Owen Springs Reserve

Travelling around 66kms south west on the Stuart Highway from Alice Springs takes you to the starting point of the trek. It can be done in a minimum of half a day, although a full day is recommended to take in all the sights. The track runs a total of 55 and a half kilometres along a single-dirt track, which is mostly an easy run on a hard surface except on a couple of places of patches of very soft sand where it drops into the Hugh Riverbed. Camper Trailers and Off-Road caravans could be towed along this track. The Owen Springs track ends at the junction of the Larapinta Drive, which is bitumen all the way for the final 50km return to Alice Springs.

There are 2 great areas for bush camping (no facilities), namely at Redbank Waterhole on the Hugh River (a 2km side track), and also within Lawrence Gorge. Redbank Waterhole offers a peaceful rest area amongst the River Red Gums although they only offer limited shade. There is often enough water in the hole during the peak travel season to cool off in and the hole shows signs of having more water after good rains. Further along the track interesting stops are at Haunted Tree Bore and Old Owen Springs Homestead ruins. You could expect to see Red kangaroos and numerous birds including Port Lincoln Parrots and Honeyeaters and flowering corkwood trees.

North of Larapinta Drive there are more camping opportunities at Birthday Gap Waterhole and Reedy Waterhole, which are accessed from the Namatjira Drive. The turnoff however is a hundred metres or so before the Hugh River causeway and is unmarked. Both these places are accessible without fees or permits. For more information on this area in general, see our West MacDonnell Ranges Trek Note.

None required

A full tank of fuel is required plus at least 40 litres of water if camping more than one day. There are no facilities at either of the camping areas. Please bury all human waste more than 50 metres from any river bed and burn all paper used. The normal safety and comfort rules apply in this harsh climate and please remember to take your rubbish away with you, keep to designated tracks, all cultural items and wildlife are protected. Open fires are allowed in the designated camping areas but please extinguish them before you leave your camp site so as to minimise the risk of bushfires.

You will only find these tracks detailed on 250K mapsheets, and not on smaller scale map sheets. It is also not currently shown on the Hema GDT NC map, or any other paper maps we hold in stock. We used the SG5301 Henbury map from the Natmap 250K Raster Mapsheets on CD.

This trek takes you over plains and through a gorge. The main flora feature is mulga scrub, which is interspersed with corkwood and ironwood trees. Along the river fringes elegant River Red Gums provide shady retreats for wildlife, which include a variety of birds and kangaroos.

The first white men to travel through this country were the explorers, John McDouall Stuart, William Kekwick and Benjamin Head. On 11 April 1860, whilst travelling north along the Hugh River they discovered a large water hole. Stuart named this waterhole Owen Springs. One of the results of this discovery led to the Overland Telegraph Line following the Hugh River through Lawrence Gorge in the Waterhouse Range in 1872. In the same year William Gilbert established a cattle run on Owen Springs and built the first station homestead in the Northern Territory. After the death of the last lessee of the Pastoral Lease, the Northern Territory Government acquired the property in the year 2000 and opened it in a limited capacity for free public recreation in 2003.