Friday 25th June 2021
Well we have had a very big day today. We started the day with a scramble up Griselda Hill at Arkaroola Village. This was quite a challenging rock scramble with beautiful views as the reward. We saw a couple of wedge tail eagles at the summit. They are so majestic as they glide above you. Once again I managed the climb up on hands and feet, and then back down again crab walking over the rocks. The drop down was very sheer so care was required.
We then were on our way again as we were hoping to manage another walk later today. We decided to take the 4WD McTaggert track to the start of the walk from the other end. The drive was spectacular as it went straight through the middle of the Vulkathanhu-Gammon National Park. The ranges were on both sides of the road as we weaved through the valley, up and down narrow winding roads, over many dry creek crossings and passed the most amazing trees. We first stopped at the Grindell Hut where we had some lunch and saw some Zebra Finches and Ring Neck Parrots. You can book and stay in the little hut , it has a set of bunks, table and chairs. It is a good refuge for if you are hiking the whole track. After lunch we did a 12km return walk through the Weetootla gorge to Balcanoona. As usual we were running short of time and still had a long drive after we completed the walk, we hot footed it all the way. We did the walk in just over 2.5 hours which is pretty quick in the bush especially with rocky creek beds to negotiate. On the return part of the walk we saw a huge mumma emu with about 8 little chicks. She was very protective and stood so tall and stared us down as her chicks went away behind her. We were very careful for the next 20 mins as we followed her and the chicks along the track. We had nowhere else to go as she kept walking along the track. Eventually she hid in the bushes which enabled us to get past her and her babies. It was another fantastic wildlife moment that you just had to experience and enjoy. We are so lucky sometimes. That is twice in two days with the yellow footed rock wallaby and now a close up encounter with an emu and her brood.
We finished the walk at about 3.30pm and still had to continue along the narrow 4WD track for 3 or so hours. We need to make as much progress as possible today to enable us to make it to the Dalhousie Springs to meet our friends for the Simpson Desert departure on the 29th. We are always trying to do too much but I am sure that’ll never change on Broady’s Tours. Luckily we managed to do a lot of the hard driving in the fading daylight, we were only travelling at about 15-20kmh for a good few hours. We watched a lovely sunset in the ranges and continued along our merry way on the dirt road. It went on and on and on. Up and down, in and out of the trees, through many, many creek beds. It was very exhausting for David and we needed to travel a bit too fast for me to drive. The new car is going great and we are grateful to have done some off road driving before tackling the desert track in a few days. We made the decision to forge on to Copley with an ETA of 7pm we are staying in the Copley Hotel car park and had dinner in the pub. It was a lovely, very big meal. We had a chat with one of the locals whilst we waited in the bar for our meal. It is always a little tricky being a non-drinker in these circumstances, we sometimes feel as though we should order a beer anyway. Maybe one day we will.
We have a few days of planning to do tonight so time to sign off for today.