Palm Valley and the West Macs

Monday, 16 January 2012

It's been a few years since our last stay in the Alice and it will probably be a while before we return...

From our caravan park we ventured northbound through 'The Gap' and into the centre of town only a few times. Alice Springs more or less resembled a ghost town with a lot of shops and residential dwellings up for lease or sale, the only hive of activity being the Yeperenye Shopping Centre.

To be honest, I was excited to swap deserted Alice Springs for a few days in the West MacDonnell Ranges.

We'd obtained the 'Mereenie Tour Pass', the permit granted by Central Land Council to access the Mereenie Loop Road (the gravel road out to Watarrka (Kings Canyon) National Park) and Gosse Bluff on Sunday, filled up, fuelled up – we were on our way to Hermansburg on the Larapinta Drive.

We didn't actually enter the community with its historic precinct dating back to the missionary days this time, we turned the opposite way to follow a very dry Finke River on our way to Palm Valley in the Finke Gorge National Park.

Steve and I camped here 11 years ago, on our honeymoon. This time we wanted to show Flip the spectacular landscape and pristine wilderness of Pam Valley.

The well-kept campground is right on the edge of a dry creek bed with beautiful views all round.

Our stay would have been perfect, except...we were outnumbered...

I admit it, the millions of obnoxious and bitey little black ants got to me that night!

I made sure I stayed in my chair with my feet up, Steve was on kitchen duty!

Tuesday, 17 January 2012

Why didn't I think of it last night? Workboots = no ant bites on toes!

We packed up the camper trailer and dropped it in the day use area a few hundred metres down the track on our way into Cycad Gorge and Palm Valley.
The next 4 km weren't suitable for trailers where rocky ledges give way to stretches of round river pebbles (of varying sizes) and soft sandy holes in between. Withered cliffs rising steep on both sides of the ancient river bed, cycads and fig trees defying gravity.

And then, of course, there are the palm trees, Australian Red Cabbage Palms (Livistona mariae), to be exact. They're endemic to this part of the Central Desert. No other species of palm tree grows in these harsh conditions, its closest relative can be found in Lawn Hill National Park, Queensland.

Palm Valley's palm trees are stately yet threatened as many people who come to see them ignorantly wander off the well-marked walking track, trampling all over the little seedlings.

We followed the shorter of the two marked tracks through the valley, the Arankaia track ('Arankaia' – pronounced: unk-kee-ah – is the Western Arrernte name for the palms). It's roughly 2km and we completed it before it got too hot in the middle of the day.

Gosse Bluff was next on our list. We had seen the giant meteor crater from the distance on our last journey, this time we were going to have a closer look.

Once again the information and illustration on Tnorala (Gosse Bluff) provided by the NT Parks & Wildlife Commission and the local Traditional Owners was excellent!

In the Dreamtime, when a large group of women danced across the sky as the Milky Way, one of the young mothers accidentally let her infant topple over the edge. He fell down to earth, hitting the ground hard, the 'turna' (the woodden baby carrier) falling on top of the baby creating the crater of Tnorala, forever burying him underneath. The mother, as the Evening Star and the father as the Morning Star are to this day looking for their missing baby.

According to extensive scientific studies this crater was formed 140 million years ago when a giant rock from outer space hit the earth. Flip wasn't the only one who had a hard time comprehending how a meteorite could have such an impact and then simply vaporise, disappear into thin air...

Next we thought we'd give the local economy a boost and visit Glen Helen Resort – bad move!

Eleven years ago we had a great time down by the waterhole and later at the bar.

This time the straightforward act of booking a campsite for a night took half an hour although the place was neither packed (with only 4 or 5 other campers there) nor overly fancy.

Steve had trouble explaining to the staff member (who was friendly enough) that a camper trailer tent wasn't suitable for being carried into the walk-in unpowered grassed sites as it was actually permanently attached to the trailer. The manager couldn't be bothered getting involved in the discussion whether we could park up in one one of the caravan sites without hooking up to electricity which we didn't really need. Sorry, this lack of can-do-attitude just doesn't cut it

In the end Steve paid an extra $6.00 for a powered site, $36.00 in total for a powered site on dirt.
We gave the bar and restaurant a miss and had a lovely home-cooked chili con carne instead.

The management's DILLIGAF attitude became even more obvious during the course of the late afternoon when we visited the campground's facilities. While the demountable bathrooms were neat enough the sewerage pit outside was in a rather dangerous state of disrepair...

Lesson learnt, we won't be frequenting Glen Helen Gorge again any time soon!

Boh boh!
Anja

The Outback Way – Plenty Highway

Thursday, 12 January 2011

We left Emerald early in the morning and made good way on the Capricorn Highway.
The pies we had for a late breakfast at the bakery in Alpha certainly hit a spot and kept us going. The 'QANTAS Founders Museum' and the 'Stockman's Hall of Fame' in Longreach will have to wait until next time though, we were on a mission.

From Winton we were going to follow the 'Outback Way', a series of remote roads that pass through the central Australian deserts and connect Winton with Laverton in Western Australia.

Since we still had too many hours of daylight left to even start thinking about setting up camp and it was still much more comfortable in our airconditioned 4WD than in the stifling heat outside, we kept travelling on the Kennedy Developmental Road. Another 170km further west on the 'Outback Way' we reached Middleton, our final destination for the day.

Flip had been requesting another night in a hotel, so we thought we'd check into the Hilton for the night. The Hilton Hotel in Middleton is situated opposite the Middleton Hotel.

The Middleton Hotel was built during the Cobb & Co era and served as change station (one of nine change stations on the coach route connecting Winton and Boulia) to replace tired horses with fresh ones. Between 1895 and 1915 Cobb & Co ran a mail service on this route. The distance of 384 km took four days to complete in those days. One of those old mail coaches is still on display outside the Middleton Hotel, this charming little place in the middle of nowhere.

It wasn't quite what Flip had been expecting when the Toms family checked into the Hilton Hotel across the road (no airconditioning, no TV, no pool – no charge). We were the only guests tonight and we'd even brought our own beds!

A little later we joined the publican, his family and a handful of locals at the Middleton, had a fabulous dinner of corned beef, vegetables and white sauce (of course) and watched a glorious outback sun set over the grassy plains.

Dinner was followed by the recital of a number of rather inappropriate poems. Luckily Flip wasn't listening, he was outside getting a lesson in whip cracking by the granddaughter who was roughly his age. A fun night was had by all.

Friday, 13 January 2011

The sunrise was just as spectacular as last night's sunset!

The mail truck arrived just before 6:00, a few minutes ahead of schedule, to drop of the mail and some freight.

There had been no other traffic over night, everything had been really quiet. Just one Barn Owl had perched itself on our tent to swoop down on some little critter a few metres away. As the moon was very bright I could see the bird quite well from our bed.

For a gold coin donation to the RFDS, the Royal Flying Doctor Service, we were welcome to use the facilities at the Middleton Hotel. We donated generously to the Flying Doctors, not just because we really enjoyed the hot shower. Travelling in remote areas makes you appreciate this vital service as one day you could be relying on their medical help yourself.

After having my coffee mug filled we bid farewell to the friendly folks at Middleton and headed west once again.

We stopped just a few kilometres down the track at Cawnpore Lookout where an information board invited us to imagine what the region would have looked like some 98 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous period, when the Eromanga Sea below would have been swarming with crocodiles and Ichthyosaurus.

By mid-morning we arrived in Boulia, again, almost 4 weeks after our first stopover in the 'Land of the 'Min Min lights'. But this time we wouldn't head north, recounting our steps, we were westbound. The Donohue Highway which connects Boulia with the Plenty Highway in the Northern Territory had reopened after the rains before Christmas, the creeks in the Channel Country had subsided again, the road was now open to 4WDs with high clearance.

Fabulous country, we passed the red sand dunes of the northern Simpson Desert, crossed the Georgina River and its many tributaries in the Channel Country where majestic gum trees line the creeks, watched the whirly-whirlies do their thing in the wide open Mitchell Grasslands (treeless plains of Mitchell Grass, grasses of the genus Astrebla) and crossed the QLD/NT border in the early afternoon, the same stretch of road now called the Plenty Highway.

Tonight we stopped at Jervois Station where once again we were the only campers for the night.

Saturday, 14 January 2011

I'm glad we didn't drive on to Gemtree Caravan Park further west on the Plenty Highway yesterday. While the small shop is open most days of the week, the caravan park is actually closed between November and February, a piece of vital information that had eluded us until we noticed the handwritten sign on the front gate.

During the winter months this place apparently is bustling with caravanners and fossickers, lots of semi-precious stones can be found here in the Harts Ranges. During summer it's quite a desolate place, customers to the shop mainly coming in from surrounding Aboriginal communities.

The rest of the journey was a breeze, driving the last 90 km of the Plenty Highway on sealed road, arriving at the 'G'Day Mate Caravan Park' in Alice Springs in the early afternoon.

Boh boh!
Anja

Emerald

Wednesday, 11 January 2011

We left the Mackay Highlands yesterday and pulled up in Emerald in the early afternoon.

Here the weary travellers found a reasonably priced motel room for the night, recently refurbished and very clean. When we turned on the TV (what luxury!) to watch the news, it hit us why there was a fresh lick of paint on the walls, all new furniture and appliances: Emerald, like so many other towns in Queensland, had also been hit by the big floods a year ago.

Listening yet again to the memorable and very emotional speech Anna Bligh (Queensland's Premier) held a year ago to the day brought it all back...

"As we weep for what we have lost, and as we grieve for family and friends and we confront the challenge that is before us, I want us to remember who we are.
We are Queenslanders. We're the people that they breed tough, north of the border."

Today it was hot and sunny in Emerald, 41ºC in the shade, those storm clouds brewing in the distance and the few drops of rain they would bring over night a far cry from the torrential downpours that resulted in the worst flooding in Queensland's history during December 2010 and January 2011.

Boh boh!
Anja

The Plural of Platypus

Apologies, I ran out of credit for the WiFi thingymagic a few days ago in Emerald, hence no internet connectivity for literally thousands of kilometres.

I guess I've got some catching up to do now that we've arrived in Alice Springs in the meantime...

Tuesday, 10 January 2012

Three unforgettable days in a rainforest retreat of our liking just went way too fast...

On Saturday, 7 January 2012 we left Cape Hillsborough.

After completing the usual chores such as grocery shopping and fuelling up, we headed for Eungella National Park.

I wanted to see Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) – and we'd been told that this national park in the Mackay Highlands was the place to see them.

It was quite an enjoyable drive through Pioneer Valley with its cane fields and small villages followed by a steep climb up the Clarke Range to the little township of Eungella.

The information provided once we were in the national park was somewhat patchy, to put it mildly. We had expected a proper visitor information centre at Broken River, something similar to Bowali in Kakadu National Park.

To start with, there was no room in the Broken River car park (which appears to be the key visitor site) to park our 4WD and trailer.

There's a Platypus viewing platform on one side of the road. In the middle of the day it's unlikely to spot platypus here, dusk and dawn are the best times. A handful of turtles were paddling in the river, poking their heads up in anticipation, obviously used to scoring a feed as a great many people still ignore all signs that prohibit feeding the wildlife.

I would have appreciated at least a little plaque with information on what species of turtle we could see from the platform – nothing!

A kiosk and an eco lodge can be found on the other side of the road – but the visitor information we came across consisted of three information boards in an unstaffed and otherwise bare room next to kiosk, nothing more. A laminated note on the outside door of the adjacent cafe indicated clearly that staff weren't interested in answering questions regarding camping bookings, etc.

After a drive through Crediton State Forest we found Crediton Hall, an old timber building with corrugated iron roof that serves the local tight-knit farming community as a meeting place. Here we could have camped for the night on the grassy area next to the building, toilets and fire place looked inviting enough – but it didn't quite have the feel we were after.

After lunch and some (heated) deliberation we decided to head back down to Finch Hatton, a small township at the base of this magnificent range. After all, a phone call at Platypus Bush Camp several days earlier had revealed that pre-booking a site wasn't necessary, we could just turn up – and it had 'Platypus' in the name. Nomen est omen, we thought – and I was not going to leave the Mackay Highlands without spotting a platypus in the wild!

A few shallow water crossings on the gravel road to Finch Hatton Gorge were no real challenge. Along the way we noticed a couple of local families swimming in the rock pools by the side of Gorge Road, in crystal clear water. Just 2 km short of Finch Hatton Gorge we found the Platypus Bush Camp. Some fellow campers had already set up camp but Wazza asked a very friendly Canadian couple to move their Jucy van so we could nudge our camper trailer into a level niche between a small shed and the creek.

Once the tent was up and the boxes unpacked, we went to explore Wazza's unique rainforest retreat. What a place! The sparkling clear creek safe to swim in (no crocs, stingers or other nasties), bush toilets with monstrous resident Green Tree Frogs, showers with a view, hot water from a wood-fired oven – all nestled into dense rainforest vegetation complete with over 50 species of birds. And the huts...next time I'm going to stay in one of the huts!

The Platypus viewing pool was only a short stroll upstream from where we were camped. No swimming or fishing here, no disturbing the wildlife!

I'm happy to announce that on Saturday, 7 January 2012, the sun had set already and the full moon was on its way up, I spotted my first Platypus in the wild!

Funny little creatures they are: the bill almost as broad and long as the tail, brown fur, big claws on the front feet – and lightning fast in the water.

This little critter, only about 30-40cm long from bill to tail, would pop up after a dive in the deeps of the pool, float on the surface for a few seconds and then, bum up and bill down, disappear again for a few minutes. Truly special!

We shared our platypus-viewing experience with a small number of like-minded travellers. Everybody at Platypus Bush Camp respects its “Land for Wildlife” status and tries to leave as little impact as possible while enjoying the beauty and diversity of the place during their stay.

I would like to make a point of this as only a couple of kilometres further upstream, in Finch Hatton Gorge (also part of Eungella National Park) we would make a totally different experience just a couple of days later.

The proximity to Mackay makes the gorge with its swimming holes and rock pools a popular destination for day trippers – not much different to Buley Rockhole and Florence Falls in Litchfield National Park. These places get totally overrun on long weekends with visitors from Darwin.

So we decided to wait and hike the trail up Finch Hatton Gorge on Monday instead and spend Sunday (8 January 2012) relaxing and swimming in the rockhole at the bush camp instead, followed by more platypus spotting at dusk. By the way, the plural of platypus is 'platypuses' or simply 'platypus'.

There were surprisingly few mosquitoes around, bliss! Wazza reckons the frogs are taking care of mozzie larvae in the very few stagnant pools of water, the creek otherwise flowing too fast for pesky mosquitoes to breed in.

On Monday, 9 January 2012 we raised early to head up Finch Hatton Gorge.

We were the first ones on the well defined trail that leads about 2km up the gorge to the 'Wheel of Fire'. Well, if the information boards were a little more informative I wouldn't have been left guessing as to why you would name a waterfall with something “fire” in it – apparently there's a plant of this name growing around the place.

We also stopped at the 'Araluen Cascades' where testosterone-driven teenagers and young adults jumping and diving off cliffs and trees into the deep pool below, ignoring the warning signs on the rocks not to dive as deaths have occurred here, were totally oblivious to the wildlife we spotted: goannas, spiders, chubby skinks and tree snakes. Yep, that's Flip in snorkelling there, still struggling with his head above the water he's a pro with the snorkel!

The walk would have been nice enough – but the rubbish left behind by the weekends revellers really turned us off! Somebody even left a 25l esky on the walking track, half-filled with empty stubbies. By the time we reached the car park the esky was full with rubbish we'd collected along the walking track. Disgusting!

Back at Platypus Bush Camp Steve separated recyclable empties from general rubbish, cleaned the esky thoroughly and put it to good use immediately. We treated ourselves to more swimming in the rock pool (even Dog, Wazza's canine pet, jumped on one of the tubes to join the fun in the water), listening to the birds and the frogs. Unwinding is so easy at this place.

The explorers vowed to return as the lot of us could have stayed longer – a lot longer!

Boh boh!

Anja

Cape Hillsborough National Park

Thursday, 05 January 2012

Happy New Year!

The three explorers left Bargara on 31 December 2011, stocked up on food and fuel in Bundaberg and headed north on the Bruce Highway.

We took a little detour to check out the Town of 1770 and Agnes Waters, beautiful places – and crowded too. The Workman's Beach camping area which at a different time of year should prove a worthwhile rest stop, showed tell-tale signs of a New Years Eve party (involving several dozens of teenagers and P-platers in various states of sobriety, rubbish strewn around their camping sites, lovely!) in full swing at around lunchtime...
However, we're glad we checked out Round Hill and the beautiful scenery that would have amazed Captain Cook just the same when he anchored here in Bustard Bay in May 1770.

We rolled through Rockhampton in the early afternoon.
You know you're in cattle country when you see a bride and groom exchanging their vows in a small park next to the Bruce Highway, just a stone throw away from the oversized replica of a Brahman bull situated in the centre of a roundabout right on the Bruce Highway. There was another cattle sculpture in the same park (Santa Gertrudis? Romagnola? It was big and brown and in the flesh would have made any breeder proud) and we couldn't help but wonder if it would serve as a backdrop for the official wedding photos.

We passed through Rockhampton and left Yaamba behind as well. A little later it became obvious that we wouldn't make it to Carmila Beach or any other worthwhile rest or camping area until after dark. And to be honest, we didn't really feel like pitching the tent after the late night we'd had at Bargara and the overall distance travelled for the day. So we treated ourselves to a motel room and the luxury of an ensuite bathroom in the small township of Marlborough.

Dinner was noteworthy for the flustered manager of the establishment who'd given most of her staff the night off to celebrate at the local hotel. She was completely out of her depth when guests (the Toms family) unexpectedly checked in and demanded a feed and she apologised profusely about not being familiar with the content of the fridge/ freezer in her kitchen. We enjoyed our meal nonetheless (as otherwise it would have been 2 minute noodles) and retired to our room where two thirds of the party didn't manage to stay awake to great the new year.

The Toms family started into the year 2012 well rested, happy and healthy and arrived in Cape Hillsborough National Park at noon.

It's a beautiful little national park just north of Mackay. We decided to set up camp at Cape Hillsborough Nature Resort, a caravan and camping park on Casuarina Beach – and after checking out the other camping areas of nearby Seaforth, Haliday and Ball Bay I must say it was a good decision.

We parked our camper trailer in an unpowered site right behind the dunes, taking delight in the scent of flowering hibiscus and native gardenias that builds up to a powerful perfume while the sea is calm and the breeze is only light. Coconut palms line the grey sandy beach that glistens and sparkles with the finest shards of mother of pearl.

The hills around us are densely vegetated with Hoop Pine (Araucaria Cunninghamii), Elegant Palms (should have written it down), different species of figs, eucalypts grass trees and ferns of various shapes and sizes. Over 150 different species of birds frequent the area and I'm happy to announce my first sighting of an Olive-backed Sunbird! Beautiful little thing, wish it would have stayed a bit longer!

Laughing Kookaburras, Brush Turkeys and Orange-footed Scrub fowl are among our early morning visitors while the possums make themselves at home throughout our camp at night (and even use the roof of our canvas tent as a playground for their joeys). The nocturnal wildlife with their light sensitive eyes come out of their hollows and down the trees after dark. I would hate to harass possums and other critters with the strong flashlight of my camera, temporarily blinding them, hence there are no photos of these furry natives.

Occasionally a young female Eastern Grey Kangaroo calls in as well, after an early morning hop on the beach. Yep, the wallabies and kangaroos in this part of the woods are beach goers!

And why wouldn't they...

  

 

Since it is such a relaxing and picturesque place, we decided pretty early on to extend by two nights.

Yesterday we tackled the Andrews Point Trail in the morning to avoid the heat of the day. The walking track ascends on the southern side of Casuarina Beach in the shade of dense rainforest vegetation. We could hear a great many chubby skinks rustling in the leaves. After not even 20 minutes we had reached the first viewing platform, Twin Beach lookout. Below us Casuarina Beach and Wedge Island, stunning views!

We continued on the track and stopped at Turtle Lookout and Andrews Point next. By the time we reached Wedge Island Lookout the tide was on the way out so we could return to our camp taking the shortcut along the beach. I walked across to Wedge Island as the causeway was no longer submerged, a few anglers were heading over to the rocks as well.

This morning we took the narrow 4WD track that starts behind the resort's reception building and leads to the Yuibera Plant Trail, an Aboriginal plant use walk on the southern side of the hill. It was rather interesting to compare the native vegetation with related plant species and their uses we know from Kakadu and the Top End. Anyway, I'm still not too keen on the Rotten Cheese Fruit (Morinda citrifolia) which is said to be a great cure for colds.

Another couple of walks to tackle yet, there's a mangrove board walk as well as a walk along the beach to Beachcombers Cove at low tide. Steve is still keen to go fishing on the beach. And since all vegetation is protected and he can't just cut one of these straight-growing Beach Hibiscus saplings to make a fishing spear, he will have to use rod, reel and prawns for bait.

We may yet have to extend our stay at Cape Hillsborough for another day or so before we can embark on our next adventure in the Mackay Highlands – there's still so much to explore here!

Boh boh!

Anja