Cania Gorge:: Part 5 - In Camp

Camp was where we spent a lot of time in our 4 or so days at Cania Gorge.  The main reason for that was because it rained so much but we did have moments when we could get out and about to do some outdoorsy things.

Making campfires is one definate things that you have to do while camping.

We got one night in all the nights away when we could actually light a campfire because it wasn't raining.

It was so fantastic to be able to sit around it, stoke it up, chat and watch the kids enjoying it.  Thank goodness we had one good night!

There was plenty of bird life around the camp as well which is not unusual.

 The birds love to see what they can scavenge from campsite and the Currawongs are no exceptions.  We had plenty of them as well as magpies and kookaburras around trying to steal from under the tarps so we had to keep everything packed away pretty well.

The kids were entertained by riding their bikes, kicking balls and running around with sticks and making up some interesting games and imaginative roleplays which was quite cute to listen into.

We also had a night when there was a sausage sizzle put on by the park owners.  It happened between downpours and the snags were cooked to perfection over the communal campfire in the middle of the park.

We got to meet other lovely campers who all knew about us mainly because of the kids.  We were the only one with kids in the park (middle of the school term and not holidays), so everyone pretty well heard where we were.

We were intending to be away for nearly two weeks but in the end we left home on Thursday and arrived back home on Monday afternoon.

Why?

Lovely hubby got a bit ill with a middle ear problem called Vertigo and we ended up at Monto hospital on Saturday arvo because we had no idea what was going on.

He couldn't stand up straight because he kept having head spins and falling over so we thought it best to get it checked out at home.

So we were so looking forward to spending nearly a month away going up to

Cape York.

Because of Lovely hubby's work that ended up having to be cut short so we decided on a couple of weeks away to Cania Gorge and we would decide where to go after that.

In the end we were away for 5 days and two of those days were spent driving.

I had to drive all the way home from Cania Gorge to home on the Monday because Lovely hubby is not allowed to drive.

We left at 11 am and got home about 4.45pm.  I did a bloody good job if I say so myself pulling a heavy trailer and quickly learning how to tow things up and down hilly ranges.

It was great and has given me a lot more confidence although I know I couldn't do it by myself in future, I'm just too short and not strong enough to set everything up so I'll always need help.

Back to normal blog stuff soon as our holiday is definately over (sigh.....).

xx Susan

Cania Gorge:: Part 4 - Bushwalking

Now there's two reasons to go to Cania Gorge.  One is for the fishing as the dam is on the other side of the Gorge, the second is for the bushwalks.

We love getting out and about and going for a bushwalk and the ones at the gorge were great for the kids.  There were some reasonable walks that the kids could easily do without getting too tired and grumpy and we got to see a variety of things including creeks....

...caves (this one's the Dragon's cave)...

...and plenty of amazing formations in the sandstone.

 

We got to check out the views when we walked to the top of the escarpment below.

Then there were some more caves to explore.  This one's the Bloodwood cave.....

....so called because it has the roots of a bloodwood tree growing down into a corner of it.

There's plenty of interesting logs and other things to look at on the way.

One walk started at the place where we stayed and just 50 metres away from the main building (you can see it peeking through the trees)...

was Big Foot.  This was a natural picture of a foot on one of the sandstone walls.  The kids loved seeing this one and being so close to camp meant we could come for a quick walk to look at it when they were getting a bit full-on (which was most of the time!)

I just loved the difference in rainforest, to open forest in a small area.

Some of the shapes made by the rocks, not to mention the peep holes, caves and paths through the rocks was pretty amazing too.  We could let our imaginations run wild and pretend lots of things out there with the kids.

So even though it rained a lot of the time and we had to come home early (more on that another time), we still got to get out and about and see some of the beautiful things that Cania Gorge has to offer.

xx Susan

Cania Gorge:: Part 3 - Textures

I love taking photos and have come to realise over the past few days that I love taking photos when I'm out and about. 

Natural, spur of the moment photos are what I love taking and I have a lot of difficulty taking good still life photos.  I don't seem to have an eye for setting things up and taking a good photo of them.

When you're out bushwalking there's so many amazing things to see.  Not just the path, trees, rocks and caves but the little things too.

I loved these tiny little plants about as big as a 10 cent piece, nestled in the arm of a tree root.

The moss on the rocks was springy to touch.

There were so many different kinds of trees.  Some had dimples...

 

...some had sap running out. (The kids were a bit distressed because they thought the tree was bleeding)

Some trees were loosing their bark which made them look half dressed....

...and some trees had rough bark.

The bush flowers were beautiful.

And of course moss on logs is always a favourite.

There's plenty of other wonderful things to see at Cania Gorge too and not everything seen through a macro lens!  I'll show you some of the caves and creeks next time.

xx Susan

Cania Gorge:: Part 2 - Wildlife

Cania Gorge is home to some pretty awesome wildlife. 

At 4pm it's feeding time at the park where we're staying which the kids loved of course.

Feeding time for the lorikeets that is.

The resident chooks like to get in on the act too.

There's wallabies hopping around as well as Bettongs which are in resident here as well although we didn't see many of either of these animals.

This lady is not exactly classed as wildlife but wander around on unfenced roads on the farms near the national park.  This one stared us down right beside the road on a corner near the Cania Dam.

We were REALLY surprised to see some emu's in one of the paddocks beside the road as we were driving out to the dam one rainy day.  I had to get the super zoom out for these ones as they were about 100metres off to the side of the road but it was pretty exciting to see them.

The kids loved seeing them in the wild as they've only seen them at the zoo before.

There was plenty of other wildlife we saw when it wasn't raining but the next couple of pictures would have to be among my favourites; mainly because I was so excited to see it.

We were driving into the town of Monto one day when we saw a Wedge Tail Eagle by the side of the road.  We soon realised why he wasn't too worried about us driving past...

...it wasn't until we stopped and he thought we were a threat that he took off.

With him he took his prize of a pretty huge black snake!

We saw a few BIG dead snakes on the road on the way to the Gorge but thankfully didn't see any while we were out and about.

Hope you have enjoyed a snippet of the animals. 

Until the next installment....

xx Susan

Cania Gorge:: Part 1 - Getting there

OnThursday we finally had the car and trailer all packed up and about 10am left for Cania Gorge.

Unfortunately it started to rain just after we left.  We hoped it wasn't a sign of things to come so were happy when after about an hour the rain stopped.

The little town of Kilkivan was our lunch stop.  We gulped down our picnic, headed to the toilets and the kids got to burn some energy in the playground before we headed off again.

There's a lot of brown grass out this way.



We reached the Cania Gorge Tourist Retreat about 4pm and proceeded to set up the camper.  It was much easier and quicker this time as we had a bit more of an idea of what we're doing.

It's a beautiful van park this one.  Very natural but unfortunately the weather is against us and it's been raining the whole time we've been here.

We're certainly working out quickly what to do when it's constantly raining and what things we'll change and do differently next time.

I'm glad we got the storm cover up as we had a storm in the early hours of this morning, just to help make everything even wetter if that's possible!

With all this rain we haven't been able to get anything dry so we've come into Monto to use the laundromat and stock up on some supplies.

Hopefully we'll be able to go on a few more bushwalks in the next couple of days as it's such a beautiful place.  We've already been on a couple of short ones in between and often during showers so I'll post some photos of what we've done so far the next time I'm in internet range.

xx Susan