July 17

It was a really interesting drive from Roma to Carnarvon Gorge – we passed through hilly country with lots of different trees and fortunately, not too many road trains. Our caravan park last night was on the road to Carnarvon Gorge, Rolleston, Springsure & Emerald and from the time we arrived the trucks just didn’t stop. Helen pointed out this morning that yesterday was Sale Day at Roma so that may have accounted for the endless stream of trucks during the night. We used a fair bit of fuel getting here as the road was generally uphill plus we had a bit of a headwind. The 40 km in to Carnarvon Gorge was half bitumen / half gravel. The gravel section wasn’t too bad and not too dusty due to the rain a couple of days back. At the Caravan Park last night Helen ran into a woman who had driven out of the Gorge yesterday – their car and van had been covered in mud and they had to use a car wash in Roma to clean up. As rain is forecast for Sunday I’ll have my fingers crossed until we get to the bitumen. The Takarakka Bush Resort is in an excellent setting about 7 km from the National Park – there are lots of trees and birds around and we have a huge site. There’s a campfire burning most of the time and a large camp kitchen. The Visitors’ Centre at the National Park is located in a beautifully grassed and treed area with kangaroos relaxing in the shade. We did two walks this afternoon – an aboriginal cultural walk with a lot of interpretive signage which always makes things more interesting. The second walk was to the Rock Pool, the only place where swimming is permitted. While the pool isn’t very large or deep, the water was far too cold to swim in. When we visited there was a family relaxing there – the kids had found some coloured sandstone, ground it up and made their own aboriginal stencil painting by blowing the paint around their hands.