I’m sorry about the last blog layout, it looked fine in Word but when I publish to WordPress it seems to rearrange everything.   I’m trying a different post drafting programme which I hope will be a better system.

Anyway, today is Saturday 1st August.

We have a wander around Bilung Pool before we leave this morning, both us and Brad and Denise have been here before, in our case there was more water here last time, when they were here much less!

Eventually we get on to the road heading now for Gascoyne Jnc, the road isn’t particularly good but better than some we’ve been on over the years. This a link to some dashcam footage to give you some idea of the country we’re travelling through. ..\..\..\OneDrive\Share\Winter 2020 Video\Saturday 1.MOV

A bit further on we can stop and have a look at an area of ancient seabed, where many of the rocks have the skeletons on small seashells embedded in them. They are difficult to spot but once you see them, they are everywhere.

After all this history we need some lunch, fortunately there are plenty of places to stop, often it’s a case of not being able to decide and we end up with a late lunch from looking for somewhere different!

Today it’s a road junction but because all the roads are dirt it’s only the sign that indicates where the road is!

An hour or so after lunch we get to the metropolis of Gascoyne Jnc, pop. c40! The last time we were here the pub, petrol station etc. was down by the river. However, a few years ago the place was flooded and pretty much destroyed by floods, so the town was rebuilt, this time up on higher ground above the river. The shop has nothing in it that we need and we don’t need fuel just now so we went a little way up the Lyons River road and found a nice level spot between two of the many gullies that form the water course, which is mostly dry at this time. It is very difficult to imagine just how much water comes through here when there is good rain.

Sunday 2^nd August

It’s only a short run up the Lyons River road to our next stop in the Kennedy Ranges NP but the road is pretty ordinary and we take our time.

We stop to have a look at some roadworks from the early 20^th century!

This road was built under a scheme called the ‘sustenance programme’, which was a government initiative to employ the men who had returned from WW1.

The track was originally for transporting wool to the coast by horse and cart but with the coming of the motor vehicle something better was needed.

A good idea perhaps but this track connected the sheep stations 100s of ks to the north and the coast road some 450 ks lto the south east via places like Gascoyne Jnc with nothing of significance in between! It might have kept them off the streets but they would have really earned their money out here.

We can see the Kennedy Range running parallel to the road some 25 ks away, and as they get closer they look fairly impressive.

Having got settled in and had some lunch and a bit of quiet time, its time for a walk to work up a thirst! Draper’s Gorge is off to the south of us and sounds like a good walk. This is very arid country, with little feed for any natïve animals let alone cattle, even roos are difficult to spot. This a very ancient landscape and one minute we’re walking over ironstone, the next sandstone.

The nature of this country is essentially a flat-topped mesa, around 250 metres high, with deep gullies (gorges) formed where the water has run off over the millenia. The soft and hard areas of rock make for a very interesting landscape and makes us wish we knew a bit more geology! One of the paths up the gorge takes you right to the top of the mesa, which I would like to do, none of the others are prepared to come with me and it would be folly to go on my own.

Someone was already up there; he must have had a very good view from up there.

By the time we got back it was well past wine o’clock, so we had a bit of catching up to do.

Met a couple from Jerramungup (south of WA and nearly on the coast, they came and joined us for a while.

It was a beautiful night; the moon is nearly full and we didn’t need a fire.

The camping area at Temple Gorge.

Monday 3^rd August.

We set out at about 0800 this morning to walk to Honeycomb Gorge before it got too hot, as it happens the southerly breeze was still blowing which kept us cool on the way back, which was very pleasant. It was about an hour’s walk over fairly good ground, with some interesting rock formations to look at along the way.

As the sun gets higher the colours change it the landscape starts to ‘look’ hot and dusty.

These rocks have clearly been liquified at sometime.

We could have easily driven round to the Honeycomb Gorge but walking did us much more good!

These rock formations were all formed by water, probably as the ice receded from Gondwana but every so often there are still vast quantities of water out here which continue the erosion process, albeit a bit more slowly.

The water has deposited smaller stones in all the recesses, it is possible that this indicates the very slow decrease in the water flows? The walk back is good with the cool southerly making walking quite comfortable.

A lovely moonlit evening under the stars, unfortunately the moonlight compromises our satellite spotting.

Tuesday 4^th August

Up earlyish for a walk up Temple Gorge, a shorter walk than yesterday but in some ways more interesting. If you could get in here when there was water coming over the drops it would be pretty speccy.

The bluff in the picture on the left is called the Temple (hence Temple Gorge) and the one on the right is called a ‘sandstone window’, which I suspect is a pseudo technical term for a hole in the sandstone!

After a short rest its back down the gorge and morning tea at the campsite before setting off back to Gascoyne Jnc for the night.

We have to go into Carnarvon tomorrow for a night in a caravan park to do some shopping and washing.

Back at Gascoyne Jnc it actually rains for a few minutes!

Wednesday 5^th August

An early start this morning for the 170 k run into Carnarvon, it’s a sealed road so not particularly exciting, a stop for morning tea and we’re in Carnarvon.