Some photos of highlights from our 8 days of visits to Lorne, Cape Otway and Timboon areas (March 2021). The river view of the campsite at Lorne Riverbank Caravan Park. See our previous post for a different view of this site. Erskine Falls Liverwort along the Lemonade Creek Track between Erskine Falls and Blanket Leaf […]
Lorne, more Otways and Great Ocean Road
The Bunya Mountains are west of Brisbane in Australia’s Great Dividing Range and house the world’s largest Bunya Pine forest.
The Bunya Pine is one of the few plants surviving from the Jurassic period -200 million years ago these magnificent trees developed and the Bunya Mountains is the place on the planet where they are still prolific.
What a place to camp for my last nights before reaching my destination.
I love the Bunya’s droopy branches and leaves.
To me they resemble giant rastas with their shaggy dreadlocks towering above the forest.
Walking in this beautiful cool rainforest wa such a contrast to the hot dry heat of the central Australia.
Walking amongst the trees
Walking through the trees.
Gardens on the ground
And in the trees in the shape of ferns and moss on the trees.
The gentle wallabies are in the camp grounds and on the trails.
At the northern end of the range at Mt Kiangarow, the forest is drier and grass trees prolific.
The view from Mt Kiangarow magnificent
By day
And at sunset.
That is just over 10,000km completed since I left Melbourne on 1 March 2021
What a ride:
Along the Great Ocean Road
Through the Coorong
Into the Flinders Ranges
Up the Oodnadatta Track
Immersed in the Red Centre
Across outback the Northern Territory and Queensland
Climb into the Bunya Mountains.
And now it’s the wedding on Saturday and I made it on time.
Did I mention that this wild adventure is taking a 10,000km detour to the wedding of a very close friends daughters!
No missed that point
The nearly 1200 km of rough dirt roads had destroyed the bikes rear tyre and drive chain.
So new tyre and chain and time to make miles to the east coast of Australia
Past the Devils Marbles
Over the Queensland border.
And along hot straight outback roads
To Longreach
Some call Longreach the capital of the Outback
The home of QANTAS now Australia’s national airline.
It’s also the centre of the Chanel Country that funnels the water of the tropical monsoons into Lake Eyre in the centre of Australia.
Which I has passed only a few weeks past
So I took a friend for a ride
To see the water lillies on the flooded Thompson River as the precious water makes its way to the desert
I was going to take a swim but the river was full of mud from recent floods and not inviting.
Tomorrow I will start to make miles again. Four days of riding in temperatures of 37c ( nearly 100F) had zapped my energy.
An air-conditioned hotel a respite. My blogs up to date, I’m refreshed and tomorrow offers cooler weather as I head south east toward the Pacific Ocean.
The Uluru – Kata Tjuta National Park in many ways the centre of Australia
Uluru the largest monolith in the world.
Constantly changing colour and tone as the light hits it.
To see it shine red during sunset it amazing
To see it at sunset with the March full moon rising on the equinox truly spiritual.
The walk around the base of Uluru is approximately 10.5 km.
Uluru is a sacred place for Aboriginal Australians and being close to it one feels the sacred power of the rock that is ever changing in colour and mood.
Each crevice, crack, cave and stain tell part of an Aboriginal dreamtime story.
Stories often told in drawing in the rock caves.
Kata Tjuta is approximately 40 km from Uluru. A series of sandstone rocks through which valleys wind.
The Valley of the Winds walk is an approximately 7km walk through the rock outcrops
As I sit in a hotel room in Longreach, Queensland, reflecting on the two weeks spent immersed in the Red Centre a shiver still goes down my spine.
It took me almost a lifetime to get here but I may yet be back.
There are two ways to travel between Alice Springs and Kings Canyon. The long way down the Stuart Highway or the short rough way on the dirt Mereenie loop road.
Road both but only the loop road was worth a picture!
Mereenie Sandstone formed in Central Australia about 400 million years ago.
By the size of the corrugations on the loop road that was the last time the road was graded!
The loop road leads directly to Watarrka National Park which includes Kings Canyon
The Rim Walk is a spectacular walk of around 8 km around the rim and into Kings Canyon
The views looking out from and across the top of the Canyon rim are amazing
Looking into the Canyon one can only marvel at the power of nature to cut so precisely the ancient sandstone with only water and wind as tools.
And when walking down into the Canyon floor
Where water flows and plants flourish there is a beautiful cool calmness silent away from the heat of the Rim.
Kings Canyon is one of the major destinations in Central Australia. I think you can see why.
