I had another beautiful morning along this epic walk - camped alongside Birthday Waterhole for the night. It was only fair I spend more time shooting some beautiful light and reflections this morning. As had become my routine, I packed up most of my tent prior to sunrise photography sessions.

Usually, because I’m using the camera, I obviously can’t fully pack my bag without that in it! So, usually I leave my sleeping bag, mattress and a couple of other (non food items) out of my pack until I’m finished with the camera. I then go back to the pack and finish putting away my gear. Sometimes I have breakfast after the shoot as I prefer to organise my eating when it’s day light rather than in the pitch black!

However, on this morning, my typical routine ended in a mini catastrophe. If you check out my previous post from Day 6, the end of the post has a video of my campsite. Long story short, my camp and pack were hidden from my view whilst I was shooting. I was keeping an eye on a couple of crows hanging around, who are known in the Top End for generally going for any brightly coloured plastic as they think it’s food. However, I’d left no food out and was pretty confident they wouldn’t want my packed up sleeping bag or mattress. Well, apparently I was wrong. I was capturing the below shot, finished up after about 30 minutes to return to my pack to find a crow with my mattress bag in it’s talons!

I yelled and scared them off, but noticed two fairly sizable rips in the bag. It’s not a cheap mattress and its obviously a fairly important bit of kit so I wasn’t happy with the potential damage! I didn’t investigate straight away though, I thought I’d just deal with it later and continue on with my day.

Morning reflections at the gorgeous Birthday Waterhole

To start with, I first had to get back from Birthday Waterhole to the main trail. I re-filled my water and continued along the trail.

I’d decided the night before that I was going to spend the night at Fringe Lily Creek and not near the high point at Windy Saddle as I had planned.

Meeting the guys who were track marking, and hear them talking about the water at Fringe Lily Creek made the decision for me! As much as the high point views would have been stunning - I was more excited by another campsite of swimming and water, than a “windy” sleep along a saddle!

The first couple of kilometres would take me to Spencer Gorge - my first taste of the beauty of Section 5.

Me looking happy at Rocky Talus, at the end of Spencer Gorge. I’d shortly be leaving the shady cool gorge, to begin the climb up to Razorback ridge. I’d decided to stop here for a snack and a break before continuing up.

Just as I got up to leave, I broke my backpack. The chest strap just came apart from the main straps. It tore clean off, but after a lot of fiddling around trying to get it back on (failing) and wondering what I was going to do… I managed to put the cable ties I was carrying, to good use. It meant I couldn’t tighten the chest strap as much as normal, for fear of creating more tears in the strap or not being able to use it at all…..

I always carry cable ties as part of my repair kit, but I could never really imagine a scenario where they’d come in useful….. but now I had! I was frustrated, having become comfortable with my pack after the first days of pain. The chest strap was important to me for distributing the weight - I really found it helpful for my comfort! Oh well. My morale was slightly dented but it wasn’t a complete catastrophe!

As you can see from the shots of Razorback Ridge - I was not there in pretty light! It was midday sun. It was hot. So hot. There was no shade. I was hungry, angry and kept losing the trail. I did some very precarious rock scrambles up here, and it just seemed to take forever to actually be at the “Raxorback Ridge” sign.

I’d found Windy Saddle, but not long after that, I was keeping my eye out for a lookout off to the right of the trail. This was originally going to be my camp. A lookout at a high point, looking at sunset toward Paisley Bluff and then getting sunrise light down Razorback Ridge. As much as this would be some epic photography, the area was just so exposed and I was there right at midday. I was pushing on to the ideal of camping next to Fringe Lily Creek and rare desert waterfalls!

If anyone else is into photography like me, and there’s not water at Fringe Lily, I’d definitely plan my route to incorporate a camp along this area. I did NOT enjoy being up here at midday!

On my next visit to the West MacDonnell Ranges, I will definitely plan an overnight or couple of days trip to do Section 5 again, which will include a night at the top of Razorback Ridge. I am sad I missed those shots, but on the flip side I am happy to have experienced something as unique as I did at Fringe Lily Creek.

From Fringe Lily Creek

LOOK! Waterfalls at Fringe Lily Creek March 2021

I was so happy at Fringe Lily Creek! Although when I had spoken to the guys at Birthday Waterhole, they’d built up Fringe Lily Creek waterfalls to be much bigger to me - haha!

Damn the Top End for spoiling me with waterfalls! This was more just like a gentle cascading stream, but a 2 foot high cascade at the end.

Still, it was beautiful and an amazing place to camp. I photographed, swam, washed and explored for the afternoon - although this is another place I’d love to have a bit more time to be able to explore downstream further. The gorge looked pretty dramatic down there. If you know the trail and have explored further down - let me know what you found in the comments!