either take Larapinta Drive past Hermannsburg back to Alice Springs or Palm Valley, or the Mereerie Loop Road to Kings Canyon.

The West Macs deserve their place at the top of the tourist destination list. Hidden amongst the prehistoric rocks, sculptured by the waters of the Finke River system and the harsh winds of an arid centre, are places of geological wonder, where ancient cultures practiced their age-old customs, where pioneers laboured and legends were born.


Getting There
Alice Springs is accessible by sealed road from Darwin, Adelaide and Mt Isa, and via well maintained unsealed roads from a host of other regional centres. The West MacDonnell Ranges are only a short drive from Alice Springs.

The round trip through the West MacDonnells contains some sections of road that are designated 4WD only, however most of the drive is on well maintained roads that cater for the tourism industry. At a sedate pace, the round trip should take two to three days. Permits from the local Aboriginal Land Councils are required to visit many of the places along the route, and should be arranged before departure.

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