Carnarvon Gorge

17th July - We arrived in sunshine to Carnarvon Gorge.  You could see the big cliffs looming up ahead.  We also saw a whole field of emus along the way.

 

Our camping area was beside a beautiful creek where some platypuses live.  We saw them every evening swimming around and poking their heads out above the water.

 

We arrived in time to do a couple of quick walks. Firstly, we walked along Mickey's Creek.  There was a side branch you could take and it led down a narrow, rocky, mossy canyon.

 

 

Next we walked to Baloon Cave to see some rock art.



 

 

18th July - Carnarvon Gorge has a bubbling creek running down between some towering cliffs on both sides. It goes for ages and there are other creeks running into the main creek and these have cliff walls too.

 

We walked all the way out to Boowinda Gorge and back, which ended up being about 20km. It took us 7 1/2 hours.  Mum and Dad were very impressed that we managed to walk that far in one day.

 



 

 

We walked along the gorge and we had to cross the creek lots of times (about 20). To get across, we had to lots if rock hopping so we did not get our feet wet.  It was heaps of fun.

 



 

Our first stop (after 9.2km) was at Cathedral Cave.  It has a 150m strip of rock art.  While we were there, we heard a crack, crack, cracking noise followed by a tremendous "BOOOOOOM".   There was an enormous cloud of dust that lasted for ages. A big bit of the cliff had fallen off and hit the ground about 30m away from where we were. It gave us a bit of a fright!

 





 

Cathedral Cave

 



Just beyond the cave, there was a side gorge called Boowinda Gorge. We walked along its rocky bottom for a fair way.  It got narrow and green and mossy on the walls.  You could see where the water has shaped the walls over the years.  It was beautiful.

Imagine water rushing through here

A mossy wall in Boowinda Gorge

 

 

After this we turned around to head back towards home. We had seen a lovely spot for a swim on the way so we stopped off.  It was freezing in the water.  Just as we started to get in, we saw a snake swimming across the pool.  It headed for some rocks on the other side so we figured it wanted to leave us alone and we had a swim anyway.

 

A nice (cold) place for a swim

 

 

We kept walking and had a another side trip to the Art Gallery.  It has lots of really good rock art.  We had lunch there.

The Art Gallery

 



From there we continued back along.  Mum and Dad left us at the junctions of the other side trips and went to have a look on their own.  They thought adding the extra distance might be too much for us.  First they went to see Ward's Canyon where Giant Ferns trees grow.  An old man kept us company while his wife went up.  He was too tired to go too.

Giant Ferns

 

Then they headed into The Amphitheatre. To get to it, you have to climb a couple of ladders, then pass through a slot to get to a huge, quiet, circular walled space.

 

An old lady stopped to talk to us and gave us some snake lollies.

 

The slot into the Amphitheatre

 

Their last side trip was into The Moss Garden.  It was a pretty, mossy spot where the water that has soaked into the sandstone runs out because it hits some shale (another type of rock) which does not soak up water.

The Moss Garden

 

 

Then we walked the last part back.  We saw some grass moving off the side of the track and went in to see what it was.  It turned out to be an echidna snuffling about. We saw another 4 echidnas that afternoon near the Ranger's Station and back at camp.  They were so cute waddling about.  If we stood still like tree trunks, they just walked right past only a couple of centimetres away.  We also saw 4 pigs running off down the creek just before the end of the gorge.

 

So cute but they must be pretty blind

Some of the many wallabies and joeys we saw

 



19th July - The next morning we headed up and back the 6.5km walk to Boolinda Bluff. You walk up to be 200m above the creek and you can see all along the gorge where we had walked the day before.

There were about 1000 steps (including some ladders) along the way.  We had a really good view up there.

Having a rest in a cave on the way up Boolinda Bluff

 



The view

 



After we walked back down, we walked along the nature trail next to the river and headed off the to Rock Pool.  It has some nice, deep pools that are great for swimming.  Again, the water was icy cold. We found another sweet turtle which we caught for a closer look.  We saw another couple of turtles there as well.

Checking out the turtle

There were some deep pools below some high rocks.  Dad checked out how deep the water was and we climbed up a steep ramp of rock and took turns jumping off.  It was a great way to spend the rest of the afternoon.

Climbing up

Will jumping

Bella jumping

Hamish and Dad jumping

 

That night we had a stodgy dinner but it was very yummy.  Someone had left us some flour so we decided to make some damper.  We made a roaring fire and let it die down to some red hot coals.  We wrapped potatoes in foil and buried them in the coals.  Then we made damper dough and wrapped it around some sticks and cooked them over the coals. When they were cooked we put some barbequed sausages in the damper and it was scrumptious.  To finish up we cooked marshmallows over the fire.

 

While dinner was cooking, Dad killed a cricket so that he could use it for fishing bait.  Hamish squashed it until it guts popped out and then we saw something strange.  A really long worm wriggled out of the cricket.  It was like a 15cm piece of wire and it had been living in the cricket.  Bella googled it and discovered that they are called " Horsehair Worms". The grown up ones can live just in wet places on their own but they young ones have to live in something else that is living. These things are called parasites. Yuck.

 

That night it poured with rain.  Luckily, we had great weather for all of our walks but it was a shame to have a wet tent again. 

 

Panning for Gold

15^th July – We had a very long day in the car to get to Charters Towers. We had a bit of luck and managed to find the Miner’s Cottage still open past closing time.

We bought a bag of river gravel and the man there showed us how to pan for gold.  He said sometimes you find nothing and sometimes you find a lot.  We found about $120 worth of gold!!! It was pretty exciting.

 

It doesn't look like much but apparently that is worth $60!

 

Back at the Caravan Park, a bush poet arrived.  He told some funny jokes and some hilarious poems.  One of them was about shopping trolley rage and an old Granny was on top of the shelves throwing “Dunny Rolls” at a poor man who bumped into her.

16^th July – It was another long drive to Emerald. The rain started again.  At one point, a big cow came running toward the road.  Luckily it decided to stop. 

Unfortunately, a few minutes later a big kangaroo jumped out in front of us.  Dad slowed down as much as he could but we still hit it with a big thud and it rolled onto the side of the road.  We stopped to check if anything could be done for it or to see if there was a joey that needed saving.  There wasn’t and it was already dead thankfully.  It was very upsetting.  We were very glad we had a bull bar.

 

 

The Undara Lava Tubes

13^th July – We had another look around the castle and park the next morning and we got absolutely soaked when we went over the suspension bridge above the falls because the rain poured down again. 

Later we headed up towards the Atherton Tablelands and checked out some pretty waterfalls (in the rain). 

Cold and rainy at Ellinja Falls

 

Cold and rainy at Zillie Falls

 

 

 and again at Millaa Millaa Falls

 

 

Next we stopped at Inot Hot Springs.  There was a little creek that was steaming.  We put our feet in.  Parts of it were warm but some parts were burning hot (apparently it is 75  ͦC in some parts).  We were going to wallow in it but it started raining (again). Eventually we arrived at Mount Surprise and the rain finally stopped following us.

Hot and steamy at Inot Hot Springs

14^th July – The following morning we went on a tour of the Undara Lava Tubes. These tunnels were made 190 000 years ago when a volcano kept oozing a constant flow of lava across the land.  The outer crust would form and then the hot stuff kept would flow through the middle.  Eventually the lava stopped oozing and the outer tube stayed. They are pretty big.

A part of the lava tube

 

Walking down into the lava tube



Is it snowing in this dark cave?

No, it is just dusty.

 

Some bats live in there and we saw some rock wallabies too.  We also went for a walk around the rim of the old volcano (called the caldera).  IT was very windy and cold up the top (and of course some misty rain decided to join us).

We found lots of these lovely spiders' webs full of raindrops

hiding in the grass up on the crater rim

 

The Mount Surprise area is a gem fossicking area. They find things like quartz, citrine, peridot and topaz.  We went into the "Gem Den".  It is a shop which had a whole display of different stones and tubs of gems and sparkly jewellery. The man who owned it was cutting and polishing a stone for someone who found it the area.

 

Paronella Park

12^th July Continued – Paronella Park is an old castle and park built by a Spanish man back in the 1930’s.  He had made his money in the cane fields and wanted to build his dream which was this castle.

 

He loved a waterfall on Mena Creek and so he built his concrete castle there.  It was once very grand with a ballroom and turrets and a long staircase down to some picnic grounds near the waterfall.  He had tennis courts and walking paths.  He planted lots of plants to make the place beautiful.

The waterfall at Mena Creek

 

The other thing he did that was pretty special, was to build a hydro-electric facility so that he used the water falling from the waterfall to make electricity to power his park.  In those days no-one in the area had any kind of electricity let alone hydro-electricity so he was a bit ahead of everyone else.

The hydro-electricity facility was renewed a few years ago so the park is still gets all its power from there.

Feeding the greedy eels

 

A fire burnt a lot of the castle down in the 1970’s and then some more of it was knocked down by Cyclone Larry so now it is a ruin being overgrown in parts by moss and other ferns.  It looks beautiful anyway and you can still imagine people there having fancy holidays.  Bella thinks it looks like the kind of place that fairies would like to live.

We had an afternoon tour and another tour at night.  They lit up the lower tea rooms and the water feature and played harp music while we watched.  We also fed the fish and the huge eels that live in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall.  A 1.8m crocodile has moved into the pool recently but we did not see it.

Paronella Park by night

 

Cape Tribulation to Cairns

10^th July – There is a track to Cape Tribulation called the Bloomfield Track. It has a reputation for being really hard but it was not as hard as we had heard it was going to be.  It was very steep up and down with a few creek crossings.

Along the way, we saw a car upside down and badly damaged in a steep gully.  Then we saw another one on it's side all smashed up on a flat bit of road with a dip.  Dad said that the drivers must have been silly and were driving too fast.

At the last creek crossing we saw what seemed like thousands of people who had driven up as far as they could.  It was weird seeing so many people after not seeing very many for the past few weeks.  They took photos of our car crossing the creek.

Cape Tribulation (near where Captain Cook’s ship ran onto the reef) was very busy and it was raining so the water was very murky.  It did not look as beautiful as it must usually look. We did a few little walks in the rainforest along the coast but it was not very much fun in the rain.

We camped by the river at Daintree. We found lots of little red beads on the ground.  They were from the Red Bean Tree and we collected heaps of them so we can make some jewellery when we get home.

11^th July – The next day we headed off to Mossman Gorge but when we got there we found that you had to pay to catch a bus into it and it was raining so we gave it a miss and headed on to Port Douglas.

Port Douglas is very touristy and not really the place for us so we stocked up on food, bought a couple of books and headed for Cairns.

Cairns is just a big country town really. Dad was not feeling very well and it was still raining so we got another deal on Wotif and hunkered down in an apartment for the night.

We watched TV for the first time in ages and ate apple pie because the apartment had an oven. Mum did loads and loads of washing.

12^th July – The sun was shining the next morning at last! We went for a walk along the Promenade on the water’s edge.  It was Naidoc Week so we saw an Aboriginal dance concert.  We had a play on some equipment and then a swim in the lagoon but of course it started raining again so we got cold and decided to leave.

Bella living it up on the Promenade in Cairns

 

Mum and Dad thought it would be nice to take the scenic route to Paronella Park but we did not think it was nice.  We could not enjoy the views because the windy road made us feel car sick.  We had to stop to let Will have rest but at least he did not vomit. 

It was bucketing rain and so we did not stop off at most of the side trips we had planned.  We did get out to look at the Curtain Fig.  It is enormous and has lots of roots coming down from up high so it does look like a curtain.

 

Cooktown



8^th July – Cooktown is the place where Captain Cook brought his ship The Endeavour, to repair the damage after he scraped the bottom of it on the Great Barrier Reef near Cape Tribulation.

We saw the statue commemorating Captain Cook and played on a musical kids version of the ship The Endeavour.



 

It was really windy there.  We went up to the lighthouse to look over the harbour and nearly got blown away.  There were branches falling out of the trees in our campground so we had to choose a safe spot carefully.

 Getting blown away up near the lighthouse

 

 

 

There was a shop in the main street that sold all sorts of souvenirs and Bella finally got the cowboy hat she had been wanting.

 

 

Bella and her cowboy hat outside the Museum

 

Then we went to the Museum which was in an old Convent and boarding school. There we saw the actual anchor from The Endeavour.  It had been found on the bottom of the ocean where it had been thrown overboard when Captain Cook was trying to lighten the load of his ship to stop it from sinking. The anchor was HUGE!



 

 

9^th July – We had an early start the next morning to get packed up before we went on a tour with an Aboriginal man called Willy Gordon. He took us north to a place where his ancestors came to stay for a few months before the birth of each baby. His dad was born there.

He showed us the caves and cave paintings along with some of the local native plants and animals. He ate witchetty grubs and ants and we saw 2 snakes. He also showed us soap that was made from leaves and how to make paints from rocks and how to make axes and rope and so many other things.

 



A big, fat witchetty grub...breakfast anyone?

 

 Will and Willy looking for hidden rock art

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This painting behind Willy and below is a really important one.

It shows you and me (on the left) and plants and nature (the thin thing on the right)

in the glow of the light which represents goodness (the pale thing behind)

 

 

 

Willy also said that aboriginals are always trying to sell white people hollow sticks (Didgeridoos). Then he taught us how to play the didgeridoo. He also taught us how to play with bush pegs and some other games he played in the bush as a kid.

After we got back to town we headed off to a place called Lion’s Den where we camped next to a river.  We swam in the rapids and found a gorgeous turtle.