Minding the gap

We began the day with a trip down to Kathleen Springs on the southeast side of Watarrka National Park. We didn't see any wildlife that morning, but tracks were everywhere. Many of the local species are nocturnal, so that wasn't a big surprise.

Next we drove up to Alice Springs. The West MacDonnell range is just down the road, and just beore the sun went down we made it over to Stanley Chasm. Just as we entered, we saw a black-footed rock wallaby in the wild. It was very shy, and bounded up the rocks as soon as it saw us. Their coloring is excellent camoflauge for the rocks...if it hadn't come down to the canyon bottom to feed, we never would have seen it.

Our next stop was Simpson's Gap, and there we found out that it is actually pretty rare to see the rock wallabies in action, since they are on the edge of being endangered. Driving out of the gap, we saw two more making their way along the dry riverbed next to the road. They instantly split up, heading in different directions. Very neat!