We left home heading south, the first town was four hours away, our destination, eight hours. In places the road seems to go on forever. Hubby was driving, I was looking for any photo opportunity that arose... "look out, look out" I shouted!! Two roos were going flat out heading straight for us. He slammed on the brakes and the roos sensed the urgency to get to the other side of the road. The last one stumbled, fur flying... I waited for the bang but he madly scrambled to his feet and took off with inches to spare between him and the car.
A little further down the road a snake pulled his head back just in time to miss the wheels of the car, he quickly retreated back where he came from.
We passed so much wildlife, this emu...
all these ducks...
these beautiful roos were so quiet, I love the markings on their head, I've never seen this kind before. This one has a joey in the pouch.
There were a few echidnas wandering around and leaving lots of holes where they had been digging.
This is about as good as I could get of the platypus. We sat on the bank of the creek with a glass of wine and some nibblies, trying to be really quiet... snickering every now and then because we could hear the crunch of the crackers in the silence of the early evening. The platypus is active between sunset and sunrise. We were all so excited when we finally saw this guy. We then woke at 5am for another early trip to the creek. We saw three happily swimming around, as it became lighter they were less active. It's the first time I've ever seen them like this but it won't be the last. The platypus and echidna are the only surviving monotremes (egg-laying mammal).
We set out with the intentions of only doing a 14 km return hike but when we got half way we decided we would go the whole way... bad decision!!
A fallen tree that had to be removed from the pathway.
Part of the gorge.
One of the thirty crossings we had to make. At this point I was carrying my camera bag myself.
The little markers in the trees showed us the way. We walked 20 kilometres in total this day, we would have been lost without the markers.
Another fallen tree across the creek.
We climbed up into this little cave. It would have been a great spot for the aboriginals to shelter from the rain.
By now hubby was carrying both bags! I don't think I would have made it carrying that heavy bag.
Part of the art gallery that is possibly thousands of years old.
They call this one the Cathedral. This is at the end of the 10 kilometre walk. I could have walked up the stairs but walking down was too painful so I admired it from the bottom.
Some pretty butterflies we came across.
We only passed one other couple on this part of the walk. They took photos for us and we took some for them.
People had made these all over the place.
I walked up the many stairs to see this as I knew it was going to be wonderful. I had taken a couple of paracetamol by this time and it possibly helped when I was walking back down the many, many stairs. I had my ND filter with me and was able to get a little bit of smoothness from the water but there wasn't enough water flowing for a really nice effect.
A pretty little swimming hole.
A different lot of art we came across.
There were so many different beautifully-coloured dragonflies but I didn't get any really good shots of them.
I noticed when I looked at this on the computer that there appears to be a large orange fish swimming to the left of the bird.
My friend got a surprise after breakfast when she returned to her tent. Her hubby played Steve Irwin when he was pretty sure it was harmless tree snake. He threw a shirt over it, picked him up and put it back in the bush. The staff confirmed it was a tree snake.
The snake was a bit stressed and changed colour with a bit of a blue tinge.
Some brolgas we passed on our way home.
A view I liked along the road.
We had a wonderful time at Takarakka and would return again quite easily.
