Wednesday 26 July 2017

Road Trip 2017 - Day 12 (19th July) - Spectacular Carnarvon Gorge!!!

Today we are revisiting Carnarvon Gorge - but staying in a new campground Sandstone Park as the National Park campground is only open for Qld school holidays (excluding Xmas/Summer holiday period).

We are pretty stunned to find that the 44km of road into Carnarvon Gorge is now bitumen - with only about 800 metres into the NP campground still dirt road.
In 2013 when we were last here it was a fairly ordinary dirt road all the way in from the highway.

We get checked into the campground and find a spot that suits us and it's not long before we are all set up and having lunch in the beautiful sunshine.


Sandstone Park campground is set high with beautiful expansive views for 360 degrees around the landscape leading into the main gorge areas.



We are excited to head into the NP campground and the visitor centre, a short 6km drive, to check out what else might have changed. We are happy to find that the campground is still as beautiful as we remembered from our previous stay here and wandered around the area to have a look at where we had previously been camped.


We then headed off across the creek to do the short Nature Walk loop and then back in the car to our campsite at Sandstone Park to start foraging for wood for a fire and then enjoy a relaxing afternoon in the sun.

We had been told by some travellers, we met at Jericho, that if you wander down in the long grasses at the edge of the campsites you will find plenty of wood - and this is exactly what we also found. I stumbled literally onto a decent couple of pieces that we sawed bits off and then left the rest, hidden where we found it, for our next couple of days here.

We enjoyed a lovely afternoon in the sun - even with the wind starting to spring up a bit as the day moved into dusk.

Taking a wander around this campground we find a rock carving that had been recently completed by and aboriginal artist - it's quite a work of art that he has carved into a rock on site here.


Of course we just love the way the RV travellers mark their campsite - with chairs and "the mini hills hoist" -  whilst they are out during the day


Fortunately we had our BBQ cooked (over the coals on our little barbie) and dinner eaten by the fire in the fading light - as about now the wind was really starting to whip up. 
We were forced to pack the awning away and quickly wash up so we could get tucked away inside Miss Q.

Well what a night it was - the wind became very very gusty and loud - with some gusts that were almost rocking the camper. 
It reminded us of a night we had last year in Mungo NP (in remote NSW) - "when we thought we would get blown off the edge of the earth".






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