Carnarvon Gorge -1

We stayed for 3 nights in Emerald relaxing before taking off driving south as we wanted to visit and walk in the Carnarvon Gorge National Park, that had been highly recommended to us. The campground at the Gorge was booked out for the next 8 days, so we decided to stay on Rolleston, about 100km from the entrance to the Gorge (the closest campground there was) and drive from there in the morning to go on our walk.

What an experience! I have done many bushwalks in my life but haven’t been to anything as beautiful and literally awe-some as this!

The main part of the walk is only 10.8km long. After that it becomes a more rugged bush walk and only some people go further to the end. There are several paths that go off to the side, and each of them leads you to another ‘world’. We walked to the end of the main part and visited the ‘Art Gallery’, a 62m long sandstone wall with some of the best examples of stencil art in Australia. There are more tham2000 engravings, ochre stencils and free-hand paintings.

After visiting the ‘Art Gallery’ we took a break and had some lunch.

Then we made our way back and visited the Wards Canyon. We climbed a short, steep track winding through spotted gums, past a small waterfall and into a stunningly beautiful side gorge, sheltering the world’s largest fern, the king fern ‘Angiopteris evecta’. These impressive green ‘dinosaurs’ have strong links to the ancient plants of Gondwanan origin.

Standing in this side gorge we felt like being in another world or in a movie set. It just felt unreal!