2010/09 Australia trip - Mount Kaputar |
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Friday September 24th
We were up before dawn for what we thought was going to be a long drive. There were no convenient intermediate parks with campsites so we were going to drive all the way to Inverell for some sapphire mining. A kangaroo came hopping around the camper as I was washing and looked very surprised at finding an undressed human in the way. He didn’t stay long enough to be photographed. On the way out we met a flock of ducks flying low and one hit us head on, luckily high enough that it bounced off the roof rather than came through the windscreen.
We rejoined the Newell Highway, heading north through Dubbo to Coonabarabran and Narrabri, with the strange shapes of the Warrumbungle Mountains on the western horizon. I didn’t know if we could camp there so we postponed that area for the return trip.
We’d had a somewhat disappointing vindaloo curry for dinner and we dropped the leftovers into a hot Thai curry soup for lunch with amazing results – a meal that definitely stayed with us.
We could have stayed on the highway and taken a turn east at Moree, but there seemed to be a short cut through Mount Kaputar national park to Bingara and on to Inverell. The mountain looked to be volcanic with many cliffs and columns of lava, so it was a scenic short cut.
The road soon changed to a single lane gravel track winding around the edge of the mountain, with Sandie a bit nervous looking down the cliff on the outside of the bends. We found a map of the park and discovered we were actually on the road to Barraba, but this was OK as it was in the right direction.
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Mount Kaputar (15.46) |
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The park was very scenic with many viewpoints of square top columnar mountains; we thought they were cores of 
ancient volcanoes, but the area was actually an unevenly eroded lava field. We drove to the top of the mountain and watched the kangaroos 
there while kookaburras gave a commentary; a very Australian experience. This magpie seemed to be in charge.
When we tried to take the road out of the park we found a gate across the road. A section of the road through the park had been closed and converted to a walking track, so we couldn’t get through to Barraba. It was late in the day so we camped there in the forest at the Bark Hut, a beautiful spot with resident kangaroos and, surprisingly, hot showers.
A nearby camper was a retired truck driver, now just putzing around Australia in his van, visiting all the places he couldn’t get to in his truck. On hearing we were going to the Cape, his advice was to go no further than Cooktown, as the scenery isn’t all that great to the north of there and he always broke something going to the Cape. We would see.
Saturday September 25th
We retraced our steps to Narrabri, stocked up with food and water, and set off towards Bingara again, this time on the right road. We stopped in another part of Kaputar, this time for a walk up to Sawn Rocks, a cliff of crystalline columns of lava. The eroded columns had fallen down in giant slabs, looking like a ruin in some ancient city.
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Sawn Rocks (2.41) |  |
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We stopped also at a geological area at Rocky Creek Gorge, famous for its rock striations caused by Ice Age 
glaciers. (Yes Australia had an Ice Age too.) True, they were there to be seen, but the sign didn’t mention that this was a really neat place for kids to jump around on the rocks and splash in the rapids, great for big kids too! I think the locals were keeping quiet about the place.
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