Author: Mrs A
Location: Kings Canyon National Park, California, USA
When we were exploring Kings Canyon in central Australia just over a month ago we had no idea there was another one over the pond in the US awaiting our visit. California’s Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks are somewhat entwined, you drive from one to the other almost without realising.
In contrast to Australia’s Kings Canyon’s weathered ancient sand dunes, California’s towers over us, its highest peak at 4,020 metres almost double Mount Kosciusko, Australia’s tallest summit.
Our first glimpses left us again spellbound, as we left behind the tall sequoia trees and climbed into mountainous country. Kings Canyon has been described as a ‘close competitor to Yosemite’ – and being our destination for the next couple of days, we are almost beside ourselves with anticipation of what might be ahead!
We drove through twisty turning mountain roads as far as we could go, opting to attempt a hike at the end.
We followed the Kings River for a couple of kilometres before we were stopped by a couple of National Parks officials about to detonate some fallen rocks. In interest of our health and making it safely beyond today, we retraced our steps to the car and drove on.
Our next destination was Roaring River Falls, where we chose to enjoy lunch – a sandwich and fruit prepared by our hotel. The falls were pretty impressive, and you could imagine how spectacular they would be in spring, after the snow melt.
Not much further along the road was Grizzly Falls, plunging deep down into the valley.
Despite the name, there are no Grizzly bears in these parts, only black bears. We have seen many warning signs about them but they are one furry critter we are yet to spot. Our eyes are regularly peeled and camera at the ready.
From here, we began climbing out of the valley and up back towards Sequoia, via many spectacular lookouts.
Back in Sequoia National Park, it was hard to miss out yet more giant trees, helping us feel miniature in their presence.
It is so hard to capture just how huge these trees are and the feeling you get walking here…you’ll just have to come and see for yourself!
We continued back to our hotel for the night, back to a hot shower, delicious cooked meal and some relaxation. Tomorrow – off to adventures new.
Set in beautifully landscaped grounds and housed in a modern stone building, lunch was served outside on a courtyard. The estate grows much of its own produce as well as all the wine served, with a philosophy of sourcing local and in season produce.
Lunch was delicious – every ingredient carefully chosen and perfectly prepared. Incredible wine also accompanied our food…the perfect ingredients for a long lazy afternoon.
However, Mr A and I were heading off, aiming for our next destination inland. Dave, SJ, Tim and Moki accompanied us into Paso Robles to the supermarket, where we farewelled our friends and headed off.
We drove through ever changing scenery to Three Rivers, a little settlement in the foothills of Sequoia National Park.
Back at the house, SJ had put some food out for the birds, and feathered friends flocked to their feast. The house is surrounded by nectar producing flowers, many we recognise from Australia, such as the kangaroo paw. This was a real favourite of the tiny sapphire green birds.
Before long, Tim and Dave had returned from their 80km cycle (!) and were feeling ravenous for lunch, so we piled into a couple of cars and headed 30 minutes towards the coast to the fishing town of Morro Bay.
Morro Bay is known for the huge volcanic rock which sits at the entrance of the bay, and the very active sea otter population, attracted to the fish in the bay as well as the discarded scraps.
After food we wandered along the waterfront looking for sea otters. They were not hard to spot, great little fishers, swimming on their backs to better eat their catch, often chased by herring gulls keen to steal an easy meal.
Wine tasting was next on the agenda, so we headed inland, stopping off at a couple of fabulous lookouts en route.
We drove to Opolo Wineries, where Moki was allowed to join us in the seating area while we tried some local tipples. Tim and I were the only ones keen for a taste, heading into the busy tasting room to try our drops.
We finished off our day with some take-out from a local restaurant in Atascadero and trying a local brew. Another fine day in California!
Tea progressed into champagne, and the four of us then went out for a delicious local curry – Mark and Chris careful not to overdo the cheese and nibbles before we went!
Mark drove excellently despite the stressful conditions, and before long we were emptying the last of our freezer bits and pieces and heading to our friends’ apartment in Matraville, not far from Botany Bay for a delicious roast lamb dinner and a well deserved glass of red wine.
Monday and Tuesday were earmarked for the all essential medical check ups, with good news for Mr A’s eye pressures, less good news for my airway (but a new procedure to try in October), and some steroid injections into my foot to allow some comfortable hiking in the USA.
Mr A took the opportunity to catch up with a bunch of old work colleagues for lunch while I had a hair cut. Lovely.
We finished off our day joining Jenny and David for dinner at a local Italian restaurant. Fabulous food and company as always.
While we are away, Miss Tassie will be staying here at her luxury pad in Matraville for the next month. She’s settled in nicely, already solar mapping out the apartment. Apparently the new chairs on the balcony suit her, while she is also finding the colour scheme elsewhere works with her glossy blue coat. She’s in good hands here.
We had a brief whirlwind of time to transfer our cases and food back into the caravan, dig out the smart clothes and get changed, before the four of us drove into Brisbane for the evening.
After this, we parted ways, Phil and Libby ending up at a pub helping celebrate a nephew’s birthday, while Mr A and I joined three lovely ladies for dinner in a French restaurant beside the water.
We have probably driven past this area a dozen times without any awareness of what’s here, but it’s a lovely rural settlement sat on the banks of the Clarence River close to the estuary. There are over 100 islands in the wide river here, the nearest to us being Goodwood Island.
The sun was starting to set so we only went a couple of kilometres, crossing over the bridge to Goodwood Island and checking out the wet sugar cane fields before returning for the evening.
More rain and thunder entertained us, a novelty after the dry and drought of the inland areas. Sadly, it seems the rain is sticking to the coast, not helping out the farmers this time.
And what a beautiful walk it is. We are days away from the offical start of spring here (1st September) but the wildflowers were out in abundance.
Several varieties of boronia, teatree, bottlebrush, peas, heath, eucalypts and more brightened our pathway, accompanied by the rhythmic hum of insects feeding on the nectar. It really was good for the soul and reminded us how much we love bush walking at this time of year.
The pathway was well marked and predominantly white sand or grass, very easy walking with a couple of water crossings along the way. The landscape was quite open with good views to the east, across to the Great Sandy National Park.
Even the trunks of the gum trees were beautiful!
We stopped walking after around 5km when we saw the path dropping steeply downhill, remembering we had to turn around at some point and return via the same route.
We definitely recommend getting out and enjoying the Australian bush at this time of year.
Queensland is very dry currently, not having had rain in this area for a couple of months. This is very evident in the sheer numbers of birds flocking to this little water source, particularly grey fantails and flocks of silvereyes, so gorgeous.
Six kilometres later we were back at camp for a relax. This is one of the nicest places we have parked our mobile apartment in a long while, surrounded by tall gum trees, dappled sunlight and high sandstone walls providing a picturesque backdrop. As we sat outside with a cup of tea a couple we had seen on our walk strolled past, the American man inviting Mark to join him on a cycle up to the dam later on in the afternoon. Mark accepted his invitation, and jumped on his bike for a ride.I meanwhile finished baking an orange and almond cake, and left that to cool while I went off on another 6km walk.
From there, I walked up to Dragon Cave, so named for the black ‘mural’ of a dragon up on the wall in there…with a little imagination. Generally I just enjoyed the clean fresh air, the sound of the birds and just being outdoors in the warm light of the late afternoon.
I reached camp just as the sun was setting, and Mr A was already sipping a glass of French red wine with his cycling partner and some other neighbours. It turns out the cyclist, Ben, works with mutual friends in Sydney. What a small world!
Cania Gorge had a gold rush in the 1870s, and the remnants were visible on a short walk. There was little gold here, with 183.5 tons of rock yielding only around 4.3kg of gold – a lot of work for little reward under gruelling conditions. Today felt pretty warm at about 25 degrees centigrade in the middle of winter. We had a wander around, then headed off to do another, longer walk.
We hiked up to a lookout giving us a fabulous view across this little National Park, before returning to camp.
Before long we were seeing signs for Rubyvale and Sapphire, and finally our destination for the evening in Emerald. Yes, you guessed it, we are in the gemfields, but not having a go at fossicking this time. That would involve attention to detail and patience, not Mr A’s strengths!
Looking at the map, it would be easy to miss little Cania Gorge. It sits about 150km from the coast inland from Gladstone, and like Carnarvon National Park has deep sandstone gorges and apparently a healthy population of platypus. We had been recommended this location by two separate friends who are or have been in the past local to this area, so thought it would be crazy to miss it.
A short cycle along the road allowed us to learn more about the multitude of wild creatures living here, many rare and endangered, and the evidence of 19,000 years of Aboriginal habitation in the gorge. Incredible. Already it feels like a very special place.
One of us (me) is more enthusiastic about this type of thing than the other, so we compromised and did a short visit, encompassing a trip to the working laboratory to see technicians working on the fossils, and some of the smaller fossils found, and then to the theatre to see a film about where many of the fossils were found, and the two most complete dinosaur skeletons in their collection. We missed out a longer trip which visited a collection of bronze models of how the dinosaurs may have looked, down on the flood plain.
Although it was dated at 150 million years old, it was hard not to believe it was just a sawn up log lying there!
We watched the painstaking patient work of the technicians removing the soil from the fossils. It takes literally years to reveal a fossil, and there is a 10 year backlog of work in the laboratory. You can volunteer to be a part of the team – there is a training course and exam, and once you are approved you can come along and join in whenever you would like. Patience and attention to detail an absolute must.
The final part of our tour took us to the theatre where we were shown the fossils recovered from a single site, revealing two completely different species of dinosaur – a carnivore and a herbivore.
Still it was interesting (for me) and so great there are people with such incredible passion in the world to ensure such things are pursued.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon doing some trip planning, gave a tour of our Zone to some potential future Zoners, and finished off our day back at the local pub for a fine feed.
The occasional roadkill of kangaroos, wild boars and cattle brought back plenty of raptors, with the giant wedge-tailed eagles always the last to leave their meal as we drove by. Flocks of button quail, green budgerigars and tiny firetails and zebra finches accompanied us for a few seconds at a time, before swiftly changing direction and disappearing off over the plain.
By 1pm we had reached the Middleton Hotel. Back in its heyday it was a major stopping point on the Cobb & Co route between Boulia and Winton, where tired horses were exchanged for fresh horses, with accomodation provided. Apparently the settlement of Middleton was once home to 26 permanent residents, but now it is just the rather surly and unfriendly publicans. We decided against stopping for lunch there after an unwelcoming response to our greeting.
We continued our journey, reaching Winton shortly after 5pm. We decided to set up camp at the Tattershall Hotel, and fortunately had booked ahead last night. As we reached the pub bar, a couple ahead of us took the final free spot on the campground.