At The Farm: March 2011

Saturday 19 March 2011

Trephina Gorge 3–The Bluffs

After we finished our walk through the Chain of Ponds Gorge we packed up our campsite and drove towards Trephina Gorge. The country changed and became even more beautiful. We drove past and checked out what is supposed to be the largest Ghost gum in central Australia. We started seeing more water, small creeks and rivers which we had to cross. We crossed a particularly nice, river bed lined with river red gums, lush green grass and was flowing with crystal clear water. We hoped we could at least come and swim in the river or camp near it.

About 1 km down the road we found the Bluffs campsite. The site is right on the same creek we had driven through (Trephina Creek) and we found a site which was about a metre from the edge of the river bed. We setup camp alone in the whole site and placed our chairs so we could watch the courting budgies in the red gums and listen to the quiet trickle of crystal clear water.

We actually spent most of our time lying in the stream and have a few cold bevvies. Very relaxing and cooling on a hot day. We checked out the actual Trephina gorge which was alright but unexciting compared to our gorge walk earlier that day. Our time was spent relaxing and enjoying the peaceful serenity and beauty of the area.

The bluffs campsite at Trephina gorge would definitely rate as a top 3 campsite ever.

The Bluffs, the campsite is named after, early morning

Budgies, very green

3 Spinifex pigeons

1 Spinifex pigeon, unsure, do i run or do i fly.

I think this is a long nosed water dragon

The tent next tot the river, very green, shady, relaxing

Walking along the river near Trephina Gorge

River red gum

Dipping in and out of the river in our walk along the Gorge

The clean waters at our campsite

The campsite, very idealic

Sunset, The bluffs.

Tuesday 15 March 2011

Trephina Gorge Camping - 2

Next morning we woke up early and explored the John Hayes rock hole which was about 100 metres from our campsite. There was a little swim involved, with little swimwear. The water was a nice temperature, and we swam over to the other side of the gorge without any fish bites on the naughty bits.

We decided after this to do the Chain of Ponds walk whilst it was still cool and then pack up our camp and move on to the Bluffs campsite near the actual Trephina Gorge.

The chain of ponds walk is an amazingly beautiful walk that takes you up and over some ridges through dry rocky land so that you can enter a gorge system and walk through the gorge back down to the rock hole. Once we got into the gorge the scenery changed and we were surrounded by high rocky walls peppered with caves and ghost gums growing straight out of the rock. The large amounts of rain had filled lots of the ponds and the water was running through the gorge, though mostly only in small amounts.

As we travelled along the gorge the amount of water increased and the ponds grew larger until we started coming to small lakes that were quite deep and inviting in the already warm day.

We eventually had to climb the cliffs to get past a few large ponds and even started to come across waterfalls.

The final part of the gorge became so full of water and our track disappeared and we had to climb up out of the gorge via a wallaby track and walk over the ridges and through the very sharp spinifex back down to the rock hole and our campsite.

Young Ghost gum growing straight out of the rocks

The gorge behind Corinne, we walked back to the camp on the other side of the forge on the way back.

Corinne in front of a cave. We looked into this cave and were unpleasantly surprised by a black footed rock wallaby that darted past and nearly ruptured our hearts from the fright.

Clear cool pond in the gorge

Fairy Martin mud nests under the cliff overhangs. These guys are like little swallows and they migrate to the area and breed in spring.

Water falling into one of the largest ponds we came across

One of the spots we had to climb up and around the cliffs to get past the water.

Large pond

Panorama of the gorge

Looking down into the gorge from above at the start of the walk.

Monday 14 March 2011

Trephina Gorge Camping trip - 1

A few weeks ago we had a few days off. We packed up the car and drove off into the East MacDonald Ranges straight after work at 5pm. The East Macs are not as popular with tourists and so are a bit quieter but equally beautiful.

We were heading for Trephina Gorge which is about 80 kms from Alice. The road was quiet and we saw very little traffic. The birds however were all out and about and had very little road sense. We have never had so many birds fly out in front of us and unfortunately I think we probably hit about 15-20 little fellas. There was a huge variety of suicidal birds, like budgies, diamond doves, zebra finches and crested pigeons.

There are 3 camp sites at Trephina and I had decided to spend our first night at John Hayes rock hole. There was a dirt road off the highway and then a 4wd track to the rock hole. One of the vets at work had mentioned that the track was quite rough and she was right. This was the roughest track we have been on so far and was a combination of huge rocks, logs, holes, mud sand etc. So it took us quite a while to get to the camp site. When we did arrive just on dusk we found a very sad, rocky site with little there to recommend it. You are near a waterhole but you can’t see it and there is just a lot of rock about, a lot.

We set up though and cooked up our 900 gram T-bone steak that we bought from Milner Meats in Alice. A beautiful grass fed wopper of a steak. In the end we had to dissect it from the bone and cut it in half a few times so we could cook it. Delicious.