Saturday 19 August - Porcupine Gorge

Set off this morning for a 60 km trip to Porcupine Gorge.  Had picked up a leaflet at the information centre listing points of interest on the way.  There are 13 things listed before you reach the National Park Camp Ground.  One was the dingo fence which extends for 2500km making it the longest fence in the world.  It was built to protect sheep and cattle from dingoes.  This section is no longer maintained as there are no longer any sheep in the area.  Other points of interest were mailman's grave, Flinders River, Matchbox Creek and Whistling Bore.  The one that was probably the best was the Porcupine Gorge Lookout.  There is a concrete path to a viewing platform for the Gorge, the cliff drops 120m down to the bottom of the Gorge.  A lovely peaceful view.  Pushed on to the National Park Campground.  There are 2 walks here.  One is a 2.6 km return walk around along the rim of the Gorge and a 1.2 km gravel walking path down the the Gorge.  It is apparently a gently descending walking track that leads to the bottom of the Gorge.  If that was a gently descending walking track I would hate to see the one they describe as steep.  Anyway made it down to the bottom of the Gorge and to Porcupine Creek.  At certain times of the year the creek does not flow due to the lack of rain.  While we were there it appeared to be quite low and the waterhole did not really look inviting to me so I didn't go for a dip, although a few people did take the plunge.  The Gorge was nice but I thought Lawn Hill was better.  Now we had to get back out of there.  I thought I was going to die.  Would climb up a few metres then have to sit down and rest, climb a bit more and rest a lot more.  I had visions of a helicopter having to come and winch me out.  Everybody easily overtook us.  There were a few that we heading down as we were going up and they then passed us again on their way up.  As you are reading this I obviously made it out, would I go down again.  NO.  Enough walking, not attempting the rim walk so back in the car and back to the van to update the blog and recover from the strenuous time this morning.  Could be a few days before the next update as we don't expect to have phones or internet, so don't panic we will return when we can.