CARAWINE GORGE

I am in trouble now- it is now Saturday evening & we got here on Tuesday & now I have to try to remember what has happened. I vowed that I was not going to let this happen on this trip!. Probably the best way to describe our 6 nights in this beautiful spot is to tell about trip down to Eel Pool (Running Water), birds with which I have had Lesley’s assistance in naming, cattle, clean running water for use, sunrises & sunsets, reflections.
After turning off the mine road we had 12.1ks into the Oakover River. We travelled a little too far & ended up at the stony gravel bed through which it would not be possible to tow our vans. We had all been informed that we had to cross over the airstrip (which we all missed) which would follow a solid road down to the river side. Here we found enough room for the 3 of our vans right at the water front.

You can see in the above photo what the river bed is like! Suitable for camper trailers etc but not vans.
As we had arrived about lunch time, naturally we had to eat. That evening we celebrated Erich’s birthday with home made sausage rolls thanks to Chris as well as some (has a Swiss name) very tasty mince wrapped in pastry which Lesley baked. After this we certainly did not need dinner that night.

Tuesday was a day of basically doing nothing, except wandering around taking photos. Since the recent rain the flowers are all starting to open.
Wattle is the only one that I can name.

Probably some of these are only weeds but they are still pretty.

The cattle are in extremely good condition & are very quiet, wandering right past our vans to get their drinks of water.

This was the view from our front door every morning & depending how early I got out of bed depended on what photos I managed to get of the sunrise.

There was only the one morning when there were clouds to give decent sunrise photos & luckily I was up early enough. The sun shining on the escarpments at both sunrise & sunset totally change the colors.

A couple of mornings ago I decided to wade across the river as it had fallen considerably since we arrived & was not too deep but it was very cold. Did not know Bruce was taking these though until I turned around. The rocks were rather slippery as well.

Managed to get some nice butterfly shots as well as a dragonfly which was not easy as they are continually on the move but we were sitting having a cuppa & they were right at my feet, with the butterfly at the first tiny blossom on this tree.

The bird life here is amazing & with the friends assistance I have been able to name the ones I took photos of with my favourite being the Jabiru. We had only seen one before & that was up Cape York in 2012. Was so lucky to capture a couple doing what I imagine is their courting display. Please correct me anyone if I am wrong.
Shall bore you now with bird photos.

A little further up from us there was a wonderful spot where the majority of the birds were found. Pelicans, Jabiru, Egrets, ducks to name a few. I thought that the
water which was red from the sunrise certainly gave a different perspective.

Even a baby. The photo below I thought that it was a Pelican landing until I saw it was the 2nd Jabiru. Such a magnificent bird & cannot believe that we saw at least one of them every day.

The Egret on the move. ( one of the larger variety according to Lesley’s book) Below on the right is the Rainbow Bee eater.

There were the usual crows but not a lot, willy wagtails, many Corellas as well as hearing but not seeing the Blue Kookaburras.

We did a day trip down to check out, which by all reports, is a wonderful spot, Eel Pool (Running Waters). Well, at the moment have to wonder!
There was sealed mine road for the first part of the trip then onto dirt.

Just along Skull Springs Road we had a couple of river crossings, the Davis & The Oakover.
Erich wandered along to check out the first one which was only ankle deep so all good & the river bed was gravel.
The photos after the dingo photo Lesley did the walk through to check out the depth & it was up to her knees so not a problem either. She took my camera over for the photos of us both driving through.

We finally came to the turn left where we were to go to Eel Pool. There was a sculpture on top of one of the escarpments where we were to turn, which Erich did with us following. Did not go too far as the road was NOt GOOD. We did a turn around, hoping not to get a flat from stones & headed back to the kangaroo as Lesley had noticed another road a couple of ks further along so that is where we turned next. Road OK – at the start.

The last part of the road into Eel Pool (Running water) was a 5k/hour road with rocky out crops on the road, into another corner before out of the previous one, corners on hills! We were going by the co-ordinates on Lesley & Erich’ Hema navigator. We finally reached the spot only to find nothing. Could not drive any further so walked a short distance along which should have been the road but it was mud holes with rocks & mud either side which meant we could not even walk any further to try to find this “thermal pool”, so we had a cuppa instead & left very disappointed.

This is on a tree beside where we had a cuppa & think it is a veteran’s memorial.
Back on the sealed road again & stopped at what is called TWO SISTERS.

Back home again in time for lunch. Because there was plenty of clean flowing water the vans & cars got a good washing & I attacked inside even though it had not got too bad after the big clean back at Jupiter’s Well.

Because there seem to be a lot of bulls here we are wondering whether the property is a stud bull station, which we think might be called “Warrawanganie” station.
This photo was in the distance & it looked like a centre pivot irrigator for pastures but when put photo on LP it is certainly not one of those.

Oops forgot the photo of part of a rainbow which I saw on a walk, but apparently none of the others had seen it.

Tuesday 16th, finally finished the Carawine blog.

Well yesterday (Monday) morning we were all leaving this wonderful spot with Chris & Val heading south & Lesley & Erich & us were heading up to Marble Bar for a couple of nights. We all needed to check emails , make phone call and post blogs. Into the van park here on unpowered as we know, after 2 weeks no power, we can certainly survive quite easily. All we ran the generator for was for the washing machine as there was plenty of solar for the batteries in car & van.
The drive up to Marble Bar was just such beautiful country, continually changing & it was a very relaxing drive for the men after their 6 days of concentration driving across the middle. After this drive it reminded us how much we love the Pilbara, the largest shire in the world!

[tag only Carawine
Gorge]