Ochre Pits is located an hour and twenty minutes away from Alice Springs, and so we decided to make our visit there in the afternoon – straight after we had been to Ellery Creek Big Hole, which is only twenty minutes away.

Ochre Pits is not an area that has any actual ‘pits’. What it does have is striking multi-coloured cliffs containing an abundance of ochre. Ochre is a family of natural clay earth pigments which range in colour from yellow to deep orange.

Ochre was the primary material used to create rock art in this area, as well as being used for body decorations for traditional dances and ceremonies by indigenous people. Ochre Pits is the only quarry for ochre in the Central Australian region that is open to visitors and where the mining and collection of ochre by the traditional owners still occurs.

From the car park it was only a 5 minute walk to the cliffs, and after spending some time taking in the various colours of the rocks we set off on the Aranda Walk towards Inarlanga Pass.

The full Aranda Walk is 4km each way – but as we were a bit short of time we walked for 45 minutes and then turned around to ensure that we would be back before dark.

Ochre Pits also turned out to be full of budgies – and we did get a bit carried away with taking budgie photos…