Chambers Pillar

Chambers Pillar is a column of sandstone about fifty metres high standing alone above the Simpson Desert's northern edge, the remnant of a much larger formation laid down some 350 million years ago and eroded away around it. John McDouall Stuart named it in 1860, and it became a navigation landmark on the overland route, with explorers, drovers and early settlers carving their names and dates into the soft stone, a practice now prohibited but visible in the historic inscriptions. The pillar is a sacred site to the Southern Arrernte people, with a story attached to it. It glows deep red at sunrise and sunset, which is when almost everyone photographs it.

History

In the Dreaming of the local Aboriginal people the pillar is the gecko ancestor Itirkawara, exiled for taking a wife from the wrong skin group, who turned to stone with her as Castle Rock nearby, and it is a registered site of Aboriginal significance. John McDouall Stuart reached it in April 1860, the first European to do so, and named it after his sponsor James Chambers, and it became a landmark for travellers between Adelaide and Alice Springs until the railway came in the 1920s; Alfred Giles and John Ross of the cross-continental expedition of 1870 carved their initials, which are still visible (Wikipedia, Chambers Pillar).

What you'll find

• The pillar - a fifty-metre sandstone column alone above the desert.
• The historic inscriptions - names carved by nineteenth-century travellers.
• The sunset and sunrise colour - the rock at its deepest red.
• Castle Rock - a second formation nearby on the same track.

When to go

April to September; summer heat is extreme and the track worse. Sunrise and sunset are the reasons to camp overnight rather than day trip. Roads close after rain and stay closed while drying.

Things to know

The final stretch is rough four-wheel drive track and takes hours; day trips from Alice Springs are long and hard. Carving names is illegal and damages a sacred site. Facilities are a basic campground with no water.

Nearby

Rainbow Valley lies north; Maryvale Station is on the access route.

Key facts