Day 83 15th July 2014 Tuesday. Boy oh boy was it cold last night. I got up twice to but on extra layers and was still numb. Kevin begged me to turn the heater on but the heater is not working due to a crushed inlet pipe. Will need to look at this later today to try and fix. We were ready with packed lunch by 9.00am and so off we went to the Visitor Centre. Firstly I bought a phone card to ring Tom Price and book the Mine Tour for Thursday morning. We all had a look around the centre and then it was off on the corrugated road to Knox Lookout which shows the intersection of 3 gorges. It was amazing. From here it was back to Joffre Lookout which looked down at a spectacular curved waterfall that forms a natural amphitheatre. It was a very long way down and we could see young people walking at the waters edge. It was a Grade 5 walk to get there. We then headed to Weano Gorge area and to Oxer and Junction Pool Lookouts. The gorges were very deep and in the shade so difficult to judge. We then pulled into the main car park and decided to have lunch before Kevin and I did Weano Gorge walk. We headed off just after 1pm and Walked along the cliff rim on the Upper Weano Gorge walk and then as we entered the gorge there were obstacles including large rocks and seasonal pools to navigate. There were a few short steep sections with no steps . It was a very narrow gorge and not that high in comparison to others but was very tranquil and enjoyable. We arrived at the start of the Lower Weano Gorge walk and came to some lovely pools. The track was quite rough in places and there were many obstacles. We came to another water area and could not see how we were going to be able to navigate this without getting wet up to our waists. We watched many people come and go but in the end decide it was too cold to go through the water to Handrail Pool as we would have to come back through the water to exit the gorge. We turned around disappointed and took the steep irregular steps back to the top of the gorge. As we had only been gone 1 hour we went over to Handcock Gorge trail ad went a little way down but it was a Grade 5 trail and was much too steep for me to be able to get back out. Mum and dad had stayed in the BBQ area and were reading their books when we came back. We then headed back to the main bitumen road and went to Mount Bruce (Punurrunha) to the Marandoo View area where we could see the mine site in the distance. Dad had his binoculars and this enabled us to see the big trucks working on site. While we were there a train came into the site for loading which was 248 carriages long. Got back to our site at 3.30pm so it was a long day of corrugated roads and red dust. Emptied the fuel cans into the 4WD ready for trip tomorrow to Tom Price. Girls won canasta, 3 all.
