We left 1770 and drove inland for about 8 hours. Great drive through the real Oz without the tourist gloss. We passed cowboy country, mining towns and huge open cast mines, cotton growing fields and sheep farms. The landscape varied from very arid to lush forested hills. Hardly saw any other cars on the journey and the final stretch was down 30km of unsealed road. You feel very small in this huge landscape. The main reason for the journey was to visit Carnarvon National Park. We camped in a fantastic bush camp in the park surrounded by fantastic wildlife. Had a number of great spots including the echnida (see photo), lots of cute swamp wallabies, a couple of rat kangeroos, lots of parrots and a couple of snakes swimming in the creek. Walked the 22km walk through the gorge which was totally amazing and saw the fantastic arboriginal artworks in the caves (thanks to the arboriginal peoples). On the second day walked up to Boolimba buff for fantastic views of the gorge and along the creek to try and see the elusive duck billed platypus without sucess. Great peaceful campsite. On leaving this area we travelled for 9 hours NE back towards the coast. We eneded up sleeping in a layby along the route as it was getting dark and kangeroos start running across the road, a bit to close for comfort as we drove along. It was a very nice layby until the massive trucks started speeding past at about 5.30am!! Up and away pretty sharpish.
