Day 96 – Saturday 23rd October 2021 – 168 Km

What a beautiful morning, everything is fresh & clear after the rain. A few campers leave early and we have a leisurely breakfast & slowly pack. The campgrounds are nearly deserted by the time we leave, it is a shame we are not staying here for a few more days, this is an absolutely beautiful campground. I have a chat to one of the staff at Takkarakka, the Carnarvon Gorge National Park is closed until 31 October. As we drive slowly out to the highway we find that the road into the National Park has a barrier across it & a “Park Closed” sign. The drive out is full of beautiful scenery with the sheer sandstone cliffs of the Carnarvon Ranges dominating the landscape. On the road south the scenery is just as spectacular with the sandstone ranges looking stunning & rugged. There is hardly any traffic on the highway, an occasional caravan or truck going the other way. Only one vehicle passes us in the whole 111km into Injune & we are only travelling at around 90km/hr with a 110km/hr speed limit.

We stop at Injune & set up in the small caravan park in town that is just a very hot piece of land with no trees, oh how we miss Takkarakka camp site, but this place has nice clean amenities & we are only here for one night.  We went looking for somewhere to eat. The only place open is the Shell Service Station so I had a giant truckie burger & Tereza just a normal burger that was big enough for lunch, & delicious. The temperature is 39.5C with a strong hot wind. We walk a short way to the only tourist attraction that Injune has, an old steam train & the old Injune Railway Station. The information written up on the walls of the old railway station is very interesting & informative, we spend a long time reading all the stories.

On the main street we see for such a tiny town an unusual amount of cars parked, we found out from a man that they are having a big festivity, celebrating the 100th anniversary of their school.

Next we head to the old coal mine site about 4km south of Injune that supplied the steam trains, this is just off the highway & is very basic. A steel cut-out of a miner, a pony & a mine cart on an old tailing heap plus an information sign next to a table with seats under a roof. We are just about finished when another couple turned up & we chatted with them for more than an hour in the shade of the roof with the table. They were very interesting to chat with & we shared many similar experiences.

Back to the van & on with the air conditioner, it is so hot. We spend a couple of hours in here until the sun goes down then have some cheese, bikkies & red wine. Off to the showers, but before I went I stopped & chatted for ages with our new neighbours.  Coming back we caught up with a bit of reading & writing. Another great day.