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Very weird is this Ooriminna. It is a citadel of Desolation strongly guarded; and how the hole was first discovered must for ever be to us a mystery. Judging from the surroundings, horses or men could hardly have thought to find water here. And but for water what man or beast would pierce these solitudes?
The hole is formed in an extremely rocky gorge of the range. Huge boulders heaped up in strange fantastic shapes, the counterpart in miniature of castles, fortresses, and towers, stand gaunt and frowning, or threatening to fall precipitately, above, below, and on the more open side. The hole itself is almost a circle; it is probably 20 feet in depth and 25 feet across. Above it, at the back, always in deepest shadow, are several small caves, wherein are native drawings—rude as the scribblings of a schoolboy in his snatched moments—of snakes and hands and things beyond this pen's power to name. From over these caves the water falls when the rains come.
The rocks are an unkindly-looking grey, spotted mixtures of granite, quartz, and sandstone.
Still higher up the quickly-rising gorge is a second rockhole, a smaller one. Approaching from the southern entrance I first came on this one—inaccessible to horses and camels—and only saw the larger rockhole as I descended, with bicycle still shouldered, trudging on to strike the road which leads to Alice Springs, from which this Ooriminna pad loops out and back again.
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After getting clear of the Ooriminna rocks there are four or five miles of sand, low lying between the ranges; and now, at last, the cyclist finds awaiting him a splendidly smooth and hard clay flat, stretching right away for over 20 miles to the already faintly outlined MacDonnell ranges.
The track soon enters and winds through densely packed and tropically-foliaged scrub, with here and there a small clear space suddenly opening out in front. At the moment of entering each of these recurring spaces one may discern the fast uprising and darkening blue of distant mountains—and again the obscuring scrub envelopes bicycle and rider.