The four of us set off early on Friday morning for our car camping trip. The two Hyundai's held up pretty well, the only interruptions on the road were several sudden stops to spot some Pond Ducks.....
We left the main road at Coolah, 35 km from the park, and continued over an unsealed road.
More reason to stop: a huge wedge-tailed eagle, Australia's largest bird with a wingspan of over 2.5 metres (according to Wikipedia, it also says "it can be identified at a glance - even by the non-expert"). This one got the non-experts out of the car as well.
We were spending 3 nights in Bracken's Hut, a corrugated iron shed basically, with no water or electricity. It kept us dry though and there was a table and a fireplace inside. Although there were two bedrooms in the hut, Iain and Jarrod preferred to sleep in their tents, something to do with spiders.
As we arrived at dusk on Friday we had to wait till Saturday morning to have a proper look around. The hut was on a grassy plain with lots of roos around.
And there was also a toilet, full of flies and spiders, and it was smelly too.
There were a few walks in the park, a short drive from the hut. According to one of the signs we should be aware of red-bellied black snakes, but we didn't see any during the whole trip. We did see a shell of an Unidentified Insect however.
A shy echidna, it was rolled up at first, later it found shelter in a hollow tree.
End of the afternoon, time for a drink and time to think about a fire to keep us warm later on. At an altitude of 1200 m, night temperatures dropped below 10 degrees.
Allan found a saw in the back of my car which was very handy.
We saw two large spiders between the dining table and the hut, first a fairly small huntsman and a bit further on a funnelweb spider, which became a bit aggressive when approached with a camera.
Early morning, a wombat returning to its hole after a night of grazing! These nocturnal animals are very shy and you don't see them very often. This one came home quite late, maybe he didn't dare to return sooner because of the high noise levels earlier in the morning.
A very approachable wombat, maybe because it was so tired.
More wildlife later on, when we went for a more challenging walk to a lava cave. On a lookout point we spotted several species of skinks, Jarrod managed to pick one of them up.
The path to the cave was a bit of a scramble at times.
According to the rumours a huge colony of bats was supposed to be found in the lava cave, we didn't see any unfortunately.
On the last night a huge thunder storm hit the area, luckily we could make a fire inside and watch some of the action from the verandah.
We left the main road at Coolah, 35 km from the park, and continued over an unsealed road.
More reason to stop: a huge wedge-tailed eagle, Australia's largest bird with a wingspan of over 2.5 metres (according to Wikipedia, it also says "it can be identified at a glance - even by the non-expert"). This one got the non-experts out of the car as well.
We were spending 3 nights in Bracken's Hut, a corrugated iron shed basically, with no water or electricity. It kept us dry though and there was a table and a fireplace inside. Although there were two bedrooms in the hut, Iain and Jarrod preferred to sleep in their tents, something to do with spiders.
As we arrived at dusk on Friday we had to wait till Saturday morning to have a proper look around. The hut was on a grassy plain with lots of roos around.
And there was also a toilet, full of flies and spiders, and it was smelly too.
There were a few walks in the park, a short drive from the hut. According to one of the signs we should be aware of red-bellied black snakes, but we didn't see any during the whole trip. We did see a shell of an Unidentified Insect however.
A shy echidna, it was rolled up at first, later it found shelter in a hollow tree.
End of the afternoon, time for a drink and time to think about a fire to keep us warm later on. At an altitude of 1200 m, night temperatures dropped below 10 degrees.
Allan found a saw in the back of my car which was very handy.
We saw two large spiders between the dining table and the hut, first a fairly small huntsman and a bit further on a funnelweb spider, which became a bit aggressive when approached with a camera.
Early morning, a wombat returning to its hole after a night of grazing! These nocturnal animals are very shy and you don't see them very often. This one came home quite late, maybe he didn't dare to return sooner because of the high noise levels earlier in the morning.
A very approachable wombat, maybe because it was so tired.
More wildlife later on, when we went for a more challenging walk to a lava cave. On a lookout point we spotted several species of skinks, Jarrod managed to pick one of them up.
The path to the cave was a bit of a scramble at times.
According to the rumours a huge colony of bats was supposed to be found in the lava cave, we didn't see any unfortunately.
On the last night a huge thunder storm hit the area, luckily we could make a fire inside and watch some of the action from the verandah.
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