**Carnarvon Gorge** - Friday 9 March to Sunday 11 March

Carnarvon Gorge gets its own link because it's the best place we have been to so far.

Friday 9 March:

We picked up more medicine for Carl this morning because his lip was even worse. We decided that after travelling for a while now we needed to have a bit of a break, a short couple of days holiday, so we headed to Carnarvon Gorge which was about four hours inland. Here we eventually got to see wild emus. As we were driving here we passed the 7,000km mark.

I decided to treat us both and booked us into Carnarvon Gorge Wilderness Lodge. We happened to be the only people staying there at that time so we managed to get a great canvas lodge on the edge of the resort facing the creek. Our canvas lodge was called Ingelara and had a huge veranda. The resort was an hour's drive from the nearest shop, bar, town, etc. Luckily though our resort had a restaurant and bar on site. Happy days. We stupidly forgot to stock up with food and alcohol before we came. We've remembered every single day but this day we forgot. The chef came out and gave us a list of what he could cook us for dinner so we told him what we wanted and then booked a table for 7pm.

Kate (the receptionist) had told us the the gorge had recently been devasted by a massive rain storm and only a few of the gorge walks were open - gutted. Our first walk was Balloon Cave which features aboriginal stenciling. It was only a short walk and it was here that we saw a dingo. We were a little bit on edge because we had heard a few nasty stories about them and this one was quite large - much bigger than the one on Fraser. The fact that we were several miles from anyone also played apart. As we walked back to the van the dingo just stared at us. He wasn't fazed at all. Then we cooked a barbeque by the information centre and became surrounded by wild kangeroos and pretty faced wallabees and a lace monitor also came out to say hello.

When we walked into our lodge, a gecko we had originally saw on the wall, had crawled onto the carpet below so Carl tried to move him out. We've named him Laurie. Laurie's body was limp. Carl tried to move him onto a piece of paper but the gecko would just topple onto his side. We knew that he wasn't very well so we filled a little plate up with water and took him outside with the water hoping that it would give him a bit of energy but it didn't. He laid there for hours. Laurie was breathing but he just wasn't interested in moving. We figured that by the end of the evening he would be dead. We moved him in the sun, out of the sun, on the chair, in a dark spot, but he just wasn't interested. So when we went to dinner I moved him on top of the outside light and turned the light on, hoping that the flies would give him a bit of an umph. When we returned back from dinner he was still sitting on top of the light. We had been looking after him now for about fives hours and he hadn't moved once. You could even tickle his feet if you wanted to. Out of the corner of my eye though I saw him move and he suddenly came back to life. He had obviously eaten a few flies after being trapped in the lodge for so long and got his energy back and was darting all over the place. The food by the way was lovely. The chef looks quite young but he does some really tasty stuff. We sat outside the bar having a few beers and saw a really stupid stick insect playing with the light outside. We're not sure what he was doing. Afterwards we just sat out on the veranda keeping an eye on Laurie and then an echidna walked out from the creek in front of us and started sniffing around. For the people back home they're similar to a hedgehog but about the size of a cat.

Saturday 10 March:

After we checked out of the lodge Carl decided to go back and treat us both to another night. So we extended our holiday. Carl noticed a baby carpet python sticking out of the roof to our lodge. It only looked a few days old and he didn't appear to have eaten anything (there was no bulge in his body).

For a more energetic start to the day we walked to Boolimba Bluff which was 6.5km return and I begged to walk the sand dunes of Fraser Island instead of this. We started late in the morning which was a really bad time to start as the temperature was already in the 40s. It was a hard walk ending 200 metres above the starting point and 600 metres above sea level. 937 steps to climb which were big stones including four or five vertical ladders. Once you are at the top a panoramic view of the Gorge welcomes you and it's breathtaking. A big achievement in itself just to reach the top. It took an hour to reach the top, most of it very steep. We stayed up here while we ate the packed lunch our lodge had provided us with. It was even worse coming back down because our legs were very wobbly but it only took about 40 minutes. We both felt very weak at the end.

After a dip in the pool back at the lodge we went for our second walk which was a much easier one. This one was called Wurrumbah Gorge which was very easy in comparison and much cooler. A lot of rock climbing was involved which was great fun and at one point we had to walk across a fallen tree trunk to cross the creek. We entered the gorge where we could put both arms out and touch the sides. But we couldn't go any further so we turned round and headed back to camp. We booked into the restaurant again and another two couples had arrived but kept themselves to themselves.

Sunday 11 March:

Today we were going to check out and not return for another few years. Today was much hotter than yesterday (46 degrees) and Kate thought there would be a storm in the evening. We walked to Moss Garden before heading back which took about 50 minutes each way. The sun was so strong but the walk there was quite fun because you had to keep crossing the creek using the stepping stones. The last ten minutes of the walk were a little bit steep but nothing like the Bluff. Once we reached Moss Garden it was amazing. A waterfall greeted us and the place was cool so we stayed here for a bit before we took the walk back which was quite boring because we just wanted to be back to the van and get moving. We headed back to see Kate at the reception where she kindly topped up our drinking bottles with ice and juice and then we were on our way. We drove for nine and a half hours along a long, straight road. If you came across a bend or bump in the road it was quite exciting. We arrived at the coast, stopping in Mackay and booking into Premier Caravan Site on the main strip. We woke the manager up at 9.40pm to get booked in and it was lucky for us he was a cheerful fella.