Set up camp
at Silent Grove – another busy campground.
Spent the afternoon baking chocolate cake and cookies in the fireplace
and then Ash cooked another of his fantastic roast dinners.
Next day we
headed out early along the rocky 2km walk to the gorge. Coen managed ok with his leg. It is so unfair him not being able to swim
though. A truly spectacular gorge and
waterfall. As usual we spent the better
part of the day swimming, relaxing and chatting to fellow travellers, watching
people arrive, have a quick swim and leave soon after. We are continually amazed at how little time
people spend at these special places.
Cadell and
Ash again found some very high rock ledges to jump off.
If you swam
250 metres down the gorge through various pools and little waterfalls you came
to an even bigger waterfall and enormous pool.
Unfortunately there was no way to the bottom of this one. The Merten’s Water Monitors sunbaking on the
rocks just watched as you floated by.
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| A Boy and his Lizard |
A nice gorge
but because of the lack of wet season rain it was very dusty and humid. The water was murky but the crocs didn’t seem
to mind – all 102, the boys counted, just lazing about in the mud.
Decided to
move on out the next morning, way too busy for us. Stopped in at Tunnel Creek, a 750 metre pitch
black tunnel filled with freshwater crocodiles.
We put on our head torches and headed in. You usually have to wade through the pools
but it was only shin deep on our 4 crossings and we only saw 3 crocs. The others were probably lurking under the
water watching us.
Our Gibb
River Road Adventure has come to an end.
We all feel rather sad. What a
wonderful and unique part of Australia. The
Gibb is roughly 700km long, however we managed to do over 2000km over 26 days with all the
side trips. Despite its ruggedness and
often shocking roads, it would be a real shame if it was ever made and became
more accessible as it would truly ruin the experience.
 |
| We made it! |
Now, that was a lot of crocs! We only counted 21..
ReplyDelete...I'm glad you took photographic evidence, otherwise I wouldn't have believed it.
Still, at least the gorge was spectacular to look at. The afternoon light was amazing against the rocks.
I know what you mean about the caravan park at Bell Gorge being busy - We arrived there on the first day that it was open to the public for the season and it was already crammed full!
We arrived early afternoon and set up our tent to mark our spot. It didn't look too bad and there was still a pick of campsites on offer. But, when we arrived back at dusk, from an afternoon playing in the gorge, we found that we had almost been squeezed out by massive vans parked almost on out guy ropes... Ho hum! (it didn't help that on of the families were travelling with a small child with a massive chest infection - at least it helped up get and early start when she started hacking and squawking at 5am).
Cheers,
Gregg