The overnight temperatures dropped down to 8C – but then, it is snowing down south. Cross off Prairie as a spot to camp overnight – between the barking dogs, the rail trains, the road trains and the crowing rooster, (yes it crowed all through the night) it was mostly naps last night. I could hear dingoes howling in the distance and obviously they skirt around here, hoping for a tasty meal of geese ( I was hoping it was a tasty meal of rooster) which sets off the dogs barking. As Glen says, there’s always a down side :)
It was only about 50-60 kms to the Cann’s Camp Creek – the campground within the national park. It was not signposted off the highway and it was only when you took the track that you found a NP sign. The printed information sheet from Hughenden info centre is hopelessly out of date as it talks about CDMA coverage. There is coverage at the highway but not within the park. There were also conflicting distances about where the actual turn off was. It is a small camp ground of 8 sites, which can only be E-booked. There is a hybrid toilet but no water. We have booked for two nights. We saw a turn off to a gorge on the way in, so tomorrow we are going to get up early and walk back to the turn off – 5 kms and down to the look out a further 2.3 kms. Making it a 14.6 km round trip, hopefully walking we will get to see a couple of the unusual animals in the park – one being a spectacled hare wallaby. I am looking for something that is small, hopping and wearing glasses – :) I bet it has rings around its’ eyes. – unfortunately we didn’t see one, but it looks a bit like a bettong but with reddish fur surrounding its eyes.
This park has spectacular wildflowers in winter and spring, but at the moment it is very dry – coming out of a hot dry summer and into late autumn.
We are the only ones in camp – beautiful and quiet – very different from our sleepless night at Prairie Hotel Camp.
Orchids growing on the top of a burnt out dead tree stump. Surviving all that summer has to throw at it.
Lunch – we are using up the dried tomato pita bread. Our lunch time pizza cooked in the frypan – with the lid on. Works very well for a quick and easy and light lunch. The sunbaked dried tomato base is a hit and crisps up.
Sunday 10th May 2015 – Fine sunny warm – overnight it was down to 5c and up to 30c.
I had forgotten that today was Mothers Day – and I chose to do the long walk – too late now.
Breakfast in bed, a lovely card and chocolates – great start to the day.
We started the walk at 8.25am and were back by 12.17pm. The walk was 15 kms and it was getting warm by the time we got back.
We had a great sleep overnight with only the serenading of about 4-6 dingoes somewhere in the middle. We saw lots of foot prints on the road covering our tyre tracks, so there had been a lot of activity. Lots of cows – we came across them a small herd of about 20.
There were cat, lizards, dingoes and some really big paw prints.
Now that is big ! The one above right is next to my show imprint and I take at size 9.
We saw other dog prints which were a lot smaller than that.
Most of the trees around here are under attack from termites. We came across these abandoned termite mounds.
There were mounds here that were over 15 feet high. Matching those in the NT.
This is why they call it White Mountains NP. The view at the end of our walk. We came across “Sawpit Creek” and can only assume that they was a forestry camp here at some stage. We couldn’t figure out what type of trees that they would be after. It is apparent that a severe fire came through here a good 12 months ago destroying everything. Even the power poles had to be replaced. That might account for the lack of wildlife and birds. As for our foot print – I don’t think I want to meet up with the owner of that one.
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