Moores and Cindy were chatting with her this morning and the nurse and "mother hen" respectively have taken her under their wings. Before we left for our hike she had been examined, prescribed and given neurofen, and left with a Womens Weekly mag and leftover chocolates for the day. The rest of her group would be off hiking again today.
This group of teenagers are here for a week of daily hikes and overnight camps - they are with a few different Pathfinder groups from around the Brisbane area (this group is run by Seventh Day Adventist Church). They do either a day hike or pack up their little tents and food and do an overnight hike, camping out in the bush at some of the more remote and spectacular locations in the park.
From what we can gather they take groups away in school holidays for a week for different types of challenging activities - it appears to be about fostering self-reliance and leadership skills and pretty much "toughening" up. All the places and activites they do require coping with minimal gear and being mentally, emotinally and physically tough. Remember these kids are about the 14-16 yrs age group - both boys and girls. They must have been cold in their little tents, sleeping on the ground and they all have to bring their own food and cooking implements - for the week and for hiking overnight as they do all their own meals and cooking.
We thought they were just amazing and they were a great bunch of kids having a great time - don't worry they did have time for making their own fun.
We set off around 9am for a much less ambitious hike today - after having put down some serious kilometres yesterday and a couple of the group feeling bit sore from that.
It has turned out to be a "cracker" of a day - sunny and the most fantastic clear blue cloudless sky.
Most of the sites in the gorge are accessed from the main walking track. So today we headed out again for 5.4km walk back along the main track to the Art Gallery.
At this site there are over 2000 engravings, ochre stencils and free-hand paintings that adorn the 62m long sandstone walls. The "Art Gallery" is the best example of stencil art in Australia.
We were blown away by this site and it is the certainly the best aboriginal rock art that I have ever seen.
On the return leg we again head off the main track (1.6km return) to visit the site of the Amphitheatre. This is a 60m deep chamber hidden in the walls of the gorge that has been formed from running water. Inside the chamber is a cavern with towering stone walls - creating an awesome atmosphere within.
Accessing this site does require some climbing of tiered ladders - but it really was not too difficult and was entirely worth the efforts.
The decision having been made that this would be enough for today and we made our way back along the main track to the campsite. Along the way we enjoyed a picnic lunch in the sun at one of the lovely river crossings.
Having completed another 11.7km of walking today we all had sore feet and various other assorted aches and pains were being experienced by the group.
But after a rest and getting showered up - the three girls headed off back down to the section of the creek nearest to the campground (a glass of wine in hand) to try and capture some photos at sunset. It was very serene & peaceful at this time of day with the rippling of the creek and the activity of the birds, kangaroos and wallabies.
Again we had a combined effort for our evening meal and were off to bed early - as we were all tired and because of the cold.
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