From
Carnarvon to Kennedy Range NP 18 - 19/9/15
After packing up the caravan, getting fuel and gas, we stayed for some great coffee & Cake in town. We also had a look at the OP shop and found some lovely books for Sarah and some 50cent stubby holder to protect bottles in the fridge.
Martin bought some boccochino (baby mozzarella) to go with the delicious baby tomatoes and sweet basil we bought on the campground.
It’s 175 km from Carnarvon to Gascoyne Junction and the turn off to Kennedy Range NP. We thought we stop somewhere before that turn off but at 2.30 pm it was 35C so we kept on driving to enjoy the comfort of the air-conditioning a bit longer. At the turn off we had a late lunch (the cake in the morning was very filling), a chat with another Bushtracker owner and Martin lowered the tyre pressure to get ready for some gravel road (yeah!). A further 20 km later we stopped at a side road, hiding behind a hill but not far off the street. We had a lovely, lonely afternoon, listening to and watching birds (Crimson Chat and Zebra finch), reading magazines, playing and enjoyed a sunset dinner. Then at 9.15pm the first car went past us, followed by another 4 within 20 minutes… must have been Friday night pub meeting… at least no one stopped.
We woke early and managed the last 52km towards Kennedy Range well, arriving early enough to do a first hike before morning tea.
Draper Gorge
That was a beautiful hike, scrambling over rocks and bolder, taking in the beauty of the rock formation which is completely different from Karijini NP. Here it’s a “honeycomb” structure with high iron content and a lot of air- and iron-bubble-like shapes. We followed the riverbed and came across several – unfortunately- dry (seasonal) waterfalls. There were 2 waterholes / rock pools at the end of the hike where we observed some doves and zebra finches drinking and bathing.
After setting up camp properly and waiting for the sun to go down a little bit further we drove to another two short lookout/hikes. The first one was a 600m walk to Honeycomb Gorge, another seasonal dry waterfall plunging down from the honeycomb-structured cliffs. Sarah enjoyed placing stones in the holes like a lot of people had done before. The Sunrise lookout was just a short walk up onto a little hill. But Sarah was too tired and didn’t want to come along. We left the car doors open and went. It took her about 5 min before she climbed out looking for us. I went back down again and she was happy seeing me :-)
Back at the camp we started a fire to cook a stew in Martins camp oven. The fire burnt happily and the other campers slowly came over one after the other. By the time our dinner was ready we had a lovely crowd enjoying beer o’clock. The night was beautiful quiet and early next morning we went for our last hike, the Temple Gorge, a 2 km hike, that get progressively harder –or shall I say: rocky-er – until it ends under a prominent rock face referred to as ‘the Temple’ containing a waterhole and a seasonal waterfall. Sarah loved that hike and so did I. I just started wandering how we ever get Sarah on a ‘normal’ hike again, a flat bushwalking trail? This rock-climbing is just the best thing ever!
Backroads 20 - 22/9/15
We left the Kennedy Range in the late morning, driving all the way back to Gascoyne Junction, where we wanted to have some lunch. It turned out that it would take about an hour to an hour and a half to get our lunch so we decided to have a sandwich in the caravan. At least Sarah played on the playground for half an hour and was okay with that. Due to the upcoming school holidays we had decided to drive towards Kalbarri Nationalpark using the ‘back roads’ from Gascoyne Junction to Wooramel Roadhouse. This would make free-camp easier and safe us 120km. It turned out that the gravel road was smooth as a highway and hardly any one else was using it. A beautiful scenery, changing from savannah-like dry areas to green bushes and wildflowers. We truly enjoyed this peaceful drive. Also the free-camp in Pimbee national reserve was superb. 30m into an old side road, and no-one could see us.
No-one drove past us anyway, as we saw looking at the tracks on the road next morning… We drove for another 1.5 hours with no-one passing us. We saw goats, and emus, but had to do a little detour because the road we wanted to take was closed. Coming to the intersection at the highway we were quite sad to leave this beautiful drive behind us and join into ‘normal’ traffic again.
Another 2 days of driving and free-camps on a rest areas, not really worth mentioning. We didn’t do much, too many flies outside and tired after driving and sitting in the car.
