Carnarvon Gorge
The drive from Charleville, though not a lot of kilometres, took much of the day due to innumerable sets of roadworks. Most were reduced to a single lane road at 40km/h with stopping to allow for oncoming traffic. The girls found it amusing when we listened into the roadwork conversation on the UHF. Nicholas was restrained enough not to give additional instruction to the workers.
Carnarvon Gorge is absolutely beautiful (no Internet and no phones)! So many walks to do through the National Park and abundant bird life and kangaroos. Our first walk was to Boolimba Bluff (6.4km) up ladders, steps from the bottom of the gorge to the top of the cliff; and what a view. On the way back down we had three lovely little 'tour guides', one devoted to Angela who is pregnant (only in Bianca's game ... relax) and was in need of special assistance. Baloon Cave (1km) had some aboriginal hand and tool stencils under a rock overhang and Rock Pool (0.5km) where we all had a splash in the cold water with shoes and socks off, though some of us made significantly bigger splashes than others.
The girls were so tired that they requested to go to bed before 7pm. Who are we to deny our darlings such a request.
Second day at Carnarvon and today we are tackling the longer walk. The 12 km round walk to Ward's Canyon. Everyone was feeling so good we decided, perhaps erroneously, to extend ourselves to the 14km walk to The Art Gallery (this turned out to be a two Chupa Chup walk). The Art Gallery is a 60m long cliff with Aboriginal stencils, freehand paintings and carvings. This is such a special place to the local Aboriginal people, though they are not fully sure what all the paintings depict.
Chelsea and Chantelle each practised their Girl Guide tracking signs.
After visiting all the attractions back through the canyon we were all pretty exhausted. We were back at base camp around 4pm. Ice creams for the children, except Bianca who was so tired she wanted to lie down. Bianca woke just after 7pm, had dinner, and went back to sleep.
Tomorrow we drive on to Emerald, a short drive.
Having a Relax in the 'Armchairs' on the way to the Bluff
The view from the bluff
Our camp setup. We just went outside our boundaries with the ropes
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Nicholas, did you push your wife into the rockpool?
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