Mackay, Eungella, & Carnarvon Gorge

After our first platypus sighting in the Atherton Tablelands, Catherine and I were hooked. We wanted to check out more of the little guys. So after getting off the boat at Airlie Beach, we bummed around town for a night before hitting the road to Eungella National Park. We first drove down to check out the town of Mackay (where we Catherine got about a half a foot of hair cut off!) before going back north a bit to Eungella, just in time for dusk when the platypus is most active. Here's our favorite discovery in Mackay - the self cleaning, completely self sufficient and probably smarter than a lot of human beings, toilet.

Complete with an automatic toilet dispenser even.

It would clean up after you, flush when you activated the hand wash, open and close automatically, and even played you elevator music.

Moving on, we got to see the platypus eating dinner (or hisbreakfast?) at Broken River later that evening. We camped overnight at a the "Platypus Bush Camp" by Finch Hatton Gorge, and went for a little hike and swim the next morning in the gorge. The water was freezing; it was a good wake-up so we could stay alert for our long drive inland towards Carnarvon Gorge.

Here I am freezing, but still hanging out in the water for some reason. The view of the waterfall was definitely worth it.

The falls.

We had to split the drive to Carnarvon Gorge into two days, so we stayed overnight in a small town called Emerald. We made it to the gorge by noon the next day, had a quick lunch then set off hiking. Turns out, like all 'hikes' in Australia...it was a pretty quick one yet again. But we got to see a cool moss garden, Cathedral Cave (a natural amphitheater) and an Aboriginal Art Gallery - art on the stone walls. We also got caught under a pretty fun thunderstorm - it was actually a really nice cool-down for the hot day.

The Moss Garden:

We had a couple river crossings on our walk - it wasn't deep, but it was always really pretty:The Aboriginal art.

After our hike we wanted to make it back to the coast. We hit the road as soon as possible, but only made it about halfway - no worries though mate, we snuck into a caravan park, slept for a couple hours then bounced out of there early before we ran into any problems. Made it to a coastal town of Tannum Sands in time for breakfast!