One of the places we had spoken about going to while we were in Roma, and didn’t get around to until the week before we left, is Carnarvon Gorge, in the Queensland Central Highlands area. We’re really glad we made the effort, as it’s a stunning national park, and one that lives up to all the hype.
Carved out of the sandstone range over thousands of years, the gorge is of special significance in Aboriginal mythology and stencil art and images are scattered throughout the park.
There’s about 20 or so kms of graded walking tracks, and they are surrounded by eucalyptus, gum trees, palms, cycads, grasses, lichens, mosses, and, especially after rain, some beautiful wildflowers. There’s so much to look at, it’s difficult at times to watch your footing. I tripped a lot 
.
On the way in to Carnarvon we passed some cattle grazing on the side of the road – first off there was this family of mummy and baby cows, then we saw the Daddy. He wasn’t very impressed with me taking his photo – was glaring and stamping when we slowed down to take his photo.
There are a couple of options for staying in the gorge, but the only one open during the off season is Takarakka Camp Ground. The wilderness lodge is closed totally at this time of year, and the national park camp grounds are only opened during school holidays, we stayed at Takarakka. The cost for an unpowered site is $14 per night per person, which is a bit pricey, but as I said, there aren’t too many options this time of year. They have canvas cabins (basically a tent stretched over a frame) which has a double bed and 3 bunks, a fridge and a fan, for $130/night. (I’m not sure if these prices change during the high season). We chose an unpowered site. It’s the quiet time of the year right now so we had our choice, and there was plenty of room to spread out. The managers and grounds people are very nice, and there’s a convenience store, a really great camp kitchen and good clean toilet and shower facilities.
The camp grounds themselves are great for strolling around in and when we were there, kangaroos and wallabies were roaming around the park, and there are kookaburras, finches and parrots everywhere. There is also a type of cycad that only grows in Carnarvon Gorge and they are all through the park. Some of them are estimated to be hundreds of years old.
Behind the office/shop there’s the platypus pool, but being extremely shy creatures, they must have been hiding when we went for a look. But here’s a picture of the creek where they live .
Most of the walks start from the visitor information centre, which is 4kms from the camp grounds. The staff at the centre are very good and can help with any questions or information.
The following photos are in area of the gorge called Balloon Cave – an aboriginal art site. The walk to the cave is beautiful, with massive spotted gums, cabbage palms, cycads, ferns, grasses, and wildflowers. There are signs helping to identify plants which also explain how Aboriginals used the various plants to treat illnesses and make tools. I really loved this part of the national park.
I must admit, there are times when I’m a bit sceptical about the interpretation of Aboriginal art. My understanding is that Aboriginal history is passed down orally and pictorially, and a lot of it seems to be interpreted by elders whose role is to pass that knowledge down. However, it seems that due to a variety of reasons, a lot of the original meanings about their art, and the information it depicts has been lost over the years. There even seems to be a bit of disagreement over it amongst the different clans. I do struggle with relating some of the art to what we are told it means. But then again, I have that problem with modern art too. However, I love looking at the art and reading about how they used bush plants for medicine, tools and food, even if I do take some of it with a pinch of salt.
I love this tree – the Bats Wing Coral Tree, I haven’t seen it anywhwere else before although I believe it grows in a lot of places in Australia.
There are lots of different walks within the national park, but we only did a few of them. We’ll be back to do the rest of them though and next time we’ll allocate more time there. The best time is supposed to be between March and October, but it was January when we were there, and apart from the humidity, it was a good time to go because there weren’t any crowds. However, this is the wet season there, and it’s apparently not uncommon to be rained in with creeks and rivers flooding and cutting off the roads in and out, so it’s probably a good idea to check weather forecasts before going there.
The walk through the gorge is fairly easy going, but you go off at various points to visit other sites, such as the moss garden, etc, with each one adding from 3kms to 6kms to the walk. Some of these walks are really steep with lots of steps and even ladders to climb. We went as far as Ward’s Canyon – thought if we kept going we wouldn’t be able to do the return walk out of there I think we did really well to get to that point though – all up about 12 or 13kms, with a lot of steep areas. Timewise, it took us about a bit over 6 hours for that part of it. We both felt it the following 2 days 
– could hardly walk.
The Moss Garden
The moss garden was our favourite site out of all the ones we went to. To get to it was a killer though – steps, steps and more steps, but totally worth it . This is a beautiful shady oasis with mosses, lichens, fig trees and a beautiful pool of clear water. Stunning.
The Amphitheatre
This was our second favourite site. To get to the Amphitheatre you have to climb a ladder and walk through a fairly narrow canyon in the cliff wall. Once through the canyon, it opens out into the amphitheatre. Amazing to think this was created by water. There’s a sign telling how it happened.
River Crossings
There are quite a lot of river crossings in the gorge as the walk zig zags across Carnarvon Creek. The creek always has water in it and is crystal clear, but apparently unsuitable for drinking.
Not far from the Visitor Centre, there’s a great rock pool – perfect for cooling down and relaxing after walking the gorge. You have to walk a couple of hundred metres from the car park to get to it, but it’s an easy walk. The water is really clear, with lots of tiny little fish which would swim up to you whenever you stood still. The second time we went there, I cut the swim a bit short, or rather, a water snake cut it short for me – yuck!
On the way home, we passed a group of emus on the side of the road, but as we slowed down to take their photo, the stupid things started running and trying to jump over the fence so I only got the one photo, didn’t want them dropping dead of fright .
