Carnarvon Gorge Field Trip

We began our journey with a 10 hours bus ride through vast countryside and into the Australian outback. Along the way, we saw mobs of emus, a dingo, and passed heaps of farms that look like they belong in the movie Babe. Did you know sheep outnumber Australians 4:1?
Anyways, as we descended into the Gorge, the Bush became more lush and we entered the national park which was littered with wallabies, kangaroos, giant cycads and ferns.

Big agro grey kangaroo, i tried to hand feed him, but he wasn't too keen

Male pretty-faced wallaby

For the next three days, we spent our time hiking, exploring, and studying the ecology & Aboriginal culture of this area. Before we arrived, the Gorge had a lot of rainfall, so the rivers were high, which made for some fun river crossing. Us guys made chains in the fast moving parts to help the class safely cross.

After dinner one evening, my teacher, John Hall, took me and a couple others down to the river, where I saw a wild platypus for the first time.

We also hiked 10k into the Gorge to an Aboriginal cave painting site, which had art from 15,000 years ago perfectly intact. The stories explained their hunting feats, intertribal relations, and periods of disease. They combine plant pastes and blood or water, then blow it out of their mouths around stencils.

Netting=intertribal marriage, 3 toe foot=Emu, Boomerangs, Handprints

The campsite

Here are some more stencil paintings from a different location, these had scorch marks below them from thousands of years ago where the Aboriginals cooked their catch:

View from the Lookout at 5 AM

Pretty-faced wallabies below a macrozamia moorei cycad