Cool Carnarvon Gorge

Hey Everyone!!

Last week my family went to Carnarvon Gorge for an adventure. We met up with my Oma and Opa there. Vanilla came with me 🙂

Carnarvon Gorge is a beautiful gorge in central west Queensland that was formed millions of years ago. It has been shaped by water for a long, long time and this process is continuing.

We had lots of fun bush-walking and exploring the gorge and I would like to share it with you all.

Tuesday was the first full we spent there and we decided to walk to Mickeys Gorge and Boolimba Bluff. I rode Vanilla up to Mickeys Gorge and she loved it except when I had to tie her up near Warrumbah gorge so I could climb through it!!

The walk up Boolimba Bluff took a bit longer and was harder but the view was certainly worth it. And anyway, I love climbing up rocks on ladders!!

 

The next day Mum and Dad decided to go for a long walk, so Iluka and I stayed with Oma and Opa at their campsite. We thought it would be fun to try to climb the escarpment just across the creek. It was really fun scrambling up the escarpment and even though we got the scratches the view at the top was even better than the view from Boolimba Bluff I think 🙂

The other good thing about Oma and Opa’s campsite was all the kangaroos and wallabies. I spent ages watching the little joeys get out of their mummys pouch, play around for a bit and then hop back in again. It was so cute 🙂 There was also platypuses in the creek and I got to see a little baby one but I didn’t get any good photos of it.

That day Oma and Opa also decided to take us on the Nature Trail. It was a really nice little walk that took us along the creek 🙂

 

The next day, after seeing all the wonderful photos from Mum and Dads walk we decided to do the walk that they did but just not go so far. The plan was to walk past Moss Garden, go to the Amphitheatre and to Wards Canyon and then turn around and go to Moss Garden on the way back. We had to cross many creeks (actually I think it was the same creek in different places!) we used stepping stones and I always went the hardest way. Luckily my boots are waterproof!

The Amphitheatre was really amazing and beautiful. I loved how we had to climb up a ladder and then through a crack in the rock to an amazing area covered in moss and ferns.

The next gem we saw was Wards Canyon. It is the most western place where king ferns grow in Queensland. The king ferns also grow next to Wangoolba Creek on K’gari!

After Wards Canyon, Oma, Opa and I decided to keep going to the Art Gallery while Iluka, Mum and Dad headed back. The Art Gallery was really cool with lots of indigenous art work on the rocks. There was engravings and ones that were painted on the rock with ochre. It is cool to see stuff created by humans thousands of years ago!

We then had lunch and headed back towards the Moss Garden. The Moss Garden was really cool (temperature and amazing!) and I loved it! The water dripping down the walls has been stored in the sandstone for thousands of year and, unable to penetrate through the harder shale it drips down the sides of the rock face.

After that walk we were very tired and sore but we had loved it. I had walked 14km in total and Iluka had walked 11.7km.

The next day we said goodbye to Oma and Opa and headed off. We were going up to Kroombit Tops National Park for the weekend before we went back home.

We stayed at the Kroombit Ranger Barracks which were really cool. It was cold at night but we had a fire in the kitchen to keep us warm. Also, if we wanted electricity at night we had to turn on the generator. We went to bed by torchlight, because we couldn’t run the generator all night.

When we first arrived we saw a huge herd of feral cattle and three brumbies. They were all females, two bays, one brown. The brown one was pregnant. We tried to get close to them but they wouldn’t let us.

On Saturday we spent the day exploring the park. We went to the lookout, the rainforest walk and to see the ruins of  the army plane Beautiful Betsy.

The next day we left Kroombit Tops and came home to the Island. I had missed Starlight and Belle and my island home and so had Vanilla so we were glad when we finally made it. I have spent this week catching up on school work and preparing for Oma and Opa’s visit to the island. So stay tuned for the re-creation of Oma and Opa Come to Visit!!

Kailani, Starlight, Belle and Vanilla xxx