Protect the Dunneys!

Carnarvon must hate me. I think it has a vendetta against my person for what ever reason- a reason that I have yet to determine.

This morning I dragged one of the students to see the sunrise which ended up being clouds with bits of lights shining through. It was rather disappointing I have to confess since I had talked up the sunrises so much before coming here. Such is Carnarvon.

Colin made me a special treat this morning, in addition to the three successive cups of coffee, which was an english muffing with jam and cream. Apparently this combination is quite common among the Ozzies. Many of the students received some puzzled looks from Steve when they questioned the combination. Though, puzzled looks from Steve are certainly not uncommon.

From there we packed our bags with excessive quantities of PB&J (we've gone through pounds of the stuff much to Steve's dismay) and headed to the trail head to start the 14 km of glorious Carnarvon track. Instead of the original plan to split into the platypus and echidna groups, we attacked the footpaths with all 33 of the students meandering somewhat aimlessly behind Simon.

I had to get a photo with Frank, the Sydney blue gum.

Our first stop on the trek was the Art Gallery, which is mildly inappropriately named since it was more of an area for the Aboriginals to document ceremonial processes. It was particularly used for special burials which was evident by the small alcoves towards the bottom of the sandstone that they shoved bodies in. Ceremoniously, of course.

We had a lovely lunch on the rocks by Carnarvon creek in the sunshine which was positively heavenly... aside from the frequent harassment from the Australian ravens. Ward's canyon was our next stop: a picturesque locale with an endemic population of king ferns.

Clambering 200 meters back down to the main trail, Simon led us to the ever-popular Moss Gardens where the sandstone leeks ancient life-giving water. Off the boardwalk we could see a lovely small waterfall as well while Simon talked to us about the CWA (country women's association) who invented the ANZAC biscuit recipe.

While the majority of the students waited, about 8 of us scrambled up Hellhole Gorge, a labyrinth of rocks and waterfalls. Simon pointed out a nice little spring where we tasted some wonderful spring water which was like drinking a combination of moss and dirt. Yum. Passing the point we reached last year, we discovered caverns reminiscent of the Moss Gardens but on a much larger scale. We only had one near casualty where Joey was soaked up to his waist when he miss-stepped.

Walking back the way we came, we passed the dunneys (bathrooms for you non-Ozzie folk) which were surrounded by charred black dirt. The forest rangers here have controlled burns which mimic the Aboriginal form of fire stick farming since so many of the plants around here thrive on fire (pyrophilic). Simon's explanation for their choice in location was simply “protect the dunneys!”

We had an unexpected attendee on the trail: Bob the yellow-bellied glider. Absolutely adorable.

Plopping down in the roo-poo laden grass, Simon had a chat with us about fire use in the gorge. From there we went on a coach hunt... and ended empty handed. How difficult would it be to find a coach?

It wasn't there. Not in the car park, not by the visitor center, no where.

Steve, driving like an absolute maniac, came whizzing around the dirt road. His ute kept becoming airborne as he hit the dirt ramps formed by the heavy rainfall. The news? “Keep walking”.

Lovely. More knowledge would be nice.

So, we began walking back to Takkaraka. Bob came back and forth, picking up the students in the back. We finally reached the coach... and no words can explain what we witnessed.

The entire right side of the bus was off the ground.

Standing around hopelessly was about all we could do other than start to walk back towards the camp. Simon flagged down a friend of his to give us a ride... in the back of a truck. In the cold.

As if the prospect of not leaving Carnarvon wasn't enough, while Steve was cooking us roo for dinner the power went out no less than 4 times, making module writing that much more difficult for everyone. Since we couldn't go out to the airstrip for our usual stargazing activity, we made do with the “boomerang field”. This is the same place that the dingoes attacked the swamp wallaby last year. Safe.

Simon pointed out several constellations including the Emu, a dark constellation that is popular among the Aboriginal mobs nearby. He also pointed out scorpio, libra, the southern cross, and alpha and beta centauri. Using his high-powered telescope, he showed us some star clusters, including some red and blue stars. The blue stars are the hotter of the pair.

The highlight of the night was seeing Saturn, which was unrealistically like the textbook depictions. One difference that was easily noted was that it was devoid of color as our eyes cannot comprehend it.

Cold.