We were heading back towards Brisbane. Our actual target was unknown and would be decided later, depending upon progress. The larger part of todays journey was possible the most tedious drive I have ever been on; the agricultural fields were enormous, largely empty and devoid of any interest, and made a billiard table look bumpy.

Finally we turned into some high ground where a couple of Phil’s target dragonfly sites were: Northbrook Creek and Green’s Waterfall. Northbrook Creek was not much of a creek, being largely dry as have been most of the creeks over which we have driven. Still, with temperatures consistently in the mid to high 30s Centigrade, perhaps that is understandable. We did made a lengthy, steep descent to a second section of the creek which  amused us with more suspects to play with. Walking back up, once again with my cargo vest and camera bag, i.e. all my valuables, was less amusing.

It was now lunch time and, with supplies running a little low but needing using up, lunch consisted of that most horrendous of American inventions, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. OK, let’s translate that for English-speaking western world, a peanut butter and jam sarnie. Oh, that’s without butter, BTW, ‘cos we can’t possible keep butter in these travelling conditions. Peanut butter and Hellman’s mayonnaise works, though, as I found.

Parking at our afternoon stop of Green’s Waterfall was tricky. The main car park was closed for an ongoing construction project. A nice lady let us abandon ship in front of her café, which was closed. There began a 4 kms round trip on foot down a road and then down a gorge to the waterfall itself. There was no water. What there was, on the way, in dreadful lighting conditions (i.e. no light) was a hung-up crepuscular Hawker, which is rarely seen. The wind wasn’t playing fair, either, usually blowing  dangling leaves across our subject. The subject was shaded and, to cap it all, there was much brighter backlight. I tried various combinations of settings and this is the best I could manage, possible the only recognisable shot: Southern Giant Darner (Austrophlebia costalis).

Here’s the gorge we were walking through. A lot of much appreciated hard work had been done to construct the sections of boardwalk that were necessary. We departed from it once to try and get further pictures of a different individual. All I got for my troubles was a leech on my right leg, which I found after Roy announced he had one. It hadn’t yet attached itself.

A mental coin toss had us return to a caravan site in Brisbane itself, not far from the Botanic Gardens, which Phil has yet to see. This decision may have bene encouraged by the fact that, an hour after we drove through Toowoomba, a bush fire started, so we didn’t want to go back that way. The Brisbane site has been invaded by a travelling squadron of rental motorvan Chinese who have monopolized the kitchen. I’m hoping dinner, when the kitchen is finally relinquished, will improve on the peanut butter sarnie for lunch, though we have no meat. Lentils, I think. I like lentils.

… but not for the lads. The lads were off early for a repeat visit to the Moss Garden  a few kilometres up Carnarvon Gorge. They were still in search of Austroaeshna something. Frankly, I was having non of that; I just didn’t want a repeat march up and down Carnarvon Gorge in the heat. Besides, the buggers don’t stop flying and with a confused forest background, I was hardly likely to get a photo. So, I chose to have a relaxed morning packing up my tent, eating an instant oat breakfast (just add hot water from the samovar) and watching the wallabies and kookaburras around the campsite.

Eventually the boys returned empty handed, so I hadn’t missed much and I had rather enjoyed my down time. I loaded my baggage in the vehicle, a Mitsubishi Pajero [don’t buy one] and we were off to Chinchilla.

The journey was overcast and through 400kms of a largely unchanging landscape. I’m rarely able to look around in a vehicle, normally being behind the wheel, and here I was with free time on my hands and b***** all to look at. A moment of light relief occurred when we pulled into what was evidently a truck stop for lunch. The trucks in question were the Australian Road Trains. I was using the facillities when a  driver spoke to me about his “automated truck that wouldn’t let me proceed unless I did a burn”. I was a little grubby so maybe he thought I was a truck driver myself and would know what he meant. I hadn’t got a clue but nodded and smiled sagely.

We arrived in Chincilla, rejected campsite A  but finally got a pitch for three tents behind a load of cabins at campsite B. After setting up the tents we hit the kitchen with a Furphy or three. Furphy has become my favourite Ozzie beer. Good job we’d bought a slab of it.

Oh, my tent got a little wet for the first time – not very much but it survived.

A late start today; we weren’t out of the campsite until 07:00. As we were getting ready to leave one of the local Pretty-face Wallabies sat beside our pitch complete with adorable joey in her pouch. How endearing is this?

The targets for the morning, both being close to Takarakka, my little slice of heaven, were Mickey Creek followed by The Rock Pool. Ours was the only car in the car park at the beginning of the 1.3km trail running beside Mickey Creek. [Quelle surprise.]

The water was flowing but there wasn’t much of it. There was a lot of mud beside the stream and, further up the banks, about 2m, detritus, evidence of the inch of rain that fell rapidly in a storm about a week ago and washed all before it. This creek must then have been a raging torrent. The boys are after an Austroaeshna  species (that’s an Australian Hawker) but I’m happy to try taking pictures of any odonata that offer themselves up to my lens. They’ve seen an Austroaeshna a couple of times but thus far it has flown continuously and has eluded being captured on pixels. I’m content with the lower-hanging fruit that I am getting. I spent a awful lot of pixels on an Australian emperor (Hemicordulia australiae); the lighting was harsh and difficult but here’s some of the pixels.

There was some low-hanging fruit at our second stop, The Rock Pool, which was only about 1km distant. The Rock Pool itself is a swimming hole that would doubtless be crowded in the popular season. Happily now, we were the only ones there. [A song about mad dogs and Englishmen springs to mind.] Flowing into the pool and keeping it topped up was a rock-strewn creek. Phil had his wellies on and was impervious. Roy had short shoes on and got his feet soaked. There was nothing for it, I’d have to get my walking boots wet – fortunately the water never went over the tops. I had some fun cooling down my feet – once again we’re up in the mid-30s Centigrade – and stalking some dragonflies which did their level best not to be stalked. I wobbled on more rounded wet rocks until I had them stalked as best I could. Phil has a thing about Gomphids [i.e. club-tailed dragonflies]. We, by which I mean Phil, think this one is a Pale Hunter (Austrogomphus amphiclitus).

Once again we returned to the calm of Takarakka campsite for lunch and an afternoon of paperwork. This is the first place where we’ve really had much in the way of downtime and I’ve been able to get up to date, mas ó menos. Immediate refreshment took the form of one of the Connoisseur range of Australian native ingredient ice creams – they’re like Australian Magnums.  I went for salted caramel with macadamia nut. Wattleseed and Hazelnut sounds interesting, too. I couldn’t resist washing my ice cream down with a cold Bundaberg ginger beer [apparently, that can be bought at Tesco – hmmm].

We move away from my slice of heaven tomorrow to begin ouor journey back to wards Brisbane but not before the boys have once again gone up Carnarvon Gorge to the Moss Garden. I’m going to leave them to it this time, I think.

We had been given a 20-minute video presentation about the Carnarvon Gorge when we had arrived at Takarakka. The gorge is up to 1km wide with vertically sheer cliffs. The temperature inside the gorge can be 5°C hotter than outside and outside was forecast to be another 37°C day. Our walk up to The Moss Garden, which is the main dragonfly interest, was going to be a hot one. Start early and finish by midday, was the advice that sounded very sensible to me. Once again, I was going to have to lug my darn cargo vest and camera rucksack with me.

Most of the gorge itself is relatively flat with not much more than a gentle incline as it narrows. Along its length are a number of of side tracks which, starting from the bottom of the main gorge track, all head upwards. Our target was the second of these side shoots, the one up to the so-called Moss Garden.

We arrived at our start point at about 07:30 and began our 2km gentle climb to start of the side arm. We hung a left and relatively soon found our dragonfly habitat which halted progress for some time.

The Moss Garden itself is a dark and relatively cool oasis. What is apparently special about it is the fact that the cliffs are composed of limestone on top. Rain water that fell 1000 years ago filters slowly down through the limestone until it meets an impervious layer and emerges to drip down the remaining cavern walls which are covered in moss. There ain’t no dragonflies up there.

The walk back down at midday was, indeed, bloody hot. I had enough water to keep me going at a gentle pace but was pleased when I spotted the roof of the visitor centre [unmanned]. I really cannot imagine anybody tackling the 24kms it is possible to walk at this time of year. Our 4.5kms round trip was quite enough. We repaired to Takarakka for a well deserved cold beer (or Bundaberg ginger beer for those not indulging in alcohol).

I enjoy the siesta here at Takarakka. It is great that even Phil and the dragonflies consider it too hot to do much. I’m getting hooked on black Dilmah Premium Ceylon Tea. The campsite has a samovar constantly on the go for brews.

I was ready for our early evening spectacle. A couple of years ago there was a serious fire which forced a colony of fruit bats out of their cave further up the gorge. They have taken up residence in part of the Takarakka campsite and the owners, bless them, being wildlife fanatics, have let them stay but have had to close that section of the campsite which has been adopted by the bats. In the early evening, they swarm out to drink and feed. I’d seen them, of course, on our first night but now I was ready for them. Here they are, complete with the moon in shot. The stream of bats continues unabated for a good 10 minutes; it’s quite spectacular. Our host estimates that there are 20,000 of them. You do not want to be beneath 20,000 fruit bats; you must trust me on this.

Our next main target is Carnarvon Gorge but we need an intermediate stop. The stop chosen by our revered leader was a town called Emerald which also has a touring caravan park that accepts tents. As usual we set off early and were on the road by 06:30.

We passed a few hours at couple of river crossings working up and down the banks, sometimes working through the water. ‘T was interesting but not exactly scintillating. I did find a drying out teneral Clubtail (Gomphid), yet to be identified.

Another site called Broken River was “a site of interest”, naturally because a river runs through it, so odonata were on that menu, too. It was but a short detour off our main route to Emerald. Broken River has a short stay car park which we pulled into, then went to see the map at the visitor centre. A helpful lady was telling another pair where the best viewing platform for Duck-billed Platypus was but that midday-ish wasn’t the best time to see them – they are usually more active at dawn and dusk.

Phil had disappeared up the river and was temporarily lost to us so Roy and I wandered to the viewing platform. It was around midday so we were both a little gobsmacked to soon see a Duck-billed Platypus swimming and diving to feed in the pool beneath the viewing platform. This couldn’t be any better; we had the combined advantages of bright daylight, height and beautifully clear water – we could see the odd creation submerged, stirring up the silt looking for lunch.

The route to Emerald took us past an area of Australia that I can only describe as being raped; we drove by a couple of open-cast coal mines each of which must’ve been the size of Norwich. Goods trains over a kilometre long and powered by four locomotives, two at the front and two more in the middle, were stationary beside the road we drove on. All the wagons were loaded to the brim with coal [I suspect] destined for China, which seems to be Australia’s largest market for most things.

We stopped on a dead straight road at a ditch with water. It was dead straight in that there was no bend visible but there were several carcasses of dead kangaroos on the road. They’d been dead some time with various parts having been eaten away and believe me, having lain there in the mid 30°C temperatures for a couple of days, the aroma was not pleasant. One carcase was right beside the pool the boys were interested in. I decided not to look.

By about 18:00 we arrived at Emerald and checked in, asking for a powered site. We couldn’t see the site until we turned a corner. This  was one of the scuzzier campsite that I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a few. Our pitch had no grass, as such, but did have a raised concrete plinth for the hardstanding. Beside this was an area of rough ground made of Darwin knows what where two of our tents would fit. The ground initially refused to be penetrated by pegs. We had no hammer (I had meant to pick up a stone at our previous camp but forgot) but Phil found a lump of hardwood which just about sufficed. Roy chose to pitch his tent across the concrete (it was baking hot) and his tent was just wide enough for the pegs to be forced into the ground at the side.

Beside us was a motorvan complete with young parents and a mostly uncontrolled Rugbrat. I decided not to look.

We shot back into town for dinner. There may have been urgency since some hotels stop food at 19:30. I tried to avoid chips by ordering a graziers pie which came with potato and mushy peas. They had none so I was down to fish [flathead] and chips again, which did NOT come with mushy peas. Go figure.

The photography on this trip is a bit more of a challenge than it usually is. Firstly, we’re hitting the mid-30s on the Centigrade scale. Secondly, because I don’t want to leave my cargo vest containing passport, wallet, sunnies, reading glasses in an unattended car, I have to wear it when the last thing I need is a second layer. The same applies to my 9kg rucksack with all the photographic gear and laptop. I have to heft that on my back, too, and scramble on rocks rounded by an occasionally pounding river, the weight of the rucksack is a little unbalancing. So,  Phil offered to ferry me to a car park up the gorge so I didn’t have to carry my the rucksack; I still needed my trusty cargo vest with documents, spare battery and water bottle, though. None of us wanted to leave the car unattended when our Platypus Bush Camp was safer and only about 1km away. The taxi ride left me with about 2.1 kms to walk to the Wheel of Fire (a pool at the end of the path).

Before departing, I tried a spot of bush camp laundry. I had a couple of shirts, socks and several undies to refresh. The basin once again has no plug so I stuffed my socks in the plughole. That enabled me to do a rudimentary job of “plunge, plunge, plunge, squeeeeeze”. We’d seen a wonderful, small manual tumble washing machine for camping. How good would that be? These Aussies have some great camping gear designed for outback living with bugger all facilities. I finished my attempt at laundry and strung my washing line between two trees beside my tent and hoped.

We had a reasonably successful, if quite strenuous morning hunting dragons. There were many more Rockmasters but two more exciting species, if you’re into that sort of thing. One of the more interesting and unusual things, though, was that we got to watch a snake hunting amongst the boulders that strew the gorge river. It seemed unconcerned about our presence but, given the reputation of Ozzie fauna for being venomous, we were circumspect. I doubt this one was venomous but here it is with Frogs Legs for lunch.

Phil had cleverly left a water container secreted in the bushes behind the car park so we could recharge our bottles before the extra kilometre+ back down to Platypus Camp. After a fairly long slog I was cheered to find that my laundry was dry. Yay! Mind you, after being baked for a few hours at 33°C it darn well should be. It smelt fresh, too.

More supplies were required, especially water and Bundaberg ginger beer which seems to be an Aussie institution and rightly so. The lads have got me hooked. It really is a reasonable substitute for the real thing. So, we headed for Finch Hatton and its general store which delivered on both. What they did not deliver on was an explanation as to any link between their little town and Denys Finch-Hatton as portrayed by the wonderful Robert Redford in Out of Africa. In fact, they’d never heard of Denys Finch-Hatton and one guy I asked had never even heard of the movie. WHAT!? You cannot be serious!

Platypus Camp is not named as a tourist gimmick; it really does have two Duck-billed Platypus pools. The best times for observing these curious evolutionary creations are dawn and dusk. The three of us went and sat on the sandy beach beside the pool and waited hopefully. Sure enough, at 18:15 a Platypus began foraging. Just to give the idea of how difficult these things are to capture on pixels, here’s one at a ridiculous ISO 3200 at 1/25 sec and F5.6. Because we are on much the same level as the creature, it’s hardly recognizable. One has to try, though. 🙂

I must be getting on the time zone ‘cos I stayed in the tent until 05:00 this morning. That just meant that I had to rush to pack up my tent, sleeping mat and sleeping bag again. I discarded the wrapper (it’s not really a bag) for the mat; it was getting in the way and didn’t help pack it. Once again, my tent and sleeping bag didn’t fit the other half of my bag’s lower deck so the tent went in the car alone. I may not be using the sleeping bag’s compression straps severely enough. After all, the tent can’t get any shorter than the pole bag therein.

We were on the road by about 06:30 and were aiming for a lengthy drive north to a gorge just beyond Marian. En route, after filling up with fuel, we had a slightly more successful side detour than yesterday’s to the Lawrence Wetland Reserve favoured by birders. There were a few dragonflies to play with, though, and it made a pleasant leg stretch. One of them looked like a new species for me; a Palemouth (Brachydiplax denticauda).

By 13:00 we were approaching our destination but needed shopping. Happily, it being a Sunday, there was a shopping mall nearby complete with a Woolworths. Before shopping, Roy called our target site, Platypus Bush Camp, to check what facilities there were. Essentially the answer was none … well, limited. There was a “bush shower” [bush showers are not enclosed but open out onto the bush], though it was cold because of the total fire ban, along with four dunnies and a kitchen area but all sans power. Happily Phil had called in a bought a single burner gas ring with four cannisters of butane, so rudimentary cooking would be OK. There were no refrigeration facilities, though, so we had to be careful what we bought, intending to stay for three nights. I seem to be going vegetarian bush. Arghh!

Our soon to be genial host asked us to pick up three bottles of peach tea cordial for him. Hmmm. “Get one for yourselves”, he suggested. Roy and I bought red wine which doesn’t nee chilling.

Shopping over, we began our final approach. This should be home from home for me. Just look at it, we were heading for Finch Hatton Gorge. I couldn’t believe it, going to a gorge that appears to be named after one of my film heroes. I may get tears welling up in my eyes.

A few hundred metres from our destination we crossed a ford over a boulder-strewn creek. This, of course, was irresistible and we piled out. “Diphlebia!”, yelled Roy! I was getting into some of the Ozzie odo lingo by now and knew this was one of the species I was really hoping to see, a Rockmaster. This looked like perfect habitat for it. My companions have wellies but I had my trusty Peter Storm boots but there was nothing for it, they’d have to get wet. This is why they’d have to get wet.

I’d been in bed/tent since 20:00 yesterday evening. The trouble is, once darkness falls and others invade the kitchen area, there is little to do for entertainment. I had fallen asleep and awoken twice before it was midnight. This was going to be a long one.

Since I’d had trouble packing my gear previously, at 03:50 I decided to squirm into my clothes and start getting ready. The Kookaburras were late with their alarm and began calling at about 04:10. Once the Kookies started, other birds joined in. I made myself comfortable and began to strike my tent.

Our pitch was essentially sand and I was keen to find something other than sand to try and fold it. I went into the kitchen and used a table to deflate my sleeping mat as best I could. It wasn’t a very good best and the valve that is supposed to make it airtight doesn’t, it sucks air back in. I repeated the exercise and tried to strap it before it ballooned up again.

Mercifully it was calm and I found a patch of almost-grass to fold my tent. My sleeping mat was too big but still just about fitted my bag. Both my sleeping bag and tent were too long and I had no chance. The tent went into the car solo. This has to get easier or something is going to get left behind. I’m thinking I should have brought the slightly larger holdall.

After another stressful packing, at 06:00 we left the delights of Paradise Beach and its groups of young studs to head off to Rockhampton.

On the way we stopped at some potential habitat with just a smearing of water left. Roy found a poisonous Red-bellied Snake and we all skilfully avoided it. After it squirmed into its woodpile, we found a single species, my first Ozzie Ceriagrion and a tandem pair to boot.

Another detour off piste through a bone dry forest to find a creek which turned out to be saline. Bother. Ignoring the no through road, Google told us we could go through so we did. What Google thought was an entry back onto the highway was actually a fence. We ended up riding 2 kms on a very rough forest track back along the fence line to get to the entrance we had entered through. A truck driver, maybe the farmer, asked what we were doing there. He seemed to be amused by combinations of following Google and looking for dragonflies. I can’t think why.

Once in Rockhampton we diverted to another creek surrounded by posh-looking houses. In Australia a posh house is one whose gutters do not bump into the neighbours gutters. The houses were pleasant but the creek was as dry as a dingo’s crotch. Failure #3 for the day.

We retired to the campsite, stopping first at a bottle shop for a couple of six packs. I have become particularly fond of Furphys, which happily they had.. At last a success.

The campsite is pleasant in a basic sort of way. We’re the only tents in and we’ve pitched under a shady tree sporting very red blossoms that are dropping on the ground. (My tent is the green one on the middle.) We’ve seen a lot of these trees with brilliant red blossoms. I’ve no idea what they are but they make quite a contrast to the jacarandas when in close proximity.

I’ve got to pack the tent again tomorrow. I think I’ll just leave it out of my bag.

Our neighbouring young studs had been reasonably considerate, although Phil had heard one of them chundering overnight and wondered what he’d been hitting. We’re here for two nights so have the whole, long day to investigate local habitats.

We returned to Seary’s Creek  before 08:00 and found it pleasantly free of people. This early start caper is strange; in the UK I wouldn’t dream of hunting dragonflies before about 11:00. Even so it took a little while for the Antipodean dragonflies to warm up but we ended up passing a few hours with Roy wading in the sandy-bottomed river up to his waist and me trying to follow as best I could along the overgrown bank. This is dune slack territory, so-called brown water habitat, or so I’m told, and the species differ a little. We had some success but teh  habitat picture is probably of more general interest.

We returned the short distance to the campsite for a relaxing lunch – in common with most European campsites, lunchtime is quiet because everyone else is out for the day – before our afternoon distraction. This was much harder work.

Our objective was Poona Lake. A trail began close to where a permit was needed for motor vehicles but fortunately the start of our trail was within the no permit required zone. We had a 2.1 kms walk there and, of course, a 2.1 kms walk back. Some of the walk in both directions was uphill. In the grand scheme of things, it isn’t a long way but, not wanting to leave either my document-containing jacket, or camera bag or laptop in the car, I had to do the walk it laden with those through forest in 30+°C. Suffice to say I was relieved to arrive.

We emerged from the forest ont the shore of a quite large lake. It was surrounding by some beach and quite a lot of impenetrable sharp reeds. One of the targets here was teh so-called Brown-water Skimmer (Orhetrum boumiera) and several males presented themselves almost immediately we arrived. Females were difficult to find but as I was negotiating some of the reeds I spotted one sitting advantageously. Right, happy camper (though not particularly with the campsite).

Roy hung back looking for other quarry while I followed Phil back along the 2.1kms track to the car where we restocked with water and salt. Water is obvious but the salt needed when sweating copiously comes in the form of salted crisps, a.k.a. potato chips. Well, it’s a good excuse to eat junk food.