We woke at 7.30am (early for us) and had eggs on toast for breakfast - with a long day ahead of us, we needed plenty of energy to start with as watermelon, pineapple and rice snacks was all we could fit in our packs. The visitor area is about 5km from Takarakka and by the time we got ourselves organised with hats, sunscreen etc, we started on the main track at 9am. We were advised to walk directly to the furthest point on the main track we intended to visit, and take the side tracks to other sites on the way back.

We did the Moss Garden, Amphitheatre, Ward's Canyon, and Art Gallery combination, all Class 3 walks with a total distance of 14km (and estimated time of 5-6 hours), so our furthest point was Art Gallery, 5.4km from the visitor area. The very start of the track is great with a nice wide crossing of Carnarvon Creek along 20 large stones. The main track was about a metre wide and relatively flat -lots of small lizards and the odd wallaby or two - it was fairly shaded in the morning, but we were lucky to have a bit of a breeze to keep us cool too.

• Art Gallery was amazing with over 2000 engravings (eg, emu eggs, reproduction), stencils (eg, handprints, boomerangs, tools) and free-hand paintings(eg, goannas, netting depicting a burial) along the 62m long sandstone walls of this significant Aboriginal site. There were lots of real goanna's there for us to see as well. We had our rice crackers as a snack.

• Ward's Canyon was a beautiful place. The walk was a short steep track winding through spotted gums and around a small waterfall, and further in was the canyon with a stream of water running through it and wonderful green garden, home to the world's largest fern; the king fern Angiopteris evecta. It was a great spot to have our refreshing watermelon too!

• Next up was the Amphitheatre - we climbed a tiered ladder through a narrow chasm and into a 60m deep chamber - you wouldn't believe there would be such a thing hidden behind the walls of the gorge.

• Last site was Moss Garden, with carpets of moss, ferns and liverworts from the constant water dripping from the sandstone walls. A small waterfall tumbles water into an icy pool below. We took our time here to eat our pineapple and have an extended rest.

It was then a very long 2.8km walk back to the visitor area - we were all very weary but very satisfied to have made it back at 3pm (6 hours after we left). Our reward was to go directly to the Rock Pool, the only designated swimming area of Carnarvon Creek. It was an easy walk in and around a couple of small pools until we arrived at the bigger pool. The water was very clear, warm at the top and freezing below.

We got back to the camping ground and realised we'd missed lunch so had some salami, cheese and jatz for a snack before having relatively early dinner (for us) around 7pm. We spent about an hour observing the activities giant ants as they maneuvered a dead moth into their large anthole just near the van - we added some ham to their meal, which they seemed to love.

A surprise in the evening was when Renee spotted an echidna just nearby looking for ants - there were small pits of holes everywhere (but our ants were safe, for now).