Porcupine Gorge + White Mountains National Park : Porcupine was gorgeous (sorry Ithica) and a nice place to camp. I couldn’t book the campsite in advance but fortunately there were plenty of spaces available. Only 2 other couples camping.
Like Carnarvan Gorge, Porcupine Gorge seemed to have its own micro-climate of lush green tropics even though the surrounding landscape was brown. The camping was on the ridge at the top but there was a 1km trail I hiked down to visit the gorge floor first thing in the morning (while it was cool).
Afterwards I headed for White Mountains National Park to re-evaluate whether I wanted to camp in the hot, dry, isolated (snake infested?) place and decided to just mountain bike the 10km 4wd track in there instead. Racked up 25km round trip (including a little side exploring in the forest) which felt good for a change from driving all the time.
