Our glamping turned more like camping this morning when we were unable to shower due to a lack of hot water. We had to wait till 9 am for reception to open to report the problem before we headed of to do a couple of the easier walks.
Most of the walks start at the visitors centre and go up the gorge for anything up to 10kms one way. We had decided to leave theses walks to the more serious trekkers and first took the Rock Pool path which leads you down to the Carnarvon Creek which is gently flowing through the Gorge.
At this spot the creek winds around a big bend creating a large pool of water under a large rock. This morning we were the only ones on this walk and we were able to listen to the peaceful bush noises of the wind in the trees and and the birds but were a bit late in the day to catch any wildlife.
Our second walk was down across Mickey’s Creek (dry) up to the Balloon Cave were there is a small amount of Aboriginal Rock Art to be seen. The walk takes you down over the creek under the canopy of towering palm trees and cycads.
The rock art here is very different from the northern and central Australian art we have seen. The work at Carnarvon is stencil art where watered down pigments are blown over an object (hand, axe, boomerang) leaving the shape stenciled on the rock wall. Further up the gorge at the end of the walking trail there are examples of full body stencils. While other places have examples of stencil art these full body figures are unique in the world.
After our walks we return to our “tent” with hot water repaired and put our feet up reading just listening to the sounds of the birds. As the afternoon drew to an end many of the Kangaroos and wallabies that frequent this area were out grazing on the grass all around the huts and happy to come close for a photo!
As we retired to bed that evening after a lovely dinner at the lodge, there was a ping ping noise on the tin roof covering the canvas tent – it was raining! Our first rain since mid way up the WA coast. The rain continued on for a good couple of hours.