Red Centre 4WD Loop: Finke Gorge, Rainbow Valley and Chambers Pillar - Britz

Nine nights and 1,150 kilometres in a loop from Alice Springs in a 4WD camper, taking three separate tracks out of town, with high clearance needed on some of them.

South comes first, to Chambers Pillar, a sandstone column standing fifty metres above the plain that early explorers used as a landmark and carved their names into, reached on a rough track, and Rainbow Valley, a sandstone bluff banded red and cream that glows at sunset.

West is next, into Finke Gorge and Palm Valley, where a few thousand red cabbage palms survive in a sheltered gorge as a relic of a wetter climate and grow nowhere else on earth, with the track in running along the riverbed itself. Hermannsburg follows, a Lutheran mission founded in 1877 and the home of Albert Namatjira, whose watercolours of this country changed Australian art. East closes the loop at Trephina Gorge and Ormiston Gorge, both of which hold permanent waterholes.

Britz supply the camper and the day-by-day plan, and the hire is priced live per vehicle rather than per person; campsites, fuel, ferries, park fees and activities are all extra, with a nil-excess insurance pack available at booking. The tracks to Chambers Pillar and Palm Valley are the demanding sections and the reason for the 4WD specification. Ten days for 1,150 kilometres leaves real time for the walks, which is the right balance on a route like this. Winter is the season, since summer heat closes the gorge trails in the middle of the day.