Carnarvon Gorge

We just finished our stay at Carnarvon Gorge, which was amazing.  It was an interesting combination of the Grand Canyon, Jurassic Park, and Indiana Jones, with a lot of Eucalypts, and some kangaroos thrown in.  Carnarvon is a national park, and a beautiful one at that.  For the most part, the landscape is what is known as dry sclerophyll – sparse trees (mostly species of Eucalyptus) with leaves designed to withstand a lot of sun, and a grassy understory wherever fire had come through and cleared out a place for the grass to grow.  Carnarvon Gorge is, not surprisingly, a massive gorge, surrounded by huge sandstone cliffs topped with a layer of basalt from a geologically recent volcanic hotspot; the basalt holds the rest of the rock in place.  Down in the low-lying areas of the gorge are streams, and there you see a set of vegetation more reminiscent of a rainforest: huge fern palms, tree ferns, and other plants with big glossy green leaves.  The name Carnarvon is a reference to an English lord, who as far as I’ve heard never had anything to do with his namesake gorge.

We camped in canvas tents (held up by a metal pole in the center), and slept on cots, both of which seemed strange to me, being accustomed to backpacking.  We were actually in a campground just outside of the gorge, since it is a national park and there aren’t camping areas inside.  Our campground was still beautiful however: lots of birds (we saw raptors, kookaburras, cockatoos, and many songbirds) and animals (kangaroos, wallabies, and an echidna that attempted to hide under a tent).

This is the back end of the echidna; it is a monotreme that is more-or-less like a large hedgehog 

Our tents

Kookaburra sitting in a gum tree (Eucalypt).  They are very, very loud at 6 a.m.

The morning after we arrived in the gorge, we went on an all-day hike.  This was our longest day of hiking – 14 kilometers, in 9 hours with plenty of rest stops.  Parts of the gorge seem to be from a lost world.  Ancient plants, like the cycads, have been around since the time of the dinosaurs.  We hiked through secluded side canyons, with streams and small waterfalls, trickling over moss-covered rocks and boulders, with a backdrop of massive sandstone cliffs.  Overhead, the lush canopy of tree ferns, and even king ferns (rare, huge, and wonderful), almost makes you feel as though you have indeed travelled back in time to the Jurassic period. 

Tree ferns 

We took a hike through one narrow side canyon, deep green from the moss underfoot and on the walls, and several degrees cooler than the main canyon.  It had a stream flowing through it, and we had to scramble up and over rocks and logs, and frequently wade through places with knee-deep water.  It looked as though we were on the set for an Indiana Jones movie, and we consequently sang the theme song multiple times.

The entrance to the Indiana Jones adventure

Carnarvon Gorge does not just have natural beauty and ecological significance.  It is also a sacred place to Aboriginal people.  Over thousands of years, Aboriginal tribes have created rock art, held important ceremonies, and buried their dead in this canyon.  The Aboriginals sometimes came from hundreds of miles away to visit Carnarvon, the ecological explanation of which is that the gorge always provided a reliable source of water, even in El Nino years.  We saw several places with rock art.  Most of the art is a stencil technique, made by blowing a fine ochre powder around an object.  Hands are the most commonly depicted art.  Each hand is believed to symbolize a family – father, mother, and three children, each associated with a finger (the father with the thumb, the mother with the index finger, and so on).  The stencils often show a hand with a bent finger or thumb, indicating that the family member associated with that particular digit was absent or dead.

Rock art: mostly hands and boomerangs

The kangaroo family is sorted into types more-or-less based on size.  Kangaroos are the largest members, wallabies are smaller, and still other species are even smaller.  We saw a lot of Eastern Gray Kangaroos and Pretty Face Wallabies in the camp and on the trail.  It has been a good year for the kangaroos, and there are a lot of young animals, including joeys.

Pretty face wallaby.  Note the characteristic white stripe along the cheek.

Eastern grey kangaroo, with joey (you can just see its legs; it is folded into an awkward position in the pouch)

John, our terrestrial ecology professor (in charge of the Carnarvon Gorge field trip) is getting married in the middle of this semester.  I ended up teaching him how to rotary waltz during the rest stops on our bus trip back to Brisbane; he wants to learn how to waltz for the wedding.  Good thing I’ve picked up basic waltz-teaching skills over these past few years!  I’ve taught two of the girls to rotary waltz, as well, and have given mini crash courses in mazurka, cross-step, and West coast swing, and have practiced East coast swing and lindy hop too.