Author: Mrs A
Monday – location: Emerald, Queensland
We left Barcaldine and continued our journey east along the Capricorn Highway, and with it the landscape began to change. The flat treeless plains gave way to hills and forestry and we began to climb into the Great Dividing Range.
We stopped for a break at the bizarrely named Bogantuncan, once home to about 28 pubs, but now just a smattering of old houses and a historical train station. It was a nice spot to stretch our legs before we continued on.
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!
This area was formed around 70 million years ago, with around 80 extinct volcanic peaks around the region.
We set up camp in a big field, nice and peaceful if nothing else going for it – we paid $15 for the privilege – worth it compared to the packed free-camp on the edge of town we spotted – metres from the main highway with road-trains thundering past and with a bridge overhead carrying freight trains…no thank you!
Tuesday – location: from Emerald to Cania Gorge, Queensland
It was a very cold start to the day, with temperatures around zero first thing, and by the time we pulled away around 7.30am had reached the dizzying heights of 3 degrees. We had a long drive today so wanted to get a good start.
After an hour or so of driving we stopped in the town of Blackwater for some groceries and fuel, and then continued towards Biloela and down to the tiny Cania Gorge National Park.
The landscape continued to change as we drove, becoming the rich agricultural lands of Channel Country and then to a winding road through forested national park and state forest.
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.
Pulling into the bushland caravan park, we are as close to the National Park and its multitude of walks as possible – they start literally metres from our front door. It’s so lovely to be in a bushland setting again, particularly at this time of year. The acacia flowers are blooming yellow, providing a spectacular display as well as a beautiful perfume wherever you go – we’re looking forward to doing some walks in the next couple of days.
The campground is home to many birds, and 4pm sees the owners putting out lorikeet food, seeds and peanuts to attract them to the visitors. We popped along for a look, spotting rainbow lorikeets, pink cockatoos, king parrots, Australian magpies, kookaburras, crows, blue-faced honeyeaters and more.
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.
But we just couldn’t imagine what you would do for the weeks that some people are clearly spending here! There are four caravan parks in town, and no shops that seem to cater for them. What do all these nomads do here? Some on our camp look very settled in. Each to their own I guess.
Then a very chilled out day, concluding with a Goan fish curry courtesy of Mrs A’s fair hands. Well I have now graduated to kitchen assistant preparing the garlic, turmeric, ginger and blending up with pestle and mortar. Its a start!
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.
The first part of the road was very civilised bitumen. Then the dirt started. The corrugations weren’t too bad though and we made good time, pulling into our camp by mid afternoon at a huge cattle station (it was 2,750 square kilometres – about the same size as Argentina) that offered a patch of dirt and toilets. Jervois Station didn’t exactly seem to be making an effort to earn their camp fees, and we realised a bit too late we could have saved $15 and just pulled off to the side of the road!
(Photo of our local river name for Jenny Charlton née Marshall – mum/mum-in-law)
We travelled through what is called the Mitchell Grass Downs, Australia’s version of the American Prairies. It looks dry and unsupporting of life, but apparently is home to a multitude of birds, reptiles and mammals, uniquely suited to this biosystem.
Tobermory Station was a lot more welcoming, with a young lady from Norfolk checking us in. She and her husband had decided to spend a few months here with their children, helping out on their trip around Australia. Its great to chat to these people, to see so many couples with small children taking the opportunity to do something a bit different.
We spent the afternoon checking over everything on the car and van, and nothing we can see has fallen apart, amazing given the hammering on the road, On the Toyota one of the after market driving lights had come lose and worn a hole in the bull bar…that’s it.
On the Zone nothing we can see is amiss, and it is pretty much dust free inside. A far cry from some of the Plenty Highway travel experiences we have heard about and read!
We were treated to a fabulous viewing of a pair of huge Wedge-Tailed Eagles on our journey through the last piece of the journey, along the Donohue Highway – the Queensland end of the Plenty.
This was our longest dirt road trip, and to get to the other end with no major dramas was a good feeling. For those in the UK, this is the equivalent of driving coast to coast across the widest section of England and Wales on farm tracks!
Now came the clean up! A lot of red dust needed to be disapeared.
Three hours later all was done, the sun was setting and it was time for the pub. Of course it was the usual predictable menu options (steak or chicken “parmy”, and awful wine and beer options). But you expect that in outback Australia where there is a lack of competition and a customer base that doesn’t seem to want anything different.
Frightening…It was cooked well though and we definitely fulfilled our red meat quota for the month!
The circuit takes you firstly high up onto the walls of the Pound for spectacular views, before dropping down and winding its way across to a dry river bed, where you rock hop back to the beginning via some permanent water holes – like gold dust in this arid landscape.
The colours are so vivid in this incredible air, not polluted by traffic or smoke.
As the walls begin to close in on you for the last couple of kilometres you begin to appreciate the beauty of the rocks, not just the ochres, reds and salmons, but also yellows, mauves, purples and much much more. As the sunlight hits the walls above you it reflects into the shadows, creating more colour still – an absolute feast for the eyes. Even Mark’s limited visual palette was amazed.
We finished by walking past the waterholes – we recall that last time we were here we had seen some endangered yellow footed rock wallabies drinking here, but this time it was a little too busy for these shy creatures.
The final green waterhole is apparently suitable for swimming – though any thoughts of diving into its icy depths were far from our minds as we walked past. It is home to ducks, white faced herons and darters, so definitely supports some aquatic life.
We concluded our 9km hike with a burger from the cafe on site – well deserved we thought!
True to our experiences to date, yet more lovely Zoners.
Hopefully we will be back on line by Friday to update you how it went!
By mid morning Google was estimating we were still over 2 hrs from our planned lunch stop, and then…a miracle. We come round a bend to see two graders ponderously chugging up the road towards us, leaving in their wake a lovely smooth surface!
You wouldn’t have wanted to be around 400 million years ago when this bad baby hit earth. It was one of those views that we love in outback Australia – no sign of humans on the landscape for 360 degrees.
The Gorge is one of several in the West MacDonnell ranges, which spectacularly rise up out of the desert plain and stretch several hundred kilometres. We rocked up at was to be one of our prettiest campsites on this section of the trip, with views down into the gorge. We quickly unhitched and drove down the steep access road, parked up and hit the short trail into the gorge proper.
After a bit of rock scrambling we arrived at this little oasis, a pool of water in sharp contrast to the surrounding dry arid land. We spent a happy hour there watching the sun set fire to the walls of the gorge, then retraced our steps.
This was a view that demanded a decent glass of red, and we counted our blessings once again to be in the position to watch the sun go down on such a stunning outback vista.
We opted for a short and peaceful walk along the dry King’s Creek, an informative track with several birds accompanying us, particularly this ever-so-cute Dusky Grasswren a perky little desert dweller that didn’t seem to mind hopping around the rocks near us.
The national park is home to more than 600 species of plant, 10% of which are extremely rare and date back to the dinosaurs. This area has the highest diversity of fauna in any of Australia’s arid zones.
The resort has a pub and restaurant so we decided to give it a try for dinner. Unlike so many places we have come across on this trip, this actually had a decent choice of beverages – including Fat Yak and our local Manly, Sydney tipple, Four Pines beer.
Once you’re up the top of the walls it all gets a lot friendlier, with a lot of red rock hopping over the ancient fossilised sand dunes and sea bed. There is plenty of evidence of the area’s distant past, with fossilised ripples in the rock (they call it ripple-rock, of course) and evidence of the layers of silica in the rock from the drifting sand dunes.
The landscape is unlike anything else, the beehive like structures stretching out into the horizon. I found it interesting to learn that the rock here is all actually bright white sandstone – the red comes from a fungi which grows on the rock and through a chemical reaction allows the red sands from the surrounding arid area to stick to it, hence creating the bright red colour which practically glows in the sunlight.
While not busy, we were certainly not alone on this walk, several other hikers following on the same trajectory – mostly French, a few Chinese and Australians.
After completing the circuit we returned for a relaxed afternoon, Miss Tassie rolling in the red sand and needing a lot of brushing (which she loves!). I suspect the two events might be linked. Are we being manipulated by a Burmese cat?
We left for our ride from the Cultural Centre and followed our noses as there were no signs for a cycling path, but there was this rather large rock to head for.
We joined the pain path around the rock and checked the signage, it only showed walkers, but there were bike hire companies around and plenty of tyre marks, so off we went.
Riding a bike always brings a grin to our faces wherever we are, but to be riding along under this brilliant blue sky, dwarfed by this towering red rock…breathtaking. We just couldn’t stop ogling this magnificent scenery. Neither of us are in any way spiritual, but we both felt this to be the closest we could get, just sitting quietly looking up at this massive granite monolith towering over us.
The short walk we did here was one of the most enjoyable we have done from a scenic perspective for ages. It’s called the Valley of the Winds walk, and takes you up through the domes and in a 7km circuit.
(Below, a friendly Grey Shrike-Thrush which accompanied us on our walk)
We could easily have spent a few more days here, but we are now on a bit of deadline, given we have lost a couple of weeks from our itinerary. So soon it was time to pack up and move on.
We had a nice stroll around admiring the scenery and enjoying the feeling of being upright!
Sunday – location: Petermann
