Carnarvon Gorge -

We have been here back in 1969 then again in 1971 where we spent our honeymoon here camping !

So its about time we returned

Amphitheatre.

Carnarvon Gorge

Sunday nights camp 4th August 2024

Just a bit different to the borrowed 2 man tent back in 1971 !

Chinese Hand cut road across the Staircase range in 1905.

This is just south of Springsure

West of Springsure

“This is the site of a massacre of 19 people by a local Aboriginal Tribe on 17th October 1861.

The people killed were in a party lead by Horatio Wells and were resting in the eatly afternoon when the tribe moved into camp and killed 10 men, 2 women and seven children.”

Quoted from the sign at the start of then walk.

The graves and site commemorate the massacre of nineteen Europeans by Aborigines from the Kairi tribe on "Culling-La-Ringo" Station. This was the largest recorded massacre of Europeans in Australian history. Horatio Wills (station owner) and his people were buried in a grave at the scene of the massacre, which is remembered in a headstone.

It was a retaliatory massacre, part of the savage frontier guerrilla war that was being waged at the time. Eighty kilometres from Cullin-la-ringo and north of the Expedition and Staircase Ranges, some local graziers in 1861 were poisoning Kairi Kairi water holes and shooting Aboriginal people, while the Native Mounted Police were being encouraged to forcibly evict Aboriginal people from station and river camps.

Old Telemon Homestead 100kms west of Springsure.

Lyn was born here and spent the first 7 years of her life.

It was a bit of a nostalgic visit, particularly as its all in ruin.

The old once thriving cattle yards now in decay.

The original meat house.

Quite an impressing property entrance.

South into the Salvador Rosa section of the Carnarvon Nat.Park

This is Bunbuncundoo Springs. Its just a trickle.

One of the many headwaters of the Nagoa River system.

Not worth the drive in..

Tuesday 6th August

Tonights camp

Wednesday 7th August

Thomas Mitchell travelled this way in 1846, naming the Salvator Rosa and the Mantuan Downs after an area familiar to him in Northern Italy.

This memorial made of petrified wood, as he commented in his diary of such a find.

The escarpment of the Salvator Rosa Nat Park

Deep into the park is an old set of yards, originally constructed by Sir Thomas Mitchell in 1846 as a base camp, and later used by settlers and enlarged in  1882 and again in the 1940’s

Mitchell was trying to find a way to Port Essington ( near Darwin)

Near the yards is the Mitchell Springs.

4 million litres of water pours daily from this spring and filters through 4 metres of peat bog.

It’s the only one known in central Qld.

The water from here enters the Pacific near Rockhampton

Local Sandstone formations and  Yellow Jacket Gums