Daydream

Palm Valley, Fink Gorge National Park, Northern Territory, acrylic on canvas, 30.2 x 30.2 cms.

Palm Valley lies within the Fink Gorge National Park 138 km southwest of Alice Springs and accessible only by 4WD. On the banks of the most ancient Finke River is the home of a diverse range of plant species; many that are rare and unique to the area. This includes the beautiful red cabbage palm (Livistona mariae) that gives the area its name. There are only 12,000 of these plants in existence. Local aboriginal oral tradition relates how “Gods from the north” brought these seeds to the valley, and science now concurs that humans introduced these seeds some 30,000 years ago!