Carnarvon Gorge

May 10, 2024 to May 12, 2024

Friday the 10th of May 2024

Our choics of campsite was a good one. The traffic on the road in the distance was hardly noticeable, making it one of the quietest nights we have had for while.

Mark came over to chat as he was leaving and we had a long natter. He rides a Tout Terrain mit Rohloff und Gates Carbon Belt. A really nice bike on which he has done The Big Lap of Australia a few years ago. This time he is doing the southern most tip of Oz to its northern most tip.

We left about half an hour later and enjoyed another quiet ride until the turnoff to Carnarvon Gorge. The easterly wind now helped us along until the last ten kilometers when some stiff hills took the wind out of our sails and had Leigh walking her bicycle for the first time since the Warrumbungles.

Halfway to Carnarvon Gorge from the turnoff was a memorial to two events. The first was the failed attempt to establish a horse stud to breed horses for the police in the outback.

The second was to an aeroplane crash in which a Dakota carrying Australian and US service men died during the Second World War.

Some nice birding to be had while I waited for Leigh to get to the top of one of the hills. Here's a Red-browed Pardalote (Pardalotus rubricatus).

The Big4 Breeze campground is well known for its population of Platypus so after settling in we headed down to the creek in the first of what would become a few failed attempts to spot them. The failure was tempered by an enjoyable evening of pizza and a few beers with Mark.

Saturday the 11th of May 2024

After a pre-sunrise failed attempt at finding the Paltypus, we headed into the gorge. The entrance is just over five kilometers from the campground with some stiff hills in the way. Mark had left a bit earlier because he was going to do almost thirty kilometers of walking to take in all the sights. We made it as far as the Art Gallery before heading back, a decision we were pleased to had made given how the weather changed later in the day.

The trail is through lovely Eucalyptus forest peppered with cycads, palms and ferns with sandstone cliffs above.

There were also lots of water crossings. For two of them Leigh decided to skip the stepping stones and walked through barefoot.

We had hoped to do Ward's Canyon but the path to it is currently closed so our furthest point was the Art Gallery.

The entrance to the Art Gallery is through a split in a rock. A fig has managed to establish itself in another crack in the rock.

Some of the paintings and engravings date back nearly twenty thousand years.

We turned back after the Art Gallery and took the path up to the Amphitheater. This is an enormous hole that has formed in the sandstone with just a tiny crack through which the water that formed it escaped over millions of years.

Some steep stairs to get to the entrance.

I was leaning on the rail of the walkway in the Amphitheater when something brushed my hand. It was the highlight of my day - a small Carpet Python (Morelia spilota) of about a meter in length.

There was also some nice birding along the way.

Grey Fantails (Rhipidura albiscapa) are common everywhere but this one gives a good explanation as to the reason for its name.

Bird of the day, Australian King-Parrot (Alisterus scapularis). Female with the green head in front, male with the red head at the back. Very high up in a tree!

Whiptail or Pretty-faced Wallaby (Notamacropus parryi).

It was about three o'clock when we arrived back at the entrance to the gorge. It had been trying to rain for the previous hour or so but as we hopped onto our bicycles to cycle back to the campground the heavens opened. By the time we got back we were soaked through. I quickly rigged up the tarp to get us some shelter and we started cooking an early supper in relays, one cooking and the other showering in turns.

Mark was still a good few kilometers inside the gorge when the rain started in earnest and he had it far worse than we did. He was not only wet, including his shoes, but he was pretty muddy as well. Not a happy camper is a phrase that is best used to describe him.

Sunday the 12th of May 2024

Another pre-dawn attempt at Platypus hunting ended up with us staring at the creek for an hour without luck. As we headed back to our campsite a guy told us there was one at a pool a little further on. We headed down there to find not one, but two, fishing calmly in a quiet stretch of water.

Still dark so slow shutter speeds make for fuzzy pictures.

The rest of the day was spent recuperating from yesterday's walk and doing laundry. Mark was doing much the same and was looking a lot happier than the previous afternoon. I had hoped to do some more birding around the campground but, to be honest, I was too short on energy. So a lazy day it was.

The campground has been quite sociable, quite different to some of the campgrounds dominated by Grey Nomads who seem to spend much if their time inside their caravans. Any time spent in the camp kitchen was sure to involve conversations with other campers and having Mark around has been good too. Fellow cycle tourists are easy to relate to and Mark has been great company. We'll miss him when he heads out tomorrow. He'll be riding all the way to Rolleston but we are splitting that section into two rides and will wildcamp somewhere around the halfway mark.

Today's ride: 78 km (48 miles)
Total: 2,811 km (1,746 miles)

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Angela NaefBeautiful spot, great photos!
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6 months ago