Our Trip 

Day Eleven

Part Two 

Okay, so you've had a long enough

break. I'm back with part two of 

day eleven!

On our trek down the track,

we had a couple of people tell us

that we should take a trip into

Desert Queen Baths, as it was 

beautiful, and because we were having

to do the detour off the Canning, we might as well

see some other sights in the Rudall River National Park

Well, that was all fine and good, 

but they neglected to tell us that the 

18 km into the baths, stated on the sign,

was not your standard 18 km. 

We thought, well, we might

as well. It's only 18km, we can

just go in there to camp for the night

then head back out the next morning 

and be on our way. 

Now, don't get me wrong,

it was very picturesque and 

the landscape was beautiful,

but the road in!! 

My word! Needless to say,

our 18km trip took us just over an hour

and it was a very tight track, twisting 

it's way through the bush over rocky sections

and washouts galore with steep little inclines

and very complicated sections of road. 

(Emilee once again did really well)

The radio was very essential 

on this track as without it,

you wouldn't know that other vehicles were 

on their way out, and there wasn't much 

room to pull over in a lot of the sections,

so you would radio up, let people know 

which way you were going and one or the other

of you would pull over and wait for the other 

to pass. And most the time, it was a small convoy 

of vehicles coming in or out. 

It was amazing country but we 

were getting towards the end of the day

and tiredness was setting in and we 

just wanted to set up camp and relax for a while.

So, it was a very long hour.

(funnily enough, coming out it didn't seem 

half as long, even tho it took the same amount of time) 

Photos, as usual, do not really 

do it justice and it's quite hard to 

take clear, unblurred photos while bumping

along an uneven track, but it was great outback

driving experience for Emilee. 

(she is a pro now)

Well, we finally made it to 

camp and found a secluded little spot

under the trees at the base of some stunning,

red, mountains. Maddie and I set off to see

how far away the water hole was,

and found that there was one quite close by. 

The water was absolutely FREEZING!! 

(we did without showers that night)

We weren't sure how to get to the actual

Desert Queens Baths, but we didn't really have 

time to do much exploring, so we left it for another

time, on another adventure. 

I did some reading, since getting home,

and it's probably just as well, we didn't go

looking as this is someone's comments on the baths:

There is a large, permanent pool right at the mouth of the gorge and very near the camp area. Once past this stretch of water you have a walk of over 1.5 km across the rocky creek floor jumping from boulder to rock until you get to the first of the series of pools that forms the DQB. Once reached the only way forward is to swim each rock hole in turn. The first pool was long and deep and shockingly cold. We managed to traverse it and clamber out the other side. The second was shallower and a fair bit warmer. The third, you had to push the ice aside. It was deep, shadowed and freezing. To make matters worse, the far side exit had to be gained up a sheer wall and drop off of a couple of metres. Believe me the cold water spurred you on. Above this there was another pool of equal size but a bit more survivable temperature.

So, yes, maybe another day.

The area was spectacular

and the water hole so still

(until someone through a rock in it,

which spoiled my reflection shots)

that I was very happy taking photo after photo. 

This was the first body of water we had 

come across on our trip, so it was quite 

exciting to see. I only wish we could have jumped

in, but nobody would join me. 

After setting up,

we all headed down to look at the pool,

with Maddie and I taking the lead. 

We spent a bit of time down there enjoying the 

coolness, then we hunted around for firewood

on our way back. 

Funny story. This particular day,

EVERYONE, except Dave (because

he wouldn't dare be seen in red),

was wearing red! 

It was so funny, as it wasn't planned at all,

it had just happened, so I made sure we

got a photo of that momentous occasion. 

(we must have looked like a school group,

traipsing around all looking alike)

On the walk back, I took 

a few photos of the different flowers

I saw. I noticed that on our trip,

the flowers were either purple,

red, yellow or white. There wasn't

many other colours but they were all pretty

so I tried to get a photo of each different type I saw. 

As the sun was starting to make it's way 

down over the horizon, the girls and Casey 

decided to do a quick little hike to the top

of the nearby rocky hill. 

It was quite a steep little climb,

as Dave and I found out when it looked too 

enjoyable not to be up there as well. 

But the view from the top was well 

worth the climb. It was truly magnificent!!

Yep. That's our little camp, way down below. 

The sun setting brought out the extraordinary reds

in the rock faces and way over on the mountains 

in the distance. 

 There was also some strange little

purple flowers on a fuzzy green plant. 

Dave gave me quite a scare when the slab of

rock he was climbing down on, slid out from under

his foot and had him grabbing for a hand hold. 

We had a nice time of exploring up top

before we clambered down again 

to beat the light that was rapidly fading. 

The sun's rays were majestically

casting their light across the valley 

and lighting up every rock face 

and every mountain. Everything

glowed red and shouted to all who could see,

that the God and creator of the universe 

knew exactly what he was doing when he spoke

the world into existence. None of this could have been 

caused by a 'big bang'. There had to have been a 

master creator to bring about something as beautiful as 

what we were watching as the night fell. 

And so, our long day ended,

over a warm camp fire, billy tea

and a nice hot meal of butter chicken 

and veges with pancakes on the menu for breakfast. 

A new adventure lay just over 

the horizon and we settled down 

to get some sleep and be ready for 

whatever lay ahead of us. 

To be continued...……...