2002/11 Australia trip - Carnarvon Gorge |
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Tuesday October 8th
I called Christina and asked her to mail the cable to John and Edna’s address. This took a while, as we had to identify the cable amongst the rat’s nest of wires that’s attached to the computers.
The scenery west of Chinchilla was wilder and more interesting, beginning with hills and then flattening out as we approached Roma. We passed some impressive stands of prickly pear cactus, tall enough to look like trees. Our shopping list never seemed to be empty, and so we spent some time in Roma’s K-Mart picking up a kettle and other kitchen gear.
We also stopped in Black’s Toyota to pick up the spare parts we needed. I only had to give a rough idea of what I wanted and the parts guy quickly skipped around the shelves and came back with a complete set of hoses, belts, and filters. And a large bill of course.
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Chinchilla north (11.57) |
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We left the Warrego Highway here and headed north across empty country on the Carnarvon Development Road. We’d thought this might be a dirt road, but it had been recently blacktopped. Some of the work was still going on and we had lots of slowdowns and detours for construction work.
We stopped for a bacon-butty picnic and a little off-road driving to find out how well the campervan negotiated riverbanks and streambeds. There were a few billion flies that also appreciated the bacon. Those flies and their brothers would stay with us for the next two weeks. They don’t bite, but they’re always on your face, up your nose, in the corners of your mouth and eyes. Surprisingly, you do get used to them after a while.
We saw a few emus as we went north. The countryside was mainly flat bush, straggly trees and shrubs that never have enough leaves to give you any shade. After passing through the only town, Injune, we turned west towards Carnarvon National Park, but first we had to cross a couple of enormous cattle ranches. Their herds were mainly strange-looking Brahmin cattle from India. They’re popular here as they’re resistant to the heat and the ticks.
We also crossed a number of stream beds, easy at this time of the year as the water is either low or dried up, but it was obvious that we could be stuck here for a while if there was a big rain. The rule used to be that you couldn’t come to the park unless you were carrying at least a week’s food. I guess they’d got tired of rescuing starving campers.
The campground was at Takarakka, in a wide, green valley just outside the park. The main campsites were full of caravans and buses with adventure tour groups. It was very informal though, and, as we had a campervan, we were told we could just drive into the woods and find a spot. The woods were full of birds, mostly kookaburras and currawongs, so it was never quiet.
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Takarakka (10.06) |  |
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The camp bordered on Carnarvon Creek, and we walked along the creek to the “Platypus Pool”. Platypus are very shy, so we never expected to see any this close to camp, but sure enough they were out there swimming and diving, like little otters with beaks. The pool was fenced, with a big stand of reeds hiding the water, so the only way to see anything was to balance on a fence post. So the platypus probably think that humans are all ten feet tall with a telephoto lens for a beak.
Later we climbed the hill behind the camp to watch the sun set over the park. The country west looked a lot more rugged and green than what we’d been driving through. That night there seemed to be a lot of animals moving through and under the trees, even an echidna shuffling through the bushes looking for ants.
Wednesday October 9th
The birds were right over us and deafening in the morning, so we took an early trip to the Platypus Pool again, and then headed into the park on a very rough road. The main hike in the park is along the creek, straight up the gorge but there are lots of side trips to caves and waterfalls. There was too much to do all in one day. So we picked the most interesting sounding places, but in the end we did almost all of it, which made for a very long day.
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Carnarvon Gorge (2.52) |
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The trail began flat and wide, with quite a few other hikers, but eventually deteriorated to where we were on our own, climbing over rocks and squeezing through bushes. One side of the gorge had been deliberately burned off, presumably to lessen the effect of future fires, and the kangaroos were already in there eating the shoots of the plants coming back. The trail 
crossed the creek over twenty times, so half of the hike was in green and the other in black. The main plants were palms and cycads, primitive trees that date from the days of the dinosaurs.
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The high spots were a ladder climb into the Amphitheatre, a cool high-walled chasm, and a number of aborigine art sites. This isn’t great art, mainly just paint blown around hands and tools and weapons, but the sites are always interesting: caves, hollows, and cliffs.
Eventually we made it to the hikers’ campground at the head of the gorge, a beautiful spot with a 
pond, beach, and sheer cliffs. We met a backpacker there, a young plumber from Canberra who’d just come back from three days in the bush above the cliff tops. He’d had a rough cross-country trip, with lots of scratches and scrapes.
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Carnarvon art (18.40) |
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By that time we were running out of food, water, and legs. Even so, we couldn’t resist a couple of side trips on the way back, and made it back to the campervan in darkness, with Sandie limping, and me badly dehydrated. Luckily, with a campervan, your fridge is always close at hand.