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| Chloe |
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| Barbara at Mt. Elizabeth Station |
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| Friends we met along the way |
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| Add caption |
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| Orchids.....they grow where they want :-) |
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| GM.....the reason why I love him ;-) |
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| A bird with a sore wing..... |
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| Showing off for the camera :-) |
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| Coming down into Wren Gorge....they didn't warn us about this one!!!!!!!!!!!!!! very very rough!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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| Every now and then you would not only feel the harshness, you would witness it :-) |
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| The eternal optimist <3 |
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| Leaving Walcott Inlet |
We stopped and picked up 40 litres of Red Bull on the way, but this is the good stuff, not that crap in a can!! It was where the salt water crocs start from but the water is beautiful and fresh and crystal clear :-)
We got there at around 3pm and decided this was definitely the place for us!!! We'd missed it coming in, which was probably a good thing, as I don't think I would have wanted to go any further if I'd seen it earlier. It was about 50km east of the inlet and took us about 2.5 hours. Our average speed had been around 20km per hour but some of the jump ups are around 6km per hour :-) It was a rather large freshwater lagoon with a lovely sandy beach, palm trees, sunshine and a lovely cleared camping spot.
We set up Barbara with both the shade sail and he car awning, then while GM pulled out the rods, I jumped in.....it was so clean and cool on such a hot day, and I was surrounded by tiny little minnows and some little golden fish....this was paradise, one of the many perfect examples of nature. We then had a beer and a fish. Before GM could even get his rod set up, I had pulled in a rather cute little black bream.....of course GM just shook his head at me.....that old animal magnetism of mine is still attracting the oddest of creatures ;-) I caught 4 and GM caught 1, but they were fairly small, so we put them back. They are fun to catch though, and put up a bloody good fight :-) We didn't have any bait and GM's lures were no good, so we used some corn.....it worked for me on the Murray River last year, and seems it's done the trick again!!!!
We had the place to ourselves and there was supposed to be a drop loo, but we couldn't see it and it was way too hot to go looking.
The next day was spent with GM trying his luck at fishing while I caught up with the blog. A very lazy relaxed day!!!
A fella called Neil turned up. He was an electronics technician with Honeywell and he was from Darwin. Not exactly how I would picture one of these ;-). Neil looks like a true bushman with a great bushy beard and no problems stopping to have a chat and ready with a story. A nice bloke :-) He had us in hysterics with the tale of his trip in. He'd bumped into some bloke pulled up on the road......apparently this bloke had lost his misses.......first words that came to mind were "congratulations"....... but we think they must have had a bit of a blue and she'd taken off. She had gone at least 4km up the road with no water (idiot!!!) and had been discovered by "George the Birdwatcher" who returned her to her rightful owner. Apparently no one else has seen them since, and that's strange, as everyone reports all vehicles and people they pass coming in and out of the place. Could be croc bait.....especially if she was still carrying on ;-)
Neil took off for Walcott Inlet and then 2 more cars came in with Chris & Wendy and Kevin & Sue, brothers and their wives from south of Perth who shared our campfire for the night. More really nice people!!
We left Karl's Lagoon early the next morning and found the drop loo on our way out :-D
and made our way back to Backsten Bush Camp where we were greeted with a cuppa and freshly baked cookies that were just delicious!!!! (I think this is the life I was actually born for)
Just a great setup there on the Backsten Creek!!! We set up camp and then went for a walk up the rocks to see some honeycomb caves. We looked at some aboriginal artwork on the way and then checked out the caves that are really just holes in the sandstone that little rock possums dwell in and wallabies and other wildlife use for shelter.
The difference in the temperature from outside is incredible, thank goodness we took plenty of water as it was stifling hot out there between the rocks.. We got back to camp and met a young couple from Traralgon called Frank & Adelle. Seems Frank is a great nephew of my beautiful Aunty Marlene :-) Such a small world!!
After a bit of lunch and a rest, we headed off on a short adventure to some rock pools and falls.
We had to follow a trail of pink ribbons to get there, and orange ones to get back. It was like a game, but a wee bit daunting when you had trouble finding them, as you become disorented very easily in the bush. Well we wound our way through trees and spinifex and climbed over rocks with GM needing to sit every 500m or so, and we didn't think we were ever going to find it and then we came to a cliff!!!! We were completely unprepared for what lay in front of us.....it was like a mini Mitchell Falls.....with rock pools and waterfalls everywhere, dropping about 60m or so into a very green and shady gorge. We picked a perfect little pool with a sandy beach to cool off in. There were tiny little frogs hopping everywhere and bright orange dragonflies :-).
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| GM frolicking!! |
Yep!!!! This is paradise, and we had the whole place to ourselves :-) We took lots of pics from in and out of the water with the waterproof camera and I'm not sure if it was the shimmery heat or the water in the air, but they've come out a little hazy.
We frolicked around for quite awhile before we had to set off back to camp, or we'd get caught in the dark.....wasn't risking that one!!!! Neil was at the camp when we got back, and after we had our dinner,
we sat around the camp fire with Neil, Frank & Adelle...............a very pleasant way to end a brilliant day
:-)
Walcott Inlet may not be what we were execting, but the trip in and out has been spectacular & breathtaking :-)
We left camp at 7.30 the next morning with the hardest part of the trip ahead of us. It was about a 7 hour drive to Mt. Elizabeth Station and we had to get back up the Magpie Jump-up.......something I wasn't looking forwart to.......the trip in had jarred me quite severely!!!!!!
I ended up walking up the Jump-up and filmed GM & Barbara coming up.....the internet here won't allow me to upload video's so you should be able to watch this on the summary blog that I will update when we get home and have decent internet :-)
It turned out to be much easier than we'd thought.... could be because we were carrying no spare fuel or water, could be because GM had made a massive dent in his booze stock, and definitely wasn't because I wasn't in the car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I like to think it was because we were nearly out of beer ;-)
We stopped at the Drysdale River for lunch and met Michael & Stroma, who stay in the park for 4 to 5 months every year, but not in the designated spots. They find all sorts of places and discover rock art and all sorts of amazing wonders :-) They also help to clear the track in at the beginning of the dry seasons.....lucky things.......that would be awesome fun!!!!
We stopped at the aboriginal art site on the advice of Michael and Stroma who explained where the rest of it was.....something that is definitely not advertised!!!!
Then we hit the fence line to the holding paddocks............only 36km of really soft sandy track to go.........we had done it!!!!! We are adventurers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 440km of serious 4WDing. Yep, it definitely takes 2 days each way, something to recommend though for those that want the real thing that isn't tainted by tourism.
GM and I were still friends after all this time in isolation and over a week without mobiles or internet......impressive!!!!!!!!! :-D
We booked into the camp and arranged to have dinner at the homestead. It was a pretty good camp and full of people who just wanted to do all the gorges in the area.
They had a heap of "Agile" Wallabies and one of them was Chloe, she had a joey in her pouch.....you could see the heartbeat :-) She was a wee bit timid but more than happy to be hand fed.....especially fresh carrot :-)
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| Chloe |
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| Chloe's Joey...you could see the heart beating :-) |
We had a lovely dinner at the homestead with Pat & Peter the owners, Terri the cook and her husband Andy who was working an hour or so up the road......the closest job he could get to be near her.....they were from the Gold Coast...........Matt, Kate, James & Rosie the house guests. We probably drove Pat nuts with all of our questions and then she asked if we'd be interested in caretaking the place during the wet......I can still hear GM's mind ticking over days later ;-)
After dinner we went and shared a campfire with 3 men from Perth who had gone for a boys trip away. They were in their mid 60's and what a funny bunch of buggers!!!! There was "Peter the Italian", "Bill the Irishman", "John the Croation", "GM the Dutchman" and "Me, the Scots Lass"......gotta love this country ;-)
I think we kept the rest of the park awake with our laughter and noise, as we got a lot of dirty looks the next morning :-D
We packed up camp the next morning after a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs and after taking a few pics of the place, we went and said our goodbye's to Pat & Peter.
They have a very young male "Agile" wallaby that they are hand rearing, he's only about 40cm high and he liked the scratch under the ear so much he grabbed my hand in both of his and started licking me. He was sooooooooooooooo cute, I just wanted to sneak him in the car with me........even GM would have been pretty ok with that :-) he was quite taken with him as well :-) not bad for someone who has no tolerance for animals ;-)
It was Sunday the 4th of August....something you have to look up as you completely lose track of the days and dates when you're away from civilisation :-) We headed back down the Gibb River Road
and drove for about 3 hours and passed all thel lovely gorges that everyone else was vvisiting. If we had stopped to look at them all, we would never get where we wanted to go, so instead, on the recommendation from Bill, John & Peter, we went to Windjana Gorge.
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| Never smile at a crocodile, don't be taken in by his friendly grin...................... |
Best advice we'd had, as this was by far the most amazing of them all. It's an ancient limestone gorge with fossils of strange sea creatures, amazing sandy beaches and beautiful fresh water full of little crocs that weren't in the least bit interested in me :-) (phew!!) so I sat on the sand at the waters edge and took lots of pics.....I'm pretty chilled out like that when it comes to freshies ;-)..................I'm sure they were posing tho :-)
There were a heap of young teenage boys fishing and jumping from the rocks. I don't know if they were part of a youth camp or just all the kids from the caravan park there, but they were all different colours and nationalities, and the noise coming from them was incredible!!!!!!!!! It echoed all through the gorge and the sound was one of pure joy :-D
It was such a hot day and even more so in the the shelter of the gorge, but it was lovely and cool in the shade of the limestone :-)
We headed off for our last leg of the day and made it to Derby for the day. GM wanted some beer but the bottlo is closed on a sunday....ooops!!!............. so the poor bugger had to settle for bourbon instead ;-)
Derby was a bit of a strange place and the woman in the caravan park office was not a happy camper, but everyone else seemed fine :-)
We've been on the road for over 3 weeks now and seen a lot of places, driven well over 2000km of corrugated dirt roads, rocky jump-ups and a gazillion creeks and rivers and we're still able to smile and talk to one another :-)
We would have the blog up quicker if the internet was better, but it's still a lot better in Karratha than Injune..GM's last FIFO in QLD......., so I imagine it's so slow because these FIFO workers here are all busy saying hello on skype to their loved one's back home :-)
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| Mmmmmm................anything west of Magpie Jump-up is fair gaime................nice set of rib eye................damn I wish we'd brought a shottie ;-) |
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| Walccott Inlett high tide |
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| Walcottt Inlett low tide |
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| Cranes.................in the absolutely middle of nowhere :-) |
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| Just as curious as us!!!! |
