Advertisement
Published: October 6th 2015
Our Central Queensland trip now headed south west to Carnarvon Gorge via Emerald. The roads on this section were better than the development roads we drove to get to Moranbah. If you see a road marked as a development road, they have an interesting history to open an area for mining or agriculture. Often these were just a metal road, and then later a single lain of bitumen placed down the centre. As traffic increased, the seal was widened by adding wings each side of centre. Overtime, these outer edges seem to sink. Where a line marking had been neatly painted down the edge, time had moved the line to resemble a heart monitor printout. This section was flat-lined by comparison, that is, dead easy to drive over!
We were about 20ks north of Emerald and I called David on the UHF radio and said that we would stop at a little town just ahead for a cuppa. The response from the radio was not what I expected, but from a road team another 10ks ahead suggesting a half hour break would be good as they were clearing a truck rollover with 60 tonnes of bananas scattered.
By they
time we passed the accident, the prime mover had be righted, semi trailer removed, and the second trailer in the ditch was being emptied by a bob cat ready to roll it back onto its wheels. Sadly - no free bananas!
Emerald is the major town for this region and has plenty of places of interest for visitors. This is the only town I have ever slept under a railway bridge (On a previous trip), but this time we parked in the show grounds which are made available to campers for most of the year.
Not far from town there is a large lake and dam, Lake Maraboon.. This lake supplies water to the region which includes (according to local gossip) the larges citrus orchard in the universe. The US dispute that, and are still trying to locate a bigger one on Mars, where according to those who don't know, the original seeds came to earth. I find it easier to understand that complex things have a creator.
Like any inland waterway, bird life abounds. There were large flocks of waterbirds dominated by cormorants and pelicans, but plenty more besides.
For those who like the art
of Vincent Van Gough, you will discover that he was not only a great artist, but also exceptionally tall. His easel and a painting of sun flowers stand tall (20 mtrs) in one of Emerald's parks.
Close by there is an interesting walkway with an interesting series of mosaic tiles with explanations covering creation through to European settlement and modern mining and industry.
We enjoyed our time in Emerald which included minimal shopping therapy, and some good looking horses not far from our camp site, probably pony club member's animals.
From Emerald we head south west again past Virgin Rock and fuelled up at Springsure, the last servo before getting both into and out of Carnarvon Gorge.
Virgin Rock get's its name from a rock face fall that has left an image of the Virgin Mary. Time has damaged the shape a little, but it is still quite recognisable. We stopped at the road side rest area for cuppa and photos. Mary and David were surprised to find their neighbour heading east, also stopped for a cuppa.
Marg drove the journey from Springsure to Carnarvon Gorge. We had heard from friends that from
the highway to the Gorge, the road is quite rough. Well, we cruised along comfortably on sealed roads and our GPS showed we were less than 10ks from our camp site. THEN!!! Through a gate, and we were on a tooth rattler road. Marg drove very conservatively and we made slow but stead progress. This was the first time Marg had driven across a ford with the warning of swift flowing water. This was the dry season in a drought year, but water did cross the road, but under 100mm deep. That was the easy part. Some of the road, particularly on inclines was heavily rutted, so we crossed slowly. Not all drivers did this, trying to float over the ruts. However, we heard of several who got nasty surprises when they opened their caravan doors!! We came through unscarred! Well done M!
Once into the Gorge, WOW!!!!! The camp site (Takarakka) is nestled along side a stream, has excellent facilities, caters for all kinds of camping travellers.
The first thing you notice both morning and afternoon is the beautiful orchestra of birdsong. It seems that every bird here sings with great joy. I'm not sure how many
bird species live in the gorge, but there is certainly a great variety.
Next, If I could send you to one place where you can see platypus swimming in a stream next to a camping ground, this is it. At day break and dusk, we saw several platypus swimming along the stream banks. It is too dark for photography unless you have a super fast camera, but our eyes feasted on this natural scene.
The drive from the camping ground into the gorge is about 5ks over a not quite so bad road, and the birdsong sounds even more majestic as you cross the river, if that is possible.
There are several walks, some requiring high levels of fitness, but our party of 6 (Adrian and Rilla met up with us at Carnarvon) settled on a round trip of 11 or 12ks from the car park. This was a moderate walk, crossing the river several times. We quickly discovered why Carnarvon Gorge is so popular.
We visited the Amphitheatre and The Moss Garden. Hopefully, we will visit here again and go to the Art Gallery and maybe further into the Gorge. It is so hard to
describe this Gorge. The walls of the canyon are not as colourful as some gorges, but none the less the whole land scape is spectacular. Then as you go into the Amphitheatre, your jaw will drop. After walking through a small crevice in the rock face, you come through to a huge semi circular theatre. This is a sacred site to the local people, so they request constraint when visiting, particularly avoiding creating echoes. The main sound I heard was camera shutters as visitors tried to capture something of the awesome size and shape of the rock structure. One of my photos has David attempting to photograph a bird building a nest in a thicket a little up the rock wall.
Having feasted on this for quite some time, we returned from thence we came with the object of also going into the Moss Garden. In a region currently suffering drought, the Moss Garden has dripping moss and a waterfall even in the dry season. (The national park is often closed in the wet season) Not only is the moss beautiful, the exposed rock faces have so many rich colours.
There was a large school group from a
High School not far from our home. They had a much more rigorous program than we undertook. They climbed up Boolimba Bluff before doing the walk we did. I must say that some of us were pretty exhausted by the time we got back to the car park, but in good spirits, and anticipating grumpy limbs for the following day.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.079s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 13; qc: 20; dbt: 0.0493s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
