Tuesday, July 21, 2009

The dusty Diamantina

Greetings from Boulia! I've been here a few days attending the camel races - a good fun weekend! I'm camped down by the Burke river in the trees and am treated to big mobs of budgies in all the hollows... getting up to all sorts of mischief.


Before that I spent a couple of days down in the Diamantina national park. The great thing about this park is the varied environments that occur in a relatively small area - there are red sand dunes, sculpted mesas, featureless claypans, grassy floodplains, cracking clay river channels as well as permanent waterholes. I camped by one of the waterholes on the main course of the Diamantina - Hunter's Gorge - which is a long, deep channel which enters a sort of gorge of sandstone. Note that even a vague furrow on the surface of the country qualifies as a 'gorge' out here.



I went for a dip in here - the water was coooooold!

There are a few other waterholes around in the park and many of the channels had water in them. A pleasant drive - the Waracoota circuit - takes in many of the area's charms.


Tracks in the sand  on a dune - hopping mouse, ?dasyurid?, invertebrate



 

Dune crest flowers including my favourite green Crotalaria


Looking out over the green green Diamantina channels


Sculpted mesa country


Claypan


1 comment:

Boobook said...

I want to go there! A very evocative blog.