The Far Carnarvon's to the Mines to Sapphire

1 May 2013 - Carnarvon Gorge

The drive into Carnarvon Gorge

We arrived at Takarakka Campground all safe and sound and were allocated a site right opposite the toilet block.  Now some people would kill for this site as the amenities are so close.  Every caravan park site we have stayed in this trip so far has been opposite the amenities block.  We  must look like we have either diarrhea or are incontinent.  It is a good way to meet everyone in the park because they all at some time walk past us, many glaring as they would kill for our site.

Our Takarakka Campsite - view from van

The National Park section of the park is closed for all camping outside of school holidays and Easter. The only campground (Takarakka) is 4klm from the start of the walks which has two of its three camp areas closed to take school groups – go figure.  All the travelling campers are relegated to the remaining camp area which is lovely.  We have booked in for five nights.

Day 1 Walks – 

Campsite where we camped 25 years ago

There has obviously been a huge flood here since I came here 25 years ago with Dad, Peter and his family and me with mine – Ryan just 9 months old.  

Flood damaged and now wider creek

The walking track is very different and the creek bed is at least five times wider. The 20 river crossings up to Big Bend have been reduced to 14 now and there still remains track damage, missing signage and piles of flood debris lodged in the trees well above our heads.  The beauty and majesty of the place still remains. 

1st crossing

Sandstone cliffs and palms

Today’s walk of 14 klm took us to the Amphitheatre, Ward’s Canyon and the Art Gallery.  The ancient cycad forest near the start of the walk, the tall palm trees along the Gorge and the towering sandstone cliffs framing our view to the sky are still a wonderful feature of these walks.

We arrived at the Amphitheatre and had the place to ourselves for about 15 minutes.  We thought we had the place to ourselves until a fellow joined us and informed us there was a large snake against the wall of the crevice entry to the Amphitheatre.  The remaining walks were beautiful with Ward’s Canyon being a standout.  The Art Gallery has extensive indigenous rock art from over 3600 years ago.

Entrance into Amphitheatre

Stairs into Amphitheatre

Inside Amphitheatre

Inside Wards Canyon

Wards Canyon sandstone walls

Art Gallery - just some of the many Aboriginal rock art paintings 

Day 2 Walks – 

Moss Gardens

Moss Gardens

After a good night’s sleep and no soreness from yesterday’s walk we set off to the end of the Gorge to see the remaining sights.  22klm later we had seen Cathedral Cave

Cathedral Cave- Aboriginal paintings

with its array of Aboriginal cave paintings, Boowinda Gorge with its sculptured sides and bolder strewn floor and the Moss Garden with its moss and garden. 

Boowinda Gorge

Boowinda Gorge

This was a long but rewarding walk with Boowinda Gorge being the highlight.  We made 28 creek crossings in total there and back with each crossing becoming more difficult the further into the gorge we went and with the directions becoming less and less clear. 

Typical creek crossing - although this is one of the easier ones

Day 3 Walks –

After an even better night’s sleep we tackled the walks just outside the main Gorge, Mickey Creek Gorge, Warrumba Creek Gorge and Baloon Cave. Warrumba Creek Gorge was new to me and what a standout it is.  The entry looks quite benign but last night our neighbours told us to go past the end of the formed track, which we did.  Turning a bend the walls start to close in and the gorge narrows down to just a couple of metres. Near vertical moss covered walls disappear 50 metres or more above our heads as we clambered over slippery wet rock with the little creek below us easily deep enough to fill our boots if we fell in.  Warrumba Creek Gorge was the highlight of the day for us.

Climbing through Warrumba Creek Gorge

After two hours walking we headed home arriving back at 9:30am. In that time 80% of the campers in the van park had left and we felt like orphans.  A quiet and peaceful recovery day followed for Julie.  I had to do the photos, the blog, the washing, the car – the list just goes on and on.  The weather remains perfect – clear skies and nothing above zephyr status as far as the wind is concerned.  

Day 4 Walks – 

With hardly anything left to see we amused ourselves in the morning and then got out of bed (haha – maybe – maybe not), had breakfast then set off back to the start of the main Gorge walks to do the 2klm Nature Trail which is code for “Do this walk if you didn't t realise you had to walk so far to see the real sights of Carnarvon Gorge”.

Rock Art by earlier bored walkers on this walk

Somewhat bored by this non-walk we arrived back at the car after 45 minutes and set off back towards camp to take the deviation on the left to do the Rock Pool walk.  After walking 200 metres we came to a rock pool.  

Rock Pool reflections

The Rock Pool was beautiful with perfect mirrored reflections in the water and tranquil waters babbling past us.  Looking carefully for platypus along the banks, making sure we made no noise and with no one else around we were rewarded with ….. perfect mirrored reflections in the water where we both felt that platypus should have been playfully performing for us and our ever poised cameras.

Arriving back at camp at 10am we discovered we were even more orphaned today than we were yesterday!  Yes! – home alone.  Coffee and home baked muffins flowed freely as we enjoyed peace and serenity in our little corner of the van park. The day was spent doing our weekly wash and readying ourselves for leaving tomorrow.  This entailed us consuming the coffee and home baked muffins prepared lovingly by Julie back home which have filled up the freezer since the start of our journey.  I busied myself outside arranging our two chairs so that we had wide ranging views of the pretty van park.  Aaah serenity now!

As far as Carnarvon Gorge goes it has been, for me, quite nostalgic.  25 years ago I was here and the place, while devastated by flood 10 years ago, is the same, but different – an example of how Mother Nature continues to evolve our world while I am but a visitor at various insignificant points in time.  This is a place we all should visit to take away that unique memory Carnarvon offers that, while etched in our memory forever, is nothing but a minute part of millions of years of evolution that we observe today.

The van and car continue to perform well. We could not be happier with them. We are both well and injury free.  This is truly a wonderful adventure for both of us seeing our vast country together, meeting so many different and interesting people all with their own story.  We constantly pinch ourselves, acknowledging how fortunate we are to be provided with this wonderful opportunity.

Leaving Carnarvon Gorge - the 10 klm of dirt road passed beneath us finally turning into narrow bitumen, while the majestic sandstone cliffs of the Gorge slowly disappeared behind us in our mirrors.  In paddocks beside us a mob of emus frollicked as kites soared effortlessly on the breeze above.  

Frollicking Emu

Stopping on the intersection of the road into Carnarvon we had morning tea and again watched emus in the paddock beside us.  While sitting in the van having a cuppa a 4wd travelling on the main road in front of us slowed down quickly and pulled off the road to stop right outside our van door. I said to Julie "I'll do the washing up darling, you see what they want".   It turned out that the lady had spotted a 'huge dingo' not 50 metres from us and she pulled in to warn us about it - very, very nice of her.  I said to Julie " I'll dry up and put away too while you get the stuff in the car Azaria, I mean Julie". 

Morning tea and dingo spot

In the end we didn't see the dingo and headed off to Emerald for a one night stand.  The van park was very busy with 27 vans arriving that day.  The owners help everyone park their vans and we needed special help because we had the closest site right next to the amenities block.  We were so close that for me to go to the Gents here entails less steps than if I went at home from a sitting position in the lounge.  You should have seen the glares we got from everyone.  I just shouted out "You should have seen the huge dingo we saw today, we need to be close!"

We went for a shop in Emerald (our van park is on Fairburn Dam 17klm out of town) and what a great town it is for shopping.  All the mining in the region has attracted many major retailers here so we were able to get everything on our shopping list - groceries,  fuel and water containers. 

As night fell, so did the rain.  Showers drifted in around 8pm and slowly became heavier overnight.  Being Monday night, it's sausage sizzle and entertainment night all put on by the park owners.  A gold coin donation to Angel Flight charity is all that is asked.  Over $65,000 has been raised by the owners in the 8 years they have been doing it. The music and jokes were right out of the 60's while the 130+ people in the park had a wail of a time.  At 9:20pm the 11th encore ended and so did the frivolity.  Thank goodness for the rain as it chased all the afterparties inside.  These old people sure know how to party.  

Emerald to Moranbah to Isaac River Bush Camp -  We packed up and drove in the rain for most of the day.  Heading north towards Moranbah is heading into coal mining central.  It is very easy to see where the money earmarked to pay the mining tax is now being spent.  The drive took us through the Peak District with its ever decreasing tree size and ever increasing mining site size and interesting volcanic peaks.  We turned off into Moranbah and had lunch with Amy's (my favourite daughter) boyfriend, Jamie.  The Moranbah Workers Club was filled with people not working and served a great meal - if you're not a vegetarian like Julie.  It was great to catch up with Jamie and see where he works and lives.  

After farewelling Jamie, we drove back out onto the main road north and set up camp on the Isaac River in a good rest area just off the road.  We had arranged to meet up with my favourite brother Peter, who works at Coppabella Mine some 30klm north of us.  Another caravan pulled in before we left to visit Pete and the couple agreed to keep an eye on our van and everything we own while on the road. We were very grateful they decided to camp the night with us.  The showery rain was still with us as we travelled north to visit Pete.  To describe the region as another world is an understatement. Massive machinery, 100's of mine 4wd's and 1000's of workers were everywhere.  Pete's camp has 4500 workers living, working and moving in and out 24 hours a day.  His donga is quite good - a little bigger than our caravan.  

Pete and Jeff

We had the option of two dining establishments - we chose the one over the road because Pete had never been there.  We had a great meal and it was a real treat to catch up with Pete, see where he works and lives.  We said a sad farewell knowing we would not see each other until at least September and drove the 30klm south to our van in the rain.

Isaac River Rest Area bush camp

 To our great delight everything was as we left it.  Climbing into bed we fell asleep to the rain on the roof and woke up every 10 minutes to the semitrailers driving past.

Draglines at Peak Downs Mine

Isaac River Rest Area to Sapphire - the rain eased overnight and we set off, under clearing skies, south towards Emerald via Dysart - another mining town and region.  Passing the massive Peak Downs Mine we saw two enormous draglines being commissioned in a paddock on the side of the road.  Kilometre-plus long coal trains filled the rail tracks and the myriad of mine 4wd's and workers were everywhere.  Slowly they thinned as we travelled to Dysart where we turned right onto "what might be a dirt road".  It did turn out to be a dirt road that had been well watered by the recent rains.  30klm of dirt road and mud later we drove onto bitumen - so nice.

Arriving in Emerald with the "You idiot you're really low on fuel" light blaring away on the dash, we fuelled up and turned west towards Longreach.  We decided to camp in Sapphire and a van park that had rave reviews, to dry out and clean up after all the rain and mud.  The park is quiet and very pretty, located in a bush setting high on the hill in the village.

Gold Coast to the Far Carnarvon's (Carnarvon Gorge)

Monday 22 April – Leaving Home

Leading up to today we had a very social week catching up with family and friends.  My favourite daughter, Amy, turns 23 years old this week so we had a birthday lunch for her last Saturday with my favourite son, Ryan, and Amy’s favourite boyfriend, Jamie.  The worst thing about travelling is leaving family and friends behind and missing out on birthdays and other milestones in their lives.  We try to time our travels to minimise this but sadly we are away for some things.

Leaving the Gold Coast at 10:50am we travelled north to Tewantin and the Noosa Caravan Park right beside where Mum lives.  We had a wonderful two days with Mum, with a beautiful dinner at her place on the Monday, followed by morning tea at the caravan, an early Mother’s Day lunch at Trios Restaurant overlooking the Noosa River and a ‘leftovers’ dinner at Mum’s again on Tuesday night ending in the start of a three week diet. 

Wednesday saw us packing up and leaving the caravan park at 9:30 am.  We drove 100 metres and parked the rig on the side of the road and went back to Mum’s for fresh scones (no jam and coconut slice!) and coffee and  some big lunch (leftovers).  When the time came for us to leave neither of us wanted to say goodbye. After many farewells and a few tears all around, we set off on our 8 month trip anti-clockwise around Australia.

Boondooma Dam Lookout

Campsite

Tomorrow is Anzac Day and a public holiday and there are many people making a long weekend of it by taking the Friday off as well so places are quite busy.  We travelled west through Gympie, had lunch at Goomeri, then travelled through Murgon (tried to text Mark W at Cherbourg to no avail) then turned right at Proston to arrive at our pretty camp at Boondooma Dam.  Our powered site (No 18 – No 16 is better with unpowered sites with taps having the best views) is at the Lookout campground perch high above the dam.  As I write this, it is after 5pm the sky is clear, there is no breeze at all and the sun is setting in the west, as it tends to do in this part of Australia, and Julie has just completed her very first cryptic crossword – the world is perfect.  The trees are lit up with that beautiful late afternoon golden yellow as the birds slowly start to settle for the night and the cool of the evening slowly starts to seep in.  The distant cracking sound of the top coming off a bottle of red wine (an earlier birthday present for me) can be heard as Julie sets me up for Happy Hour and that very special time of the day that is the signature dish of camping. 

Campsite and our first of 8 full moons

 Aah – to be on the road again!  Why don't you all come and join us!

Boondooma Dam to Cania Gorge

We were able to get a bit of phone reception by walking up a hill, putting left ring finger in right ear and facing Mecca.  This reception was used to enquire about getting a van site in Cania Gorge.  There are no National Park or Freedom camps in Cania Gorge so we followed everyone’s advice and booked into Cania Gorge Tourist Park (Top Tourist) for three nights.  The friendly owners advised they were busy but not full so we decided to up stumps and move on.

The weather remains perfect with clear skies day and night, warm days (up to 30 degrees) and cool nights (down to 13 degrees).  There is no wind and the whole countryside is in perfect condition following the flooding rains in January 2013.  The journey to Cania Gorge was via back roads most of which were single lane bitumen with graded dirt either side.  Many of the roads and bridges were washed away in the floods and had just been repaired.  Damaged crops and pastures were visible in many places and flood debris was still high up in the trees often well above the top of the car and caravan.  We realise how fortunate our decision was to go south and west on our first trip earlier this year. 

Boab trees on the way to Cania Gorge

Arriving at Cania Gorge Tourist Park we were still travelling over washed away roads only partially repaired with gouged out creeks and destroyed trees laid flat by the floods either side of us.  The van park is in perfect condition, beautifully maintained and a credit to the hard work the owners have done since the floods.  The park is busy with the ANZAC weekend campers with lots of young families enjoying the grassy spaces and campfires.  The Park has a great feel about it with the Managers ensuring there are no noisy radios, TV’s, or generators at all. There is a family group nearby us who were warned by the Manager today about the noise they made last night (we didn’t hear a thing) and were told to turn off their radio they had on as they sat outside their van.  The result being that all that can be heard is the many birds singing away, laughter of children playing and Julie snoring as she “reads the Women’s Day”.

Morning campfire smoke at Cania Van Park

Giants Chair Lookout

First day here we were up early, had breakfast and were off doing some of the Cania Gorge walks just after 7:30am.  The first walk was Julie going back to the van to get her hiking stick as I waited at the gate entrance to the National Park.  All up we did 10klm of walks (Julie 11 klm) completing the Fern Tree Pool and Giant’s Chair circuit, the Two Storey Cave circuit and Big Foot walk.  These were achieved in around four hours without seeing too many other people.  All were great walks on well-defined sign marked tracks.

Fern Tree Pool

Two Storey Cave (bats in photo below)

Big Foot Rock to the upper right of Little Head in Hat

King Orchid Crevice

Second day in Cania Gorge saw us start the same as the previous day minus Julie walking back to the van.  8.1klm of walking tracks took us to almost all the remaining walks in Cania Gorge: Dripping Rock, The Overhang, Bloodwood Cave, Dragon Cave and the Lookout.  The only walk left undone is 22 klm Castle Mountain Lookout that follows the ridge – this walk will remain undone for the foreseeable future.

Damaged bridges from the January floods

Dragon Cave - Julie felt a level of contentment and belonging

Just 'cos

The Overhang

Bloodwood Cave

Being Sunday and the end of the long weekend, there is a constant stream of camper trailers, vans and tents leaving the park.  Each vehicle is filled to the brim with camping gear and school kids, leaving the camping grounds filled to the brim with grey-haired travellers and that beautiful lull after the storm feeling that only we oldies can experience on a late Sunday arvo.  If any of you has misplaced a grandparent or two they are probably around here somewhere.  We had planned to leave tomorrow but have booked another day as we want to take the 10klm drive up the road to Cania Dam/Lake and have a look around there. 

Next Day –

Again the weather was perfect – 13 degrees overnight and high 20’s during the day with no clouds and light winds. Today we travelled to Cania Dam just 10klm away and did the 1.4klm walk through the old Shamrock mine site.  In the 1870’s gold was discovered here and the usual story followed with the small town of Cania being established to service the mining.  There being no planes at that time, it was a ride-in ride-out mine site.  Cania is now below the surface of Cania Dam.  The walk was through eucalypt forest along a little creek and valley riddled with old diggings and a few mine shafts.  Some old mining relics from those days are caged up and on display as well as an old mineshaft covered over with the old hand winch for the bucket still there. Being the only ones there, it was good to wander around by ourselves picturing the gold rush days.

Cania Dam

Cania Tourist Park 

Morning tea was at a lookout over Cania Dam wall.  There are beautiful picnic grounds right on the water’s edge of the Dam.  We then travelled back home on the way checking out the second caravan park (Big 4) here.  For anyone coming to Cania Gorge the one we stayed at (Top Tourist) is quiet and peaceful and located at the start of the walks.  The Big 4 has water slides, water parks, jumping castles, swimming pools, café, etc and is 10klm from the walks but closer to the dam.  So the trick would be to camp where we are, drop the kids off after breakfast with some pocket money, do the walks, go fishing, come back about 4pm pick up the kids and go back to camp – everyone’s happy.

30 April – leaving Cania Gorge and heading towards Carnarvon Gorge

Four nights at Cania Gorge allowed us to do all the walks and see the local area with the afternoons free to do the chores and relax.  We are ready to move on and are looking forward to the next part of the trip.  We've had no phone or internet connection except for when we've been up the top of a hill during one of our walks and the mobile phone pings to let us know we have reception.  We quickly skimmed our emails and any messages before heading back to the relative isolation of the bush.  TV reception is limited to what is received via satellite in the van park and subsequently transmitted for the campers to receive.  The quality is very poor.

Travelling from Cania Gorge through Biloela and Banana to Moura it was obvious we were entering mining country.  Ours was the only car without a big red flag affixed to the front bumper and its occupants without Visi-vests on.  The road was narrow and bumpy in patches with road works going on every few kilometres.  The landscape remained beautiful with the road often disappearing way into the distance through pastures of metres high grasses lapping the verges all the way.

Biloela is a large bustling country town with all sorts of shopping and industrial stores – a good place to get supplies or repairs done.  We drove through it heading for Moura – a run-down small town with many of its businesses either closed down or open only a few days a week.  We stopped here for lunch and had just the best burger and salad sandwich at one of the few open cafés we could find.  The little IGA is well stocked if you only need a narrow range of things.

Eight kilometres the other side of Moura is the Dawson River Rest Area (Freedom Camp).  Well set up it offers flush toilets, coin operated hot showers, table and chairs, boat ramp and camping space for about 30 or so caravans.  It is run by volunteers from Moura and is a great, and therefore popular, overnight camp for travellers in this part of the region.  Caravan parks in the surrounding towns are mostly mining parks so this represents a good option for like-minded travellers. 

We camped here the night and were able to get a site at the back with a bit of privacy.  I saw a Spotless (cleaning company) come in morning and night to clean and maintain the toilets too.  A gold coin donation is all that is asked.  Good Spot.  

Dawson River Rest Area

Road Trains must like the campers here as they blow their horn loudly as they pass late afternoon and early evening.  After that just the roar of their motors and 18 gear changes seems to be enough acknowledgment of our presence until about midnight.

 

It was here that we thought we had lost one of two water pumps in the van.  It runs everything except the drinking water.  We were getting ready for dinner, washing up, toilet flush and showers and, although it hummed away when turned on, no water came out.  After trying to get it to work for about 30 minutes we resigned ourselves to having to use our backup manual shower and gaining access to the water in the tank via the tap under the van.   We expected to spend the next day phoning our van supplier and working out where the nearest place is to have the pump repaired which we knew would be hundreds of kilometres away.

We were all ready to start washing up and organising showers when I just had another go at turning the sink tap on and presto out came the water.  Oh Happy Days!  This was our first bush camp and the first time this pump had been used.  I expect it needed repriming as it is working fine now.

Morning Tea spot in the middle of nowhere on the way to Rolleston

Next morning, with both pumps working and spirits high, we set off towards Carnarvon Gorge.  The roads continue to be under repair and the countryside green and lush.  We stopped at the thriving metropolis of Rolleston, a two horse town in its heyday but now a sleepy, dusty little place with fuel.  Filling up we turned south towards Carnarvon Gorge about 75 klm away.  The road is sealed all the way except for the last few kilometres.