Carnarvon Gorge - Central Queensland

Well, we finally exhausted all the easy day trips from Brisbane and were forced to travel a bit further afield. When this school holiday rolled around, we decided to head to Central Queensland to visit Carnarvon Gorge. It takes about 10 hours to drive there so we broke the trip in Roma.

Luckily, on the way out, Toowoomba was having the Spring Festival of Flowers. We stopped in and it was absolutely fantastic. After 3 years of being in constant draught, to see such amazing flowers was so lovely. Sweet peas, delphiniums, iris, foxglove, pansies, petunias...so many favorites from our time in the UK. Really, it was only 2 medium sized gardens. But after not having seen those flowers for so long, I was in heaven!

After the flower stop, back in the car to carry on to Roma. Queensland has a huge problem with car crashes and fatalities on the highways. After this trip, you could definitely see why. For a major highway, it was only 2 lanes and pretty poorly maintained. Plus, there we so many over-sized trucks driving along and it was dangerous to pass. As we were headed directly West, the sun was so blinding. It was just the time of day for kangaroos to jump out in front of the car. We did make it safely to Roma, but it was a bit tiring. Roma...let's just say the one of the few restaurant listed in the guide book was called "The Bake-o-Roma". We did hit "The Big Rig Museum" which was pretty interesting about the history of oil and gas exploration.

Finally, we arrived at Carnarvon Gorge. This was billed as Queensland's Grand Canyon. Maybe not quite on the same scale, but it was still great. One difference was we were actually at the bottom of the canyon and spent time walking up it, instead of being on top and walking down into it. Plus, it was smaller...and not the same color rocks...and...well, not really the same at all. At first Tim and Elliott were skeptic - our luxury accommodation turned out to be a tent. A fixed tent with a bathroom - but still very tent like.

We spent 3 days hiking around. Our longest hike was just over 20 km. I am thinking that might have been about one of the longest hikes I have ever done. It was lucky I have been doing a bit of quilting again - I had stuffed some quilting wadding in my shoes to ease the pressure points! It was a gorgeous walk down in the gorge - criss-crossing the stream running thru. There were 2 sites of Aboriginal rock art that were very interesting. The best side canyon was probably The Amphitheatre. This was about what it sounds like - a big area with great acoustics that was carved from erosion. Luckily there was a pool back at the Lodge where we could soak our feet afterward.

Another highlight of the trip was the wildlife. Around the lodge there were so many birds - Kookaburas, Apostle birds, lorikeets. Wallabies and kangaroos were hopping around. Tim got up every day at 6 am to look for the platypus in the stream. I have to say, I didn't join him every single day, but I managed a few! Elliott was able to make some of the viewing expeditions at 6 pm - but didn't manage to make the 6 am ones. But the exciting part is - all the standing around quietly at the creek's edge getting eaten by mosquitoes paid off! We did manage to see a platypus. They are very shy, so it was a lucky sighting. Sadly, no picture really - there is one of a bit of brown splashy water that I'll spare you. We also saw an echidna which was so CUTE! It looked a bit like a porcupine. We felt really lucky to have seen so many things.

But today is Sunday, and Elliott is back to school tomorrow. Last day of freedom for him. I'm sure we'll be lucky to pry him off the computer if he ever bothers to get out of bed.