Sunday, 25 November 2012

Floods and time-travel in Hughenden and discovering the Yeti in Porcupine Gorge


We drove a short distance to Cloncurry and set up camp in the drizzle. Next morning, the kids played with the ugliest dog in the world and we chatted to its friendly owner – a well-travelled woman who was heading up to one of the isolated stations to act as a live-in tutor for the kids who were doing school of the air. As most dog owners (and indeed parents) seem to be, she appeared quite convinced that her weird, toothy dog was very charming and kindly allowed Zara to drag it around the caravan park on a lead. The kids even accompanied them up and down the street so that the dog could poo before they hit the road. Exciting.

We drove on east, stopping for lunch at Julia Creek – home of an extinct and then re-discovered (near Julia Creek) Bettong. When we reached Hughenden the rain was bucketing down and so yet again we were forced into a hotel room. Actually we were lucky to get anything because every other traveller had the same idea and the hotels and cabins were all booked out. The hotel we stayed at was half-flooded and we had to jump over a massive channel of water just to get into our room. We had no cooking facilities in our room and so debated having peanut butter sandwiches until we realised we had no bread, and so headed to the local Chinese restaurant. The food wasn’t too bad, and the décor reminded me of dining in China, which added a bit to the authenticity.  Next day, we realised that the whole town is stuck in another era – including coffee shops with carpet and lace at the windows (serving instant coffee and home-made cakes) and clothing shops with fashions from yesteryear. It was kind of a nice place.

We drove north, up the Kennedy Development Road. We had been warned about the condition of the road, especially after rain and so drove cautiously to Porcupine Gorge where we stopped for lunch and a walk down into the gorge. It was yet another amazing place – volcanic looking with big holes in the rocks and some weird formations. Not for the first time we wished we knew a bit more about geology. We decided that next time we do a trip like this, we’ll learn more about rocks and minerals before we leave. The rocks and stuff always look really interesting and we get the feeling that geologists would be drooling with excitement about some of these places. But the geological secrets remain locked to us and we end up using descriptors such as ‘holey rocks’ and ‘shiny stuff’… We did however find a hole in the rock that looked like a giant footprint, so we are pretty confident that some sort of yeti-type creature roamed this gorge thousands of years ago…

On we drove in a north-easterly direction and eventually arrived at the Undarra Experience – a private enterprise set up next to the Undarra National Park which provides an ‘authentic bush experience’ for the hordes but more importantly offers access to the park’s lava tubes – cool.

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