Charters Towers to Roma

15 Nov – Shopped, LPG and fuel before leaving Charters Towers and driving south down the Gregory Developmental Road where we stopped for lunch at a bridge (no good for o/n stop) and continued on to the only civilization at the Belyando Crossing roadhouse. The camping area was closed as a mining company has taken over all the sites. We were allowed to park overnight in the shade. Beer with the locals. Interesting lot!!

16 Nov – An early start to avoid the heat. The road steadily deteriorated the further south we drove. We stopped for lunch at the nice little town of Clermont and then continued on for another 60kms to a smaller town, Capella. The camp had a beaut pool which we made the most of!! 39C today. Happy hour with the locals again. The camp manager was away and several of the locals were looking after the camp.

17 Nov – We decided to stay another day here and set off for a walk around the town before it got too hot. There was a great statue commemorating the “Light Horse Brigade”. Back in the pool and shade for the afternoon. The temp topped 40C.

18 Nov – Just a short drive to Emerald. This town is on the Capricornia Highway which we used to go west 2 years ago. Another huge circle completed on our map. After a quick shop and some phone calls we went off the main road to Lake Maraboon. This is a man-made lake but is nearly empty due to the drought. The camp overlooks the lake was with yet another great pool. It seems that we are going from pool to pool but with the temps in the high thirties who can blame us!! The camp is almost empty but must be very popular over the winter. The sport seem to be catching Red Claws, a type of fresh water crayfish.

19 Nov – We went for a walk to the lake before it got too hot. The lake is only 13% full and reminded us of Lake Mead in California/Nevada. Back to the camp and the pool for the rest of the day. At around 4:00pm the place starts to come alive and we were joined in the pool by a few. It seems they are either out on the lake or asleep in their air-con during the heat of the day.

20 Nov – On the road south by 7:30am and had a nice cool run of 230kms to Carnarvon Gorge National Park. Another great drive thru beautiful country, a mixture of bush, cattle ranch land and farming. We left the main road and drove 40kms into the National Park. The N.P. camp is closed for the season, so we booked into the Takarakka Bush Resort. One of the reasons we picked this route south was to come to this gorge, which was recommended to us. There was no pool, so we cooled off in the river which flows past our campsite. There is also a pool with Platypus in, which we have yet to see. At 5pm we went to a talk on the gorge which we will explore tomorrow. At sunset we had thousands of Little Red Flying Foxes flying around picking a roosting place for the night. It is comical watching them land in the trees as their feet are right at the bottom of their bodies. They grip onto a branch and then fall upside down.

21 Nov – We left the camp site by 6:30am and drove to the start of the track up the Carnarvon Gorge and were walking by 7:00am. There is a main track that follows up the gorge for about 6kms and there are side tracks leading off this to various scenic spots. We chose to walk right up the gorge and do the side tracks on the way back. 

Our first point of interest was the “Art Gallery”, an area of Aboriginal Art on a limestone cliff. Interesting as these figures were much newer (6,000 years) than the artwork we had seen on the west coast (30,000 years).

The next side track lead up into Wards Canyon. This was a beautiful, very narrow canyon.

A longer track climbed up to the “The Ampitheatre” via some steel ladders. A narrow slot opened out into a spectacular hidden valley with high cliffs all around. We were getting a bit buggered by this stage but carried on to the “Moss Garden”, another hidden waterfall with beautiful moss hanging all around. The last 3kms back to “Andy” were a bit of a battle with sore knees and feet. We had walked 17kms!!! Back at our camp we limped to the river and cooled off.

22 Nov – Our plan was to do another shorter walk before leaving the Carnarvon Gorge, but our bodies thought otherwise so we drove out of the National Park, back to the main road, and on to the small town of Injune for the night, where we stayed at the local racecourse.

23 Nov – A later start continuing our trip south and a short drive to Roma. This is a reasonable sized town servicing the farming area. After shopping we found a camp with a small swimming pool. Our plan is to publish this blog and walk up to the town for a meal tonight.