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Author: Wildfire Sports & Trek Date Posted: 27 August 2025
We always have suggestions for what to take when it comes to hiking, whether that’s for a day-trip, overnight or multi-day, but what do we actually take?
Our fearless leaders Brenton and Meri took to Larapinta for 7 days, testing some of our most popular gear and equipment. The trail is in the Northern Territory and runs along the spine of the West MacDonnell ranges, located to the west of Alice Springs. Larapinta is split up into 12 sections and varies between moderate and high levels of difficulty.
We’ve previously written about how you should prepare and what gear to take for the 223km journey, but see what Meri and Brenton had to say about their experience on Larapinta.
We recently hiked around half of the Larapinta trail with a group of friends, making up 13 people in total. Our planning started a year ago with the most difficult part finding a time to suit us all!
In the end we had to settle for Queensland school holidays which unfortunately placed us on the hike during its most busy time. Despite campsite overcrowding, most hikers are relaxed folk so it didn’t detract too much from our experience. We walked sections 8 through 12 (in reverse order) of the Larapinta trail, approximately 95km over 7 days.
The wonderful team at Larapinta Express facilitated the pick up from our hotel in Alice Springs and the transfer to the start of the walk at Redbank Gorge as well as our food box drops at Ormiston Gorge and Serpentine Gorge; shuffle of food boxes from Ormiston to Serpentine Gorge after we had passed Ormiston; collection of people and boxes from Serpentine Gorge and transfer to the airport for some of our group, or back to Alice for the rest of the group. All of the transfers and food boxes worked a treat, and the Larapinta Express crew also gave us cold drinks and watermelon on pick up at the end of the hike - most welcome!
The Larapinta trail is very well marked and very easy to follow for the most part, with compasses not required. A couple of (dry) creek crossings had us searching for the blue arrows on trees on the far side of the crossing, but all were found fairly easily. Quoted distances were mostly a tad shorter than our GPS watches recorded (Garmin Fenix 7), but walk times were fairly accurate for our group.
Sea To Summit Spinifex Gaiters
Luci Outdoor 2.0 Pro Solar Light
Oofos slides and Teva Verra sandals
There wasn’t any rain forecast, this was more of a hiking habit that we have, but it was useful for extra protection for sleeping gear and clothes
To save on space, we also used the clothes in a dry bag with a soft layer on top for our pillow. The inflatable pillows are good, it’s just a personal preference
Food and water
We had a food drop on day 4 at Ormiston Gorge and then a small box at Serpentine Gorge for last night celebratory drinks. Both of these drops were organised by Larapinta Express who also organised the transfers for us.
We each carried our own daily water needs (2L for Meri and 3L for Brenton) and once at camp we were able to source water for dinner and breakfast then refill before leaving the following day. Our food box had 2 x 3L (1 x 3L Nalgene wide mouth cantene water bottle and 1 x 3L Cnoc Vectox reservoir) containers for an additional 6L that we could carry for days 5 and 6 which didn’t have water sources at camp. On days where campsites didn’t have water, we chose foods that had less water requirements such as the 2 serve Outdoor Gourmet meals.
There was a water source at Waterfall Gorge campsite which could be used if purified and boiled.
We used dehydrated dinners every night to minimise weight carried and had a variety from Backcountry and Outdoor Gourmet, as well as meals that we prepared.
Breakfasts were a premix of oats, dried fruit and nuts; lunches were wraps with peanut butter, plus dried apple and salt and vinegar chips! Snacks were muesli bars, salami sticks, dried fruit and nuts, rollups and M&M’s. We also brought tea bags, coffee bags, hot chocolate and powdered soups, all wrapped individually. The afternoon before day 1, we did a last shop for fresh fruit and vegetables so for the first night we had salad, tomato, cucumber and salad greens. For the first two days we also carried apples, mandarins, onions and carrots. All food was pre-sorted into ziplock bags and labelled per day for ease of sorting at campsites. This worked well and the ziplock bags could then be used as rubbish bags.
In addition to food, water and gear, we also packed a set of swimwear and one spare set of clothes. This is our rule on multi-days; to have a wear and spare set of clothes which saves space but does mean you have to consider the materials that you choose for your base layers - natural fibres are better at not retaining smells. We generally opt for wool. Swimming every or every other day we were able to wash our underwear and have a bit of a refreshing rinse off.
On day 4 we properly washed and in our final food box we had packed an entire spare set of clothes so we were able to go straight to the airport in clean clothing.
Whether you complete the entirety or only do parts of Larapinta, you can still see so much of central Australia and really get off the grid. As for how to prepare and what to pack, we hope that hearing from experienced multi-day hikers and organiser-extrodinaires Meri and Brenton give you the confidence to try a more self-sufficient trail.
