Just south of Alice Springs, in the dead centre of Australia, the MacDonnell Ranges rise from the desert plains like creases on a tablecloth. With peaks up to 1,531 metres and cut through by deep gorges, these mountains are wild and spectacular, said Oliver Smith in the Financial Times. For the region’s Aboriginal inhabitants – the Arrernte people – the place “brims with stories, sanctity and secrets”. Winding through their western half for 220k…