Again, up before sunrise and watched the reddish clouds on the horizon grow lighter as we prepared breakfast.  A leisurely breakfast & clean up, then packed & on the road by 8am, following our night time neighbours out of the rest area.  Injune is a small town with one BP fuel stop, we must have created a precedent for stopping there because as we started refuelling, another four cars with caravans stopped for fuel creating a bit of a traffic jam at the three bowsers.  The Carnarvon Hwy to the Carnarvon Gorge turnoff was OK, a bit of roadworks in a few places, but generally the road was in good condition.  We followed another caravan from just out of Injune to the turnoff & were followed by another caravan from Sterling, Canberra whom we met at the Injune fuel stop, they turned off with us & followed us right into the gorge.  The road into Carnarvon Gorge was good bitumen for about 20kms, then the next 20kms  was mostly good dirt, freshly graded, with a few interesting creek crossings that needed to be taken very slowly with some holes & bumps either side.

We drove right to the end of the road, the visitor information centre & were disappointed to learn that the superb campground there was only open during Queensland school holidays & tonight was the last night it was open.  We turned around & headed back to the Takarakka Bush Resort about 4km & booked in for 3 nights.  We set up camp in a small powered campsite & went for a walk up onto the ridge lookout above the camp where there is a reasonable view across to the sandstone bluffs on the other side of the gorge.  We then went for a walk along the very pretty Carnarvon Ck with very clear water & noticed the flood damage along the creek that occurred in the floods earlier this year.  Back to camp for cheese & coffee & we were visited by some hungry kookaburras looking for handouts, one landing on the rear roof of the Karavan & another right next to me on the power box.  It created a great photo opportunity for the people camping around us & no, we didn’t feed them.

At 5pm we headed to the fireside chat (less fire) where Simon, a guide, gave a talk on the area that was very interesting, plus some tips on what to see & how to break up the walks.  We think we’ll take his advice & do a shorter walk and a longer walk the day after.

The scenery changed from the monotony of the plains as we crossed over the Great Dividing Ranges, the bushes became denser and we could see some of the grandeur of the gorge.   The road to Carnarvon Gorge started out smoothly with the beautiful scenery in front and docile looking cattle grazing on green pastures on either side – idyllic.  Then we hit dirt road.  I was very happy that we put the washing machine on before we left in the morning (it’s a washing barrel more than a machine, it works by shaking and shaken it got). As we drove through creeks, pot holes and corrugations I was hoping that Ron’s back wouldn’t shake out of alignment.  Ron assured me that this was a good freshly graded road, not even a preparation to what is to come.  We missed out on the National Park caravan park but Takarakka is pretty good with lovely trees and beautiful clean amenities otherwise why would 200/300 other campers choose it.  We have a shower in the Karavan but 3 minutes under the park’s shower is long and luxurious.  Really looking forward to the hiking tomorrow – hope those Kookaburras will wake us up at the crack of dawn – even though we didn’t share our cheese with them.