Emerald to Carnarvon Gorge

Thursday, 24 October 2024

Off into the wilds we go heading for Carnarvon Gorge National Park today for three nights and we are expecting that it might be three nights without internet access. We shall see when we get there if there is any signal and will consider it a bonus if we can connect and continue to post our travelblogs.

Finally, we left the Gregory Highway (at some point it changed from being the Developmental Road and became a highway?) behind us continuing on the Great Inland Way on the Dawson Highway. We could see that this is a wheat growing area when we passed through Gindie where we could see wheat stubble in the fields and a couple of huge tarpaulin-covered wheat stockpiles. 

As we motored along a car approaching us flashed its lights frantically. We weren’t sure what to expect? Some sort of road hazard? Wildlife or cattle on the road? Nope, a vehicle with a speed camera was hiding in the next roadside parking bay. That’s OK, Bernie wasn’t speeding with the cruise control set on 100/kph.

We enjoyed some dramatic scenery driving between Emerald and Springsure with the peaks of the Minerva Hills National Park to the west of us. And the flora was not unlike what you can find in the Great Dividing Range in NSW or Victoria. As we neared Springsure we spotted the sign for the Virgin Rock Viewing Area. We pulled in to take a couple of photos of the cliff face with its weathered depression that is said to resemble the Virgin Mary holding the baby, Jesus. Hmmn, we were struggling to see the image but perhaps it is more striking at night when it is lit up???

We continued into Springsure where we stopped at the public toilets located near a picturesque old cottage not far from the Federation Woolshed. The loos were adjacent to a children’s play area, and I was very amused that there was a sign on the gate to say that horses are prohibited. Dogs too!

You really can take the girl out of the country BUT you can’t take the country out of the girl. We passed a sign today that seemed to be indicating that the stock being run on the station are Charbray. That’s been nagging at me all afternoon whether that IS a breed of cattle or not. I just Googled – no wi-fi, but I’m hot-spotted to my phone – to learn that Charbray are a cross between French Charolais cattle and American Brahmans. Always interesting to learn about a new breed of cattle.

We passed the turn off for the Meteor Downs coal mine about 25 kilometres out from Rolleston and the turn off to the Rolleston Coal Mine soon after that. There seems to be a bit of coal mining in the central highlands of Queensland. Driving into Rolleston there was a sign up saying that cattle road trains travelling to tick-free areas must go via the Rolleston Dip to treat their cargo before proceeding. We followed three cattle road trains into town so they were either heading to Gladstone or to the cattle dip before they could proceed south on the Carnarvon Highway!

Cathy and Bernie did some calculations on how much fuel was in the tanks (enough for about 600 Ks) and how many kilometres we would have to cover going into the gorge and then on to Injune on Sunday (about 260 Ks) which would be where the next fuel would be available. It was decided that the vehicles did not need to be topped up, but we went into the BP Servo anyway to track down some sandwiches to take with us for lunch 

Departing Rolleston, we crossed the Comet River and found that the Great Inland Way now uses the Carnarvon Highway to continue south. After some very flat and uninteresting scenery after the Minerva Hills near Springsure and on through Rolleston we found the landscape getting hillier again as we headed towards the turn off for Carnarvon Gorge. At 62 kilometres out of Rolleston we took the turn off to drive the remaining 40 kilometres into the gorge.

As we were driving in, we had to drive over lots of floodways with the lowest creek crossing having flood markers able to indicate four metres of water. With cloud developing over the national park I said to Bernie that we don’t want too much rain in the next three days with all these floodways as we might be stranded at Carnavon Gorge. Ever the optimist Bernie said if it rains later today the water will have plenty of time to clear before we need to get out on Sunday.

We arrived in the park and drove past the turn off to the Breeze Holiday Park. It was not quite 1.00pm so we thought it was a bit early to attempt checking in. We had decided as we drove in that we would head for the Rock Pool, a swimming hole on the Carnavon Creek with picnic tables and toilets. That sounded like an idyllic spot to eat our sandwiches.

As we got out of the car we could feel a spit or two of rain. Hmmn, is it going to rain or is it going to go around us? It’s only 200 metres to the Rock Pool let’s walk that far and then decide whether to stay to eat or not. We arrived at the picnic table, set our food down and then checked out the creek. Bernie braved the steppingstones to cross to the other side to look at the swimming hole. We broke out the sandwiches and started eating and it went beyond spitting to raining. Steve took shelter under a cabbage palm, but those of us raised in Warragul and Drouin thought meh, we can tough it out.

The rain turned to a deluge and reached the point where even the Gippslanders conceded that we could not continue our picnic in it, ha, ha. Steve sprinted for the car park with the rest of us following more sedately behind. I certainly didn’t want to slip over in the mud and arrive back at the car wet AND filthy. We jumped into the vehicle and headed back to the holiday park.

With the rain lightening we parked the vehicles and jumped the puddles across to the reception building. We signed in and paid for our Deluxe Cabins. While we were in Mount Surprise we decided to upgrade from the Standard Studio Cabins and spoil ourselves a little bit. We had saved some money when we were relocated from Undara to Mount Surprise so … why not?! By the time we were ready to return to the cars the heavens had opened again effectively trapping us at the reception building. You’ve gotta love Queensland, when it rains it pours.

There was an ice-cream fridge in Reception, so Bernie asked if I wanted an ice-cream. Why the hell not, I said. If bad weather is getting in the way of your plans, eat ice-cream!! We finished our ice-creams and still it was chucking it down. Eventually, it eased again to a light drizzle so we decided to move the cars to our cabins and move in for the next three nights. It was a little challenging as we could not park right next to the cabins, but we managed to transfer our gear from the vehicles to the cabins without getting too wet.

We sat around in our cabin for an hour or so then noted that the sky seemed to be clearing. Shall we attempt the short Mickey Creek Walk to Warrumbah Bluff? It was significantly cooler after the rain, so it seemed like a good plan to take a short (three-kilometre return) hike when it wasn’t roasting hot. We needed to drive to the car park at Mickey Creek so headed to the vehicles at about a quarter to four. We were at the truck a few minutes ahead of Cathy and Steve and when they joined us, they asked if our power had gone off? Um, no, it was still on when we left our room, but probably isn’t now if yours is out.

Anyhow, if there’s no power we may as well head off on our walk as there’s not much else to do without power. We turned out onto the main access road and drove as far as the Wilderness Lodge when a guy heading out waved us down to tell us that three trees had fallen at Mickey Creek and we couldn’t get through to Mickey Creek or beyond. Well, that was the easiest three-kilometre walk that we’ve never done, ha, ha.

Having arrived back at our cabins we were walking to the platypus viewing area. Bernie was ahead of me talking to the roos grazing by the creek when I spied something slithering past me out of the corner of my eye. Yup, a bloody snake. I just knew that we wouldn’t get through this holiday without seeing a snake. I squealed and stopped AND the snake stopped too. It was past me, and I just needed it to keep slithering away from me to be able to move. Bernie was trying to coax me past, but NO WAY was I going to walk past it. It was a monster python. OK, exaggerating, maybe 40-50 centimetres and as thick as my index finger.

Bernie could see he wasn’t going to get me down to the creek, so we walked over to reception to find out about the power outage and storm damage. Hmmn, everything was running at reception AND in the rest of the park because the generator had kicked in. Unfortunately, the Deluxe Cabins have only been installed this season and they are not hooked up to the generator. Damn, paying the big $$ to be without power and the staff member on the desk couldn’t say for how long. The problem is in Rolleston where the storm hit harder, and they are working on restoring power. On the plus side (?) there was power in the laundry, so we decided to buy a token to do a load of washing. Might as well put the time to good use, eh?

With the washing on and long pants, socks and shoes on (me anyway!) we decided to have another go at staking out the platypus viewing area. We waited and waited hoping that one of these elusive creatures would put in an appearance. Other people came and went, most only seemed prepared to invest a couple of minutes trying to see a platypus. I on the other hand stood by the creek for about an hour for no return. We heard a plop that ‘could’ have been the platypus, and we saw some movement in the foliage along the side of the creek but did not get even a glimpse of one. We’ll try again tomorrow evening.

Time to cook some dinner. We have no power in our cabins but there is light and power in the camp kitchen and a gas BBQ, so Bernie was able to cook up our burgers, steaks and snags and we ate them with some salad in the camp kitchen. One of the staff came around to let us know that the power should be back on sometime this evening but, just in case it’s not, he’ll open the toilet block so we can have hot showers in the morning. With electric hot water in the cabins, we will not have hot water if the power is out all night! 

We rinsed our dishes in the camp kitchen then took them back to the cabin to wash properly when the power is back on. We decided to transfer our perishables to the fridge over in the camp kitchen rather than let it warm up overnight if the power is not back on for hours. Wouldn’t you know it?! Bernie was barely back in the cabin from his trek over to the camp kitchen when the power came back on … about five hours after it failed.

Carnarvon Gorge is certainly proving to be quite an adventure so far. Hopefully we will be able to do some exploring tomorrow? We certainly have our fingers crossed that the storm has not closed down all the walking tracks. Well, not beyond this afternoon anyway although there was some talk about needing one of the neighbouring farmers to come in with some machinery to help clear the trees at Mickey’s Creek? Ah well, that’s a problem for the morning.

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