The first driving stint was going to be an incredible 800 km! Just outside of Roma, about 2/3rds of the way, we hit a really bad hail storm. We could barely see the front of the car let alone the road in front of us, so we just kept driving, slower than norm and even slower after we saw a kangaroo hop across the road in front of us!
The best view during the storm!!
The calm after the storm...
At about 6.30pm we reached our destination and set up camp as soon as possible, and not a moment too soon as just as the last peg was hammered in, the next rain storm arrived!
As it was raining, there was not much else we could do but make dinner, and it seemed like everyone had the same idea. We managed to get a space at one of the stoves and make our special tomato pasta, yum....
Next morning we set off from the Info centre at 9am for our 14km hike through the gorge. You end up crossing the river about a dozen times. Marc being Marc, he had to make the 1st splash - I think by the end we were even ;)
Along our walk we came across these little fury caterpillars crossing our path, we almost didn't see them but couldn't resist taking some pics.
The moss gardens were really interesting to see and quite a climb to get to them. The water runs down the side of the cliff face into the river and as it's so damp and shaded the moss grows very well here. I must say it was a relief to find this area being so cool as the hike so far had made us really hot and it wasn't even midday yet!
We kept overtaking and then being passed by two girls along the way and we all ended up at the Art Gallery. The girls had arrived there before us and we found out that they were going to camp at Big Bend tonight. They didn't seem convinced by the authenticity of the paintings on the cliff face and weren't the friendliest of people we had met so far on our travels. Even so, we still enjoyed looking at the rock art and trying to figure out what it all meant. We discovered a box with a book in it for visitors to write their thoughts in, so this seemed to shed some light on some of the carvings.
We were going to visit the Amphitheater next but it was closed so we decided to visit the waterfall and have some lunch before heading back to the info centre.
Arriving back at the info centre at 3pm and as it was getting pretty hot we decided to stop off at the rock pools, but with it being low season the water reeds were in full force and the pools looked very swampy so decided to give it a miss and opt for a cold shower back at the campsite.
As it was still early, we walked up to the campsite view point and shortly after arriving we heard a bit of a commotion and discovered that down in the valley a roo fight brewing. It was very scary hearing them yelp and hop after each other and kick about, but as we were quite high up, we felt a little safer.
In the campsite there were a few wallaby's and roo's scattered about and they are a little tamer so it's nice to see them so relaxed. We then headed to the river to try and spot another platypus but no luck here. Instead we opted for an ice-cream under the trees and then tried to try find some enchina's but still no luck.
During the night another thunder storm hit the campsite and we could hear the English boys in the tent closest to us fumble about to get the tent pegged down and put the cover on. We on the other hand were quite relived that the storm had come as the humidity and heat was becoming unbearable.
Since we didn't walk and hike enough yesterday ;) we decided to trek up Boowinda Bluff... before leaving the camp site Marc had a brilliant idea and managed to sneak our cooler box into one of the empty cabins at the back of the campsite, he he he
Then as we walked along the base of the cliff we saw a lot of kangaroos and wallabies. They looked like they didn't have a care in the world and on one occasion we stopped and just watched them and they in turn watched us for a bit too.
The climb was pretty tough and we probably didn't think it through properly, but as we're only here once, we may as well make the most of it. There was so many steps to climb up as the route to the top was between two cliffs.
We did have to watch out for the spider webs that streached across the paths as there are some very large & colourful spiders around and being bitten by one would be the last thing on our list of things to do in Oz.
Once at the top we were rewarded with amazing views over the canyon/gorge, there was a lot of mist hanging about at the top of the surrounding mountains as we were in the middle of a huge valley so the views were restricted somewhat. We did have to be careful as there weren't any guard rails to stop us going over the edge and also we didn't want to go too close to the edge as you never know how stable the cliff edges are.
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