You don't need to be able to draw to enjoy this one. A small-group watercolour experience at Simpsons Gap, west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, is drawing travellers who want to see the MacDonnell Ranges slowly — brush in hand rather than camera first.

The tours are run by Anna Dakin, a Royal College of Art graduate who fell for the outback while hiking the Larapinta Trail as an art student in London and eventually moved out to live and paint on Arrernte Country. She picks participants up in a kitted-out four-wheel-drive troop carrier and, before heading bush, starts the day at the Araluen Arts Centre in Mparntwe (Alice Springs), where the annual Desert Mob exhibition showcases work from 32 Indigenous art centres, all for sale with profits flowing back to the communities.

That gallery stop isn't filler. The touring focus is Albert Namatjira, the Arrernte painter whose watercolours of red and purple rock faces and white ghost gums hung in Australian homes through the 1940s and '50s. Dakin talks through how Namatjira blended Western perspective techniques, taught to him by artist Rex Battarbee, with a vivid palette and dry-brush method to render his Country — a useful primer before you try your own hand at the same cliffs.

Then it's a short drive to Simpsons Gap, where about three hours are spent actually painting, at beginner level, with a viewfinder to help frame the scene, a dog-eared book of Namatjira landscapes for reference, and — crucially — a cheese board and drinks by the waterhole. After rain, the red earth smells of petrichor and wildflowers like Sturt's desert pea bloom into scarlet carpets; after a good wet season you might spot billy buttons, paper daisies and zebra finches between brushstrokes.

The honest verdict from a first-timer: your painting may not improve on kindergarten level, but that's not the point. It's the slowness that sells it — three unhurried hours on Country with a knowledgeable guide beats ticking off lookout after lookout, and you come away seeing the ranges with far more detail than you would at 60 km/h.

Practicalities: tours run about three hours and cost from $175 per person, including all materials, the cheese board and drinks. Book via arttoursofaustralia.com, and pair it with a few days on the Larapinta Trail or a Desert Mob visit if you're in town during the exhibition.