My friend Judy would be proud, we were up at 5am, left the park just before 6am, and no one was stirring not even a mouse. On the track walking by 6.15am, it was rather chilly.
Out of 22 creek crossings up to Big Bend I kept my runners on for 4 of them, the rest I had to take my socks and shoes off then dry my feet on the on the other side. Rather a pain and took a lot of time. On the way back I left my runners on and just walked through the water, lot quicker but we both had sore feet when we got back. 21km walk all up and over 10hrs walking, with not a lot of rests in between as the trip up there took longer due to the creek crossings.
The gorge is so amazing, as we started the sun was lighting up the cliffs to an amazing bright orange, at that time we resisted the urge to get the cameras out knowing we would be back along this part of the track in a few days. After the deep blue sky came out showing off the gorgeous sandstone cliffs we could resist no more and the cameras came out. No photo does this place justice, the cliffs are so huge, very hard to get clear shots due to the trees but the eyes had a feast on the splendour of the gorge.
After Big Bend we walked backed down the track over 2 creek crossing, both had shoes off until we got to Boowinda Gorge. A side gorge that goes for 3km over some pretty rocky ground, really amazing and a highlight of the walk. Lighting was terrible so unfortunately not real good for photography but it was nice to just enjoy the place.We stopped in at Cathedral Cave which has a lot of Aboriginal art work, we then walked up to Big Bend, has a small camping area and some toilets. All overgrown and the creek area was very messy due to all the tress that had come down in the Jan floods, the creek was like that all the way up. We had lunch at big bend, full on protein chicken, rissoles and boiled eggs. We constantly had to shoo away Currawongs who had their eye on our lunch. Chris turned his back for a sec and the rotten things flew in a grabbed our bag of mixed nuts, surprised they could fly away with it, Chris gave chase but they weren’t giving them up.
Then started the big walk back, fully loaded with our full camera kits we were getting pretty tired. Set a reasonably pace and just walked over the creek crossing shoes and all. My runners would fill up with water and then the water would squish out as I walked. I kept asking Chris are we there yet, both of us had sore backs and the legs were starting to get sore, the last couple of km’s were pretty hard going.
We by passed all the other places we could stop at as we are going back up there in a few days do to the rest. We filled our bottle with water near Wards Canyon as it was running and so crystal clear being filtered by the canyon and the sandstone, tasted better and looked better than the water we had in the tanks.
We were pretty worn out last night and decide we needed a rest day and a big sleep in.