Once again, I was unable to find the Grey Honeyeater. In fact, this morning the woods were almost completely silent and I struggled to find birds of any type. A bit disappointed, I headed into Alice Springs but on the way I did a bit of thinking and moved around my plans. Instead of spending the next few days in Alice and then doing the East MacDonnells followed immediately by the West MacDonnels, I have now decided to do the East Macs first, spend the weekend in Alice, and then do the West Macs and work down to Uluru as planned. So with that in mind, I headed into Alice, resupplied, refueled, and headed east into the East MacDonnell Ranges.
I stopped at a few of the stops on my way out and saw my first Aboriginal petroglyphs, rock carvings rather than paintings. Eventually, I got into Ross River Resort and set up camp. Things were pretty quiet around the campground so I headed into N'Dhala Gorge Nature Park just down the road. It is a beautiful gorge that was absolutlely full of birdlife. Hundreds of Budgerigars were flying through the canyon and stopping to drink at a waterhole around heaps of Zebra Finches and a handful of Painted Finches. The light was all wrong for photography, but I spent a couple hours just watching the wealth of life and making plans to return in the morning.
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