Carnarvon Gorge

5 – 7 October 2024

We headed south and made a stop in Clermont for morning tea at Hood’s Lagoon. This is a favourite spot to take a break – there are picnic tables, toilets and a lovely walk along the lagoon with the added bonus of some birding opportunities. It is also very easy to access when towing. From there we made another stop in Capella to pick up some supplies, then on to Emerald where we stopped for lunch.

We still hadn’t decided where we wanted to stay next, but we both agreed we wanted to find somewhere nice. There was a long weekend coming up so that would limit our options. After lunch in a park, we took out the map and decided that a detour to Carnarvon Gorge would be nice. I rang and was able to book a powered site for a couple of nights. Although we would have preferred to stay in the national park itself, that campground is only open during school holidays.

We continued on and turned off for Carnarvon Gorge south of Rolleston. The caravan park wasn’t as crowded as we thought it might be, but there were still plenty of people there. We settled on to a site not far from the creek. We opted not to go on the Gorge Walk – neither of us felt fit enough to tackle the almost 20km hike – so instead we took the shorter Mickey Creek Walk. At around 3.5 km it was a leisurely stroll which we very much enjoyed.

There's some lovely short walks in the National Park

We had easy access to the creek adjacent to the caravan park so we did a fair bit of walking along looking for birds. There is a swimming hole, but it looked a bit murky and not terribly inviting.  Once again, we weren’t really sure where we would stay next so we made our way back to the highway and travelled further south while we made up our minds.