Holidays – week 3 2021
Words to come
photos each day
Finally…
Week 3 is a little slow on the writing…2 nights. Thursday night we were at Blackdown National Park so even if I had written this blurb, I would not have been able to upload it. Last night, the batteries ran low but tonight I need to sit and write.
Week 3 has been our longest constant camping period, ever. We started the week at Emerald in very comfortable motel accommodation – our last proper shower for 7 days. It’s amazing what you can come to appreciate when you don’t have it, like the lovely towels we have been provided at various stops on this adventure.
That morning, we had left the geographical centre of Queensland, Muttaburra, for Emerald travelling via Aramac, Barcaldine, Jericho, Alpha and to Emerald. We covered 470km of cruel and amazing country. We started the day with the Muttaburra Interpretative Centre, had coffee at a lovely café in Muttaburra then hit the road having changed plans – to now miss Hughenden good thing too as the road was 4WD only from where we were) and come down through the other roads.
110kph can seem very slow, sometimes you feel like you are standing still, dependent upon the road; other times it seems so very fast. We discussed the wild dog fence and the migration of animals, the effect this has – briefly as it is a highly emotive subject. Most places we pass through have staff shortages because the grey nomads and foreign workers etc are no longer as available as they were pre-Covid. That development has had such an enormous impact in so many ways, including the contribution of fruit cake to the agricultural shows the wastage that would occur for tasting by one person. That is a debate for another day…
We travelled through the Drummond Range, rising to about 535m. The photos of most of this trip just do not do justice to the country we travel through. They are hopefully an incentive to travel through these parts.
Day 16 was a slow start out of Emerald, via Lake Maraboon and a little sightseeing including the Van Gogh easel in the park, travelling some amazing ridgelines, moving through Minerva Hills, the gouged out sections of land from the force of water through Springsure and Rolleston to Sandstone Park a gorgeous camp ground close to Carnarvon Gorge. This was our home for 5 nights and to accompany this stay was a healthy dose of night-time breezes, ruffling the tent, and stirring up the air so it was quite chilly. The sunset that greeted us this night was the best we have had all trip.
Day 17 was a walk through Mickey Creek and the Nature Walk at Carnarvon Gorge. We think we saw where a platypus was playing, we went eye to eye with a couple of grey kangaroos and we travelled 13km by the time we did this little pre-cursor explore. The breeze kicked up over night but the morning was amazing, clear and cool and warmed quickly without the wind chill factor.
Day 18 at 7.15am was 6.5 degrees. Not the coldest but certainly quite chilly overnight in a tent, and during what appeared to be a cold snap travelling through the country. My batteries were a bit flat this morning but still managed to cover 19km of walking trail, reassessing at each stage whether to go on or turnback. We did 6 creek crossings twice – once on the way out and once on the way back. The Amphitheatre and Art Gallery are pretty amazing as is Ward’s Canyon. Words and photos cannot provide the true picture of the forces of nature that created these spaces nor the contribution of the first nation people to this area. An investment in walking poles is likely when this trip is done and we have finished all the walking, both planned and not, that it will bring. We are not hanging around places where we can buy such handy devices so a lovely big stick was my friend throughout this walk. It was returned to its rack at the end of the walk so it could provide service to another walker.
In the afternoon, the temperature dropped quickly. Our meals are of simplicity. For the hike we had wraps with bacon and tomato, a few handy bananas, water and some lollies. There may also have been some sugar snap pea chips devoured upon our return.
The site holds 104 people tonight over 41 sites which shares some lovely portaloos, a location which I did seriously consider in the depths of midnight, one night as a lovely safe haven away from the seemingly never ending wind. It seemed so quiet and calm in that lovely confined space for the few minutes of my visit.
Day 19 was supposed to be a rest day however it involved a trip to Lake Nuga Nuga and then on to Injune via the Arcadia Valley – wow. The scenery here is something else again. The inland lake is phenomenal, quite out of the way and best with a 4WD but still accessible. The pelicans gliding on the water were something to behold. We were also graced, well up ahead, with a whirly whirly – again something to see and preferably not drive through (which we didn’t). The herds of cattle were the biggest we had seen so far and there was a pair of wedge-tail eagles feasting on roadkill as we returned from Injune – they are such majestic birds. We got to see one circling over Sandstone Park – really special. This was probably our most testing day of the trip. We covered 425km for a rest day.
Day 20 was absolutely a rest day. I had hoped to arrange a helicopter ride on day 19, then rescheduled to day 20 but unfortunately the bird was not operational and wouldn’t be before we left. It would have been amazing to see the gorge areas from the air. So, this and some of the Carnarvon walks hold over to another visit. For this rest day, J decided to try scones in the camp oven. It was a pretty impressive first attempt, with packet but still it was a good job as I was not lugging ingredients for scones with us – we had enough stuff to cart so scone mix it was.
Have you ever heard the sound of a locust as it moves? It is a bit like a helicopter. The insect noise at dusk tonight was quite a chorus. The wind had dropped and it was an almost pleasant night.
Day 21 there was no wind and a heavy dew to greet our morning. The breeze camp up later along with the wind child. As we packed up, we found a mouse had tunnelled under the ground sheet of the tent into quite a protected and safe spot – it was quite entertaining when J became distracted, whilst folding the tent, to follow one mouse when another decided it was going to try and hitch a ride on the half folded tent. Hitchhiker ejected, we finished folding and packing and organised ourselves to head to Blackdown National Park.
Through the course of organising ourselves, it was an interesting observation as to the things that get stuck in your skin – like little chunks of splinter that you don’t notice immediately because you think you have pulled the big bit out or the 5mm piece of spear grass that embeds itself in your calf, quite comfortably, until you look at it and think you have a foreign object in your leg, which you do, and attempt to remove it pinching together nails as extraction devices.
We track through to Rolleston then to Blackwater where we see coal trains, long coal trains of about 80 carriages and the open cut mining areas. We mosey on to Blackdown National Park. Again, photos do not do justice and by the time we worked out where the waterfall was, we decided that a further 16km (return) of corrugation was not what we would cover. We set up our site and J found out just how quickly a cheeky magpie can be when on a raiding mission from the frying pan. The Munall Campground is a lovely National Parks site – well graded and maintained. There are toilets but that’s it, no water. There are, however, logs cut to sit on – quite nice as this meant we didn’t have to unpack the tetris that is our travelling home at the moment.
We learned how important it is to really try to set up on a level camp site for sleeping. It’s funny how you appreciate the simple things like a level site, so that you don’t 1. Slide down the bed, or 2. Roll one into the other pushing the other off the bed. We survived and this day saw us travel 286km to this lovely hidden paradise.
So ends week 3 of this adventure. This week saw so much amazing scenery pass around us. It added to what has been a truly wonderful experience of this large sunburnt harsh and cruel yet amazing beautiful country. We had one week left and our accommodation will change. Away goes the tent, well as far as I know at the time of writing this. Stay tuned for instalment 4
