Australia: Eungella National Park to Rockhampton
- Will Boddington
- Apr 15, 2019
- 4 min read
Eungella National Park was very misty first thing in the morning, but still very beautiful. We drove up to the Sky Window Lookout and walked the short circuit back to the car park before heading to try and see something we hadn't yet encountered on our travels.
On the way to Broken River, we were preparing ourselves for the fact we might not see any as they're very shy and usually best seen a few hours earlier, but we got lucky - we saw some platypus! We sat very quietly and watched a couple swimming around the section of river we were at, occasionally coming up for air and allowing us a split second to take a photo of them. We also managed to see a couple as we walked further down the river and back; it must have been our lucky day.
In the afternoon we drove to Finch Hatton Gorge to see the Araluen Cascades and make the challenging walk up to the Wheel of Fire. Due to heavy rain, we were forced to stop about 2km away from the start of the trail as there was a deep puddle across the whole of the road and a good 10m long.
We watched a couple of vehicles brave the water and drive slowly across, but we didn't want to risk it. As we made the decision to abandon the van and walk the remaining 2km, another couple in a campervan drive across and we almost turned back to try it ourselves, but we're glad we didn't - a few meters past the flooded road they were forced to pull over as it appeared they had broken down (they were still there a few hours later when we returned - definitely glad we decided to walk!).
The walk up to the Araluen Cascades was slightly challenging thanks to the additional few uphill kilometres we had to do, but the falls were pretty impressive and some people were swimming in the pool at the bottom. It would have been refreshing after the walk, but very cold in the shade of the trees! We started the next part of the trail towards the Wheel of Fire, but the heavy rain had made the waterfall a lot stronger than usual and there was a warning that it was not advised to try to cross the falls to continue the trail, so in the end we decided to turn back and find the van.
After a busy few days, we decided to drive a few hours away from the coast to a lake we could spend a few days at. Lake Elphinstone was a huge free camping area, but with not many people we managed to set up a little area to ourselves. We had a lazy couple of days sunbathing, reading and walking around the lake. Unfortunately there was a high level of toxic algae in the lake so we weren't able to swim, but it meant the camp was quieter which suited us fine.
Our next destination was the historic town of Clermont. We had a quick drive around Hood's lagoon (while being followed by some ducks and geese who were clearly used to being fed!) before checking out some of the monuments around the town.
First was the flood memorial marker and the 'piano in a tree'. In 1916, Clermont had the 'Big Flood' where 65 lives were lost. The piano is a replica of one of the 3 pianos found in trees once the flood receded while the memorial marker lists the names of those people as well as showing the level of the water during the worst part of the flood. A mass grave of the flood victims is at Clermont Cemetery; we weren't able to go in but we drove past the cemetery on our way out of the town.
A few kilometres south of Clermont is Copperfield. In 1861, copper was discovered in the area. Queensland's first copper mine was opened, and in 1874 the Municipality of Copperfield was declared with a population of over 2000 Australian, Chinese and Welsh residents. However, by 1982 the population had declined to 82 and the copper mine closed. Today, all that is left of Copperfield is the general store and a brick smelter chimney.
We made a quick stopover in the nearby town of Emerald, staying the night at the botanic gardens where a friendly possum tried to share our dinner! We spent a couple of hours walking along the various tracks in the gardens and watching the hoards of cockatoos fly around before driving down to Rockhampton and spending the night behind the Kabra Hotel. We must be attracting the local wildlife, as the car park park toilet was home for the night to a green tree frog. He seemed happy enough in there so we left him to it!
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