Big things road trip day eleven - full day in Carnarvon Gorge

Jan 2, 20213 min read

We were up at the crack of dawn (about 5 am) this morning so we could head into the gorge and get our walking done before it got too hot.

When we opened our front door we were greeted by an echidna that was having its morning walk right outside our cabin! We watched him waddle around for a few minutes before he disappeared under a bush. There were kangaroos/wallabies everywhere on the drive into the Gorge, so just be careful if you are driving at this time of the morning.

There are heaps of different walks available in Carnarvon Gorge and there is really good information available at the visitor centre about the length and difficulty of each walk. All but a couple of the walks start from a central path, so once you have picked out which walk(s) you would like to do you should head directly up the path and start at the one that it is furthest away and then make your way back, taking whatever sidetracks you want along the way.

We are well aware of our physical abilities, so we chose the Nature Trail and the Rock Pool trail which are a couple of the shorter walks available. The nature trail runs beside the creek and there is a good chance you will see Platypus splashing about and other wildlife on the trail, so do be careful of where you are putting your feet so you don't squish a little friend. The trail loops around and crosses the creek and gets you back to the visitor centre where you started. It will bring you out near the start of the trail that leads to the Rock Pool. However, if you fancy a shorter walk to the Rock Pool you can jump back in the car and head a couple of minutes down the road to an alternative entry, where the walk to the Rock Pool is only about 600m, instead of 3km.

The Rock Pool is the only place designated for swimming in the Gorge and you can jump in and cool off after a day of walking. Just be careful of the catfish near the big rock as they don't mind nibbling on your toes!

It had heated up pretty significantly by the time we headed back to Takarakka and we spent a couple of hours napping in the aircon before venturing back out to check out the "beach", which is a swimming area along the creek at Takarakka and walking up to the lookout on the property.

There is so much wildlife on the property at Takarakka and it's really nice to wander around looking at the cool birds and the kangaroos and seeing if you can spot Echidnas and Koalas!

From the lookout, we could see an impressive looking storm rolling in and when it started to rain lightly we headed back down to our room. We made it just in time before it started absolutely pouring with rain and the storm lasted for about 45 minutes and caused a blackout.

Takarakka are used to this happening and worked quickly to get all the backup generators up and running so we could cook and have air-con once more! The lady at reception told us this is a pretty common occurrence and they seemed to handle it well.

By this stage, it was dinner time and we cooked again in the camp kitchen and shared stories of the day with the other travellers staying in the studios.