We are absolutely loving this camp site and have taken a couple of overland walks to the gorge.
We have seen many red tailed black cockatoo
We share the pools with these guys
The gorge camp ground is dry, dusty with very little shade and a long walk to get water or have a swim, we certainly hit the jackpot with this spot. It has enabled us to stay several days, had we been forced to camp elsewhere at the gorge, we would have been a one nighter too.
Just a bit of fun with ripples and reflection
SUNDAY – Spent hanging around camp doing chores and baking.
I made a loaf of bread and pizza for dinner.
MONDAY – first up, we are running low on biscuits, so the day started with a batch of muffins and something for dessert tonight. I experimented with cheat’s chocolate mousse, using low fat milk, cocoa, sugar and gelatine. It turned out really nice. Cold treats are few and far at the moment.
This water monitor spotted us and was not concerned, just moved a little and flattened himself out to get all the warmth from the rock he could.
Check out the shape of the tail, perfect for swimming.
We decided to hike up the river to see where it led. The trickle is more creek like than river, but come the wet season, it will certainly be a river. After walking for a few hundred metres along the water course, we came to a large expanse of granite and to our surprise we could see a tour group heading our way.
Our camp is downstream from this view. Those tall trees in the distance just showing the tops are across the stream from our camp.
We now understand that the gorge is directly upstream of our camp and the road does a large reversed c to get to the gorge. On the way, I found a red ear tortoise in the shallows.
Beautiful Grevillea growing in the river bed
We walked past the tour group and took a track marked with rock stacks and came to the cliff top of the gorge. It is the first gorge that we have been in, that has had a expansive amount of deep water.
Looking up stream View Down stream
Floating below was a freshwater crocodile. The tail was just moving slightly to keep him/her in position.
This is one very well fed crocodile. We only saw one other basking.
The tour group, mainly elderly were not taken to the cliff top, obviously for safety reasons, the heat and the amount of uphill climb. We took photos and headed back down the river using a dry tributary which had some lazy pools within it. We arrived back for lunch and the weekly washing. It’s great how fast the washing dries here. You put it on the line and the next thing you take it off the line. Glen went downstream to a deep hole to try his luck at fishing and returned empty handed.
Another down stream view from the cliff top. At the end of the water hole there is a small rock bridge and then the water hole continues deep and long again.
TUESDAY – What happened ? (36C a hot one) – It was 30c at 8am when we headed off. We were back at 10.15am and the temperature was rising. Yesterday we cut across the large rock face and didn’t see how the gorge became the stream that we are enjoying, so today we hiked up again keeping in the water course to the start of the gorge. Lucky for us there was a rock crossing across the gorge, so we could get to the other side for better photos upstream. Unfortunately the photos do not show the Aqua Jade colour of the clear water. The photo of the Croc is the most accurate water colour.
We came to the point where the swimmers were yesterday while we were on top of the cliffs.
Walking upstream today, I finally got to see a red collared rainbow lorikeet up close. They are similar to our rainbow lorikeets but do not have any yellow around the neck. They are different. We have heard them and seen them fly very fast past us, too fast to see the difference. I don’t think I would have noticed the difference only it was in our bird book.
On the right is a Weebill, it is so tiny 8.5cm – a wren is almost twice it’s size. We have these at Gulmarrad but they are always in the very top of the canopy, I was lucky to see this one in a small tree.
Hard to believe but we actually saw some clouds late on sunset today. The micro bats have been out hunting just on sunset each evening. Their aerial manoeuvres are fantastic, it explains why we don’t have any insects annoying us at night. We have had one bat at camp and this evening a few more joined in, obviously they guard their patch, as one shifted all of the others away from our camp.
Tomorrow we pack up and move on to Silent Grove National Park. It is tempting to stay another day, but we need to refill with drinking water and we still have another week until we get to Broome, so we don’t want to have to pack up further down the track due to shortage of supplies. It will nearly be three weeks between Kununurra and Broome, we are well into our reserve supplies now.
I wondered why the wallabies were so skittish, it wasn’t like they had something to worry about, I had not heard or seen any dingo tracks. Last night I heard the dingoes howling. I also wondered with so many fish why we didn’t have any kingfishers (including kookaburra), this morning I woke to several kookaburra calls. This all goes back to our old theory that you have to be in one place at least 4 days to start to see and hear what is around you. We have seen a pheasant and there are 6 or 7 quail who come down to drink at the pools of a seepage stream which is on the opposite side of our camp. Most of the birds use this area to drink from and do not go to the running stream. There are only one or two visitors to the gorge now, we have been on our own for the the last two nights.
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