As we were heading out of the c.park, Andy did a quick calculation on the distance to our ext destination, which was Carnarvon Gorge. Turns out that we had to cover more than 500 k’s. It didn’t take much thought to realise that we had our work cut out for ourselves, considering that we had not covered any more than 320 km’s in a day for the entire trip!!!
It was going to take a super effort from the Millennium Pajero and the Chariot of Love to achieve this target. One again gunned her out on to the Warrego Hwy for the first stretch of 80 km’s to Chinchilla, which incidentally was the birthplace of singer Pete Murray!!!!! Then 45 k’s to Miles, where we filled up with petrol (164 c/l). We were looking to make another 140k’s to Roma for lunch. Roma is the hub of the cattle industry sales for northern Australia with huge saleyards in the town. By now we are beginning to encounter the huge road trains that criss-cross the continent carrying all types of goods. We also needed to use Roma to stock up on food for our stay at Carnarvon. This is type of preparation is essential as we were heading to a place that was over 100 km’s to the nearest town. With 6 hungry mouths to feed it takes quite a bit of planning to work out the most efficient way to cater for meals in isolated areas and also allow enough room to fit it all in the car and trailer. It was Sunday, and of course it’s easy to forget that city weekend trading hours don’t apply in outback country towns. Managed to find an IGA open on a Sunday and stocked up.
After loading it all, whilst having a quick bite to eat in the local park, it was about 3.30 p.m. We had roughly 200 k’s to complete the last section to Carnarvon. The road was good so we were able to cover the 110 k’s to Junee very well. By now we had entered the Cental Highlands region of Qld and had once again crossed the Great Dividing Range. We were about 400 k’s from the coast. The last section to the turn off to Carnarvon was through sandstone gorges and forest. Very picturesque especially as the sun was getting low in the sky as dusk was approaching.
We turned off the main road for the last 40 km stretch to the park, at dusk. We were driving towards a brilliant twilight sky, but were really a little too anxious to enjoy it as we were travelling through this country at the worst time, when kangaroos and cattle were most likely to stray on to the road and were also faced with the prospect of an after dark set up.
Last 20 k’s were on dirt and I ended up eating the dust of the bloke in front of me, who was travelling in a “Britz” camper van. Any way all was fine and we reached “Takarakka Bush Resort” at 6.00 pm. We had pre-booked so were able to find our site and managed to set up very efficiently and had done so and eaten within 2 hours.
Off to bed!!!!
I had also misjudged the availability of fuel in the area and had arrived at the resort with less than a quarter of a tank, with over 100 k’s left to the next fuel stop at town called Rolleston. I always get very dubious of the amount of k’s I’ve got left in the tank after it gets below a ¼ full, as the gauge always seems to drop extraordinarily quickly after this point. I was however, reasonably confident that we would make it to the next servo, but Andrea and the girls managed to convince me to cadge some petrol from the resort “just in case”. Takarakka have their own fuel for use at the resort, but are not in the habit of supplying to the public. I begrudgingly put 20 litres into one of my gerry cans at the cost of $2.50 per litre!?!?!?!
Next morning was again still and clear and we were able to get a bearing on where we were staying. Takarakka is the only place in which you can stay at the moment and is actually just on the edge of the National Park and the gorge system within it. Carnarvon N.P. itself is closed to campers except at school holiday periods, but the National Park itself still experiences 70,000 overnight / day visitors per year.
If you can’t stay at the N.P. you have to stay at “Takarakka” or the rather more exey Carnarvon Gorge Lodge.
Takarakka itself is privately owned by a consortium of business people from Melbourne and is actually very well set up with hot showers and clean amenities and a “general store” with basic supplies. The cost being about the same as a family rate at a Caravan Park. When we were there it was of course scattered with the “Greys” again, but there were also tours in there with groups of young Americans and Europeans, so that was good for a change.
Carnarvon itself is spectacular and has a variety of walks of varying distances that were designed to show you the gorge in its entirety if you have the time to do so.
We chose on the first day to try the Boolimba Bluff walk, which would give us a view of the gorge and the surrounding country.
It was 3.2 k’s each way with most of it up hill. The views from the top were speccy as the photos show. The babes were knackered after it though!! They did very well and with much encouragement and cajoling were able to make it all the way.
The walks through the gorge are also terrific with longest being a 22 k round trip (not for us!!!) and the shortest about 3.7 k’s (for us!!!), to a little offshoot gorge called Moss Garden.
This time after the efforts of the previous day, the little ones needed a bit more assistance with lots of piggy backing and shoulder rides, even though the walk was much easier.
The surrounding countryside is very dry as there hasn’t been any real rain since the storms and floods that ripped through the area in late Jan early Feb and took everything with them. However the river (Carnarvon Creek) and the streams that feed into it are all permanent, being supplied with water from springs deep under the surrounding sandstone hills. The gorges form a “micro habitat” where patches of rain forest occur because of their protection from the drying winds and sun above them and so are always cool and moist and home to an abundance and variety of bird, mammal and plant life some of which are remnants of the dinosaur age. The photos once again tell the story.
The gorge also has aboriginal art works in sections some of which they believe date back at least 4000 years. We managed to visit one area of this where there was some of the more simple artwork depicted. Being a place of permanent water, the local indigenous people had used the area for sacred ceremonies and rituals through the ages. It’s quite humbling and mysterious to be standing looking at the recordings of these people, knowing that only 140 years previously they had occupied the area on a continuous basis for tens of thousands of years!!
Overall we spent 4 nights at this rather magical & enchanting place, having originally only booked in for 3.
Any way time marches on and we needed to push on
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