Stumbled across one of the best, most spectacular places I have seen in Australia so far: Carnarvon Gorge. And to think I wasn’t even planning to visit the place. They only had official park service camping available after a 10km hike in, so I had anticipated giving it a miss. But seeing how most camp sites I have been to have been far less crowded than expected, I decided to call Takarakka Bush Resort, a private campground within the boundaries of the national park that I had read about to see if they might have room for me and my tent – and they did.
The drive into the park was really quite spectacular, starting with a pretty ordinary dull brown flat drive (it had been pretty average since I left Wilcannia, NSW) to a noticeable greening of the landscape to a full blown rich green forest sitting in a micro-climate with spectacular drops into deep gorges. I did a few short walks on the first day including one into a nice cool rock-pool for a swim that evening before doing another short hike up to see some cool old Aboriginal cave paintings. On the second day I did a bit of hiking up into the beautiful gorge. It was an extremely beautiful place. I would definitely say it would be one of the top things to see in Australia!
