Finch Hatton Gorge
Before we left Airlie Beach, we asked our host about things to see between here and Mackay. He recommended to visit Broken River in Eungella National Park. The way he pronounced Eungella, it sounded almost like ‘Angela’. Funny name for a park, I thought.
Anyway, of course it was not enough for us to just go to Broken River. Following the Mackay Eungella Road (#64), we turned right and crossed the river following the signs to Finch Hatton Gorge. The view from the bridge was already exciting, so we were curious what the gorge would offer. The road became smaller and windy, crossing a small creek a few times and turned into gravel for the last bit.
At the end of the gravel road, there was a parking lot, toilets and small BBQ area. It was also the start of the walking trail to the waterfalls and pools of the gorge. We were undecided, whether we had enough time to complete the walk and still have enough time to see Broken River during daylight. So we asked a group of young presumably local people. “Hmm, it’s about half an hour.”, they said.
The trail wound up through the impressive sub-tropical rainforest, passing massive boulders. After walking for more than 45mins it couldn’t be far anymore. The trail turned downhill and after another 15-20 minutes we arrived at the first waterfall and pools. We took a short break, then headed back to our car.
Arriving at the parking lot, the car next door – a polite British lady and her living-in-Aussie-now daughter had troubles getting their rental car going. So I helped them pushing the car from the lot and slightly downhill to clutch-start the car. It seemed to work. We also found a very small leech attached to my heel just beneath the strap of my trekking sandals. I snipped it off with a credit card, used some tissue to manage the bleeding and we were all set again.
When we left Finch Hutton Gorge a few minutes later, we met them a few kilometers down the gravel road. Their car had failed again. So they asked us to take them to a jungle motel not far down the road, which we did of course. When everything was settled at the motel, we waived goodbye and headed to Broken River.
Eungella National Park – Broken River
The Broken River site in Eungella National Park is very well developed. Nice, very clean campground, toilets, tarmaced or wooden walkways, handrails everywhere and platforms for watching out for the world famous platypus.
We had arrived much later than planned at around 4pm. However, that turned out to be a stroke of luck. We packed our little one in her buggy and strolled west-bound. We passed underneath the bridge and followed the boardwalk slowly for about 10 minutes, when we reached a lookout platform. We saw a few turtles. It started to rain slightly and slowly dusk was falling. No platypus. The rain became heavier.
We were about to return to our car, when a platypus finally appeared on scene. It is one of this special moments in life, when true happiness sets in. Seeing a very rare, very shy animal even when you are soaked by rain and it’s getting cool and dark, there is hardly anything else to compare.
After almost an hour taking picture of the platypus it was getting too dark and rainy for good pictures and and although our little one was well protected under the roof of her buggy, we didn’t want to take chances. So we returned to our car. While loading it, I felt some unusual touch on my foot. A leech – again! It had not attached yet so I simply snipped it off with my finger. Boy, that worm tried to come back even after being airborne for about a meter. Let’s get in the car quickly. Damned leeches!
Mackay
The drive from Broken River to Mackay took about one and a half hours in darkness and heavy rain. Throughout the trip I had a feeling if something got stuck between my big toe and the toe next to it. I thought it was a piece of a soft leaf or moss or something like it. I decided to take care of it, when we arrived in our accommodation in Mackay.
Well, damned leeches! Of course it was another of those blood-sucking creatures. And this time, it was a bigger dude. I checked the internet what to do. And found everything from burn it with a lighter, put salt on it to even more extreme measures. I decided to take a different approach: Since leeches are not known to transmit any diseases, but in contrary are used in some medical treatments, I let it do its job. After almost an hour, the leech was stuffed and simply fell off. It left a mildly bleeding wound, which didn’t stop bleeding for a few hours.
Anyway, we were hungry. Time for some more tissue around the toe and then drive off to a pizza take-away nearby.
In case you wonder what happened to our friend, the leech: We didn’t kill it. We released it to a place where we were fairly sure, it wouldn’t do further harm to people.
In the news this evening, they expected cyclone Debbie’s landfall in between Townsville and Bowen as a category 3 storm. This is pretty close. Actually too close. Time to get further south.