The sketching trip went so well yesterday, apart from the small matter of the bee sting. So thought I would get out to the outback today as a contrast to the tropical jungle.
Drove for an hour or so west to a place called Granite Gorge I had seen on a flyer.
Starts of cute enough, small Wallaby's coming up for food, then a couple of huge boulders over a small creek are quite interesting. Got a couple of good sketches.
Then you wander over another creek, come out of the trees and are suddenly in Star Trek land! Or to those of us a certain age and persuasion, Blakes 7. The bit in any episode when they had to go down to the 'Alien planet' and it always looked a bit like a quarry near Worksop.
Well they should have come here instead. Though with 70's TV budgets probably Worksop was more do-able.
It was an amazing landscape of huge, massive smooth slabs of granite. On top of which were piled vast boulders and pillars of stone. The scale of the water which must flow over these rocks is astounding.
I wandered down the course of the river buried under the stones with sketchbook in hand and didn't draw a thing. The scale was simply to big. Too smooth.
On the return journey the track takes you out of the gorge and into the bush.
This was more like it. The temp rose a couple of degrees into the upper thirties and the landscape became old and dry and intimidating. Huge erratic boulders lurked amongst the spindly burnt trees. Everywhere I looked I could see a picture and, thanks to both Elizabeth and Brian's obsession, a lot of the big boulders seemed to suggest human skulls.
Got a lot of photo's and a lot of sketches before the heat started getting to me. Back in the nice air conditioned car for the drive back to Cairns.
Oh did I mention the Wallaby's?
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