Australia: N'Dhala Gorge

A couple of weekends ago found us heading out bush again, destination N'Dhala Gorge. This is the hottest time of year here, but this summer has definitely been wetter than last! Most of the rainy days still get up over 100 degrees, but the humidity climbs up around 80%, so it feels much hotter! We realized we were in for a cooler weekend, so decided to head out for some sight seeing. We called up a couple of friends to see if they could come with, but unfortunately no one was available.

Many of the rivers were threatening to flow on this particular weekend. The Ross River near N'Dhala Gorge has a permanent water hole (part of the river that has a billabong year round), so it was swollen and flowing a bit. We got to put the Disco's snorkel to use and attempt our first vehicular water crossing, as the track to the Gorge crosses the Ross River several times! The first crossing was the deepest - probably about 3 feet deep in the middle. Of course we didn't know how deep it was when we went in! There were some fresh tire tracks in the sand on either side of the billabong, so we figured that it must not be too tough of a crossing. With everyone (well the grown-ups anyway) holding their breath, we took the plunge! The only side effects were the nervous shakes and sigh of relief when we arrived on the other side! After a couple more smaller crossings, we made it to the gorge. There were several large "puddles" after the water crossings, and the kids love plowing through them and making huge, muddy rooster tails!

Just about the time we arrived at the gorge, the rain stopped and we were able to have a relatively nice hike (minus the flies). The gorge is home to over 6,000 Aboriginal petroglyphs, which they say are between 2,000-10,000 years old. We didn't see them all (surprise, surprise), but we did see our fill. Most of the art was either concentric circles, a fern looking plant, spider webs or stick figures. The current indigenous land owners say that the rock art in the gorge is associated with the story of the "great caterpillar" which has to do with the creation of the earth. I am glad they know, because it isn't like looking at hieroglyphics - it is very difficult to discern any meaning from Aboriginal pictographs or rock paintings. N'Dhala Gorge is a national park, and there are some campsites located at the entrance to the gorge. There is a trail that is maintained that takes you about 1.5km up the gorge and then stops. People are allowed to continue up the gorge (which we did for another half of a km), without a marked trail.

On the hike back to the carpark (Australian for parking lot), Jax and I decided to explore a cave that was way up on the wall of the gorge. It took us about 20 minutes to get up to it, and only about 10 to get down. A couple of places were rather treacherous, as the recent rains had made some of the rocks quite slippery! In the end we made it without incident, and we got a picture of Jax in the cave. There weren't any Aboriginal carvings or paintings in the cave. Jax and I guessed that it was because it would have been too hard for the indigenous people to have hiked up and down the rocks all the time if they lived in that cave! It was rather obvious however, that wallabies live in that cave, even though we didn't see any.

We did see some other wildlife. Jones touched the tail of a long-nosed dragon (they let people get surprisingly close, but they can bite). Jax and I saw some kind of skink that looked like a legless lizard at first glance, but upon closer inspection we did see some minuscule legs! It just looked like a little shiny snake when we first saw it. Beaux, mama and Jones saw another lizard that they had never seen before, which they said was black and shiny - probably a skink of some kind. It was gone by the time Jax and I got back from the cave though.

The trip home was uneventful. We took some pictures of some phenomenal geology on the way out - swirling and meandering layers of different kinds of rocks and gravel. As usual after a day of being out bush and hiking, we were happy to come home and kick off our shoes to enjoy one of Hilary's delicious home-cooked meals. It doesn't get much better than that!

Trent