Emily and Jessie Gaps Nature Park

The Emily and Jesse Gaps are the first features you will see when visiting the eastern MacDonnells. The sites are of special spiritual value to the Arrernte people and they contain many interesting Aboriginal paintings. The landscape is associated with dreamtime stories, which form the "dreaming trail".

The two gaps are of the caterpillar trail, a delightful feature of the landscape, in which the ranges are viewed by Aboriginal people as a line of caterpillers stretching into the desert. Emily Gap is the most significant as this is where the caterpillar beings originated. The first time Europeans saw the Emily and Jesse Gaps was 1871, although the origin of the European names are unknown.