Driving into Carnarvon was a bit different as there are cultivated fields which we haven't seen for a very long time. Known as the fruit bowl of the area north of Perth, they grow bananas, tomatos and lots of other stuff. Was great getting locally grown veg and fruit. We also dropped South of the tropic of Capricorn for the first time since way back on day 2 of our trip in late June. Found a good bakery too plus they had a Woolies so stocked up enough food for a couple of weeks fingers crossed. From there headed east to Gascoyne junction which was quite a pretty drive following along the Gascoyne River. Plenty fat cattle and clay pans filled with water. Field up at Gascoyne junction and were very tempted to stay the night in the little campground as it and the pub looked very inviting but had a couple of hours daylight left so pressed on to Kennedy range.
Kennedy range is a massive 75km long, 25km sandstone plateau with 100-80metre cliffs running all around is edges so I don't think it's possible to drive on top. It's also really dry so was never stocked with sheep or cattle so in pretty good nick. We arrived in on Sun set and it was very spectacular with beautiful colours. The temple gorge campground is just just turn up and pay there which is great compared to all the hassles we have had recently trying to get into places. The unsealed roads were in awesome condition. Campground was nestled just near the cliffs with stunning views of the escarpement and incredible night skies. Plenty friendly happy campers and camp host as well.
Next day we walked over to honeycomb gorge along the base of escapement. Did it pretty early to avoid the heat and it was glorious with red Cliffs and masses of mauve Mulla Mulla plus a heap of other flowering shrubs and flowers. Walked out to the sunrise lookout which has good views along the escarpement. The gorge itself has walls pocked with little eroded holes hence the name. There was and a bathtub worth of a cloudy puddle at the bottom which we didn't swim in even thou the camp host was incredulous that we didn't. I can only imagine the bacterial count on such a stagnant cloudy pool even if you ignored the hornets!
After lunch, the lovely couple in the caravan next to us invited the kids over to play Uno and greed (cracking game for traveling) whilst we played food storage Tetris trying to squeeze all the supplies for two weeks back into the food drawers. Then headed up drapers gorge which was a fun rock scramble. At the end is a natural amphitheatre so Ciara brought the guitar and the kids played a few tunes up there. We didn't swim here either thou there was more water it was stagnant and green. We then headed up another gorge to the top of the escarpement which was spectacular as it was just before sunset and we could literally see for miles. Stunning.
Packed up the next morning and walked up temple gorge for an hour before we left. Very pretty as well. On our drive out we stopped at a clay pan the camphost told us about. All around the edges were the Burrows of the Dawson's burrowing bee. They are a sizeable 2cm bee that burrow tunnel in the clay where they lay their eggs. The tunnels are about 20cm long allegedly!! And have a rim around the top to keep water out. The bees only live in bee form for a month and the eggs survive under the ground floor the whole year till next season's breeding season.
Drove North then East along the Kingsford Smith mail trail (he has a contract to do the mail run between the coast and the stations back in the early 20th century) to Mt Augustus station. The drive was just a tapestry of pink, mauve, green, ivory wildflowers and shrubs. In places it was literally like a carpet and there were also heaps of birds like crimson chats, honey eaters and flocks of budgies ripping around anywhere there were River gums.
Beautiful off the beaten track place well worth a couple of days visit.
#END
No comments:
Post a Comment