Day 32 – Tuesday July 31st – Quondong Beach As we were sitting next to the tent, facing the ocean and reading our books having a lazy morning, a bloke came up from the beach and told us that there were whales swimming along. We grabbed the binoculars and ran onto the sand. Half way to the horizon we could see several small groups of whales in the sea, swimming North. They were blowing water, breeching and slapping their flippers on the water making a huge banging noise. We watched them for about an hour then decided to go fishing. We followed a man on the beach with his rod and joined him at his fishing spot, hoping to get some advice from him about how to rig to the rod and where to ... read more

Day 30 – Sunday 29th July – Windjana Gorge to Derby Despite being awake since 6am, it wasn’t until 8.30 until we left for the hike into Windjana Gorge. We were fortified with bacon and eggs and nutella sandwiches for breakfast. Windjana Gorge is our 8th gorge in less than 8 days but it still managed to be completely different from all the others, and equally spectacular. Windjana is a Devonian Reef and used to be a coral reef under water, 350 million years ago. As you enter the gorge you can imagine the rock face being a mass of corals and can see the small holes in the walls that fish and eels would have hidden in all those millions of years ago. However, the best thing about the gorge is the abundance of crocodiles ... read more

Day 28 – Friday 27th July - Mornington Wilderness Sanctuary We had camped next to the small river on the property, Annie Creek, home to a rich variety of birdlife, including the rare purple-headed fairy wren and the endangered Gouldian finch. Supping our cup of tea at 6am all Mark and I could see and identify was the very cute looking, green and red (or red and green) crimson finch. A whole family was hopping around on the bush next to our tent, but as soon as we moved closer to take a better photo they flew away to safety. As we had one full day at Mornington we decided to go canoeing along the Dimond Gorge in the morning. We booked two 2-person canoes and got to the water after the 20km drive ... read more

Day 26 - Wednesday 25th July – Mitchell Falls National Park to Manning Gorge After a sparse breakfast due to dwindling supplies, we hit the road at about 8.30am. Mark has navigated his way through the rough patches of the unsealed road very successfully so far. Before we turned back onto the Kalumburu-Drysdale Road we checked out two sites with “outstanding examples of ancient aboriginal art” that we had driven past on the way up. The two short walks revealed examples of Wandjinas (ghost-like heads), Gwion art (stick people) and even a burial site where you could still see the skulls and bones. We met an archaeologist at the second site who was investigating the degree of degradation of the rock art due to increased tourism and environmental factors. She has been checking rock ... read more

Day 24 – Monday 23rd July – El Questro to King Edward River Campsite on the Mitchell Plateau We left El Questro at 9.30 am after packing up and refueling and filling the camper trailer with water. We were considering making the long detour to the Mitchell Falls after taking to people in the Zebedee Springs who said that it was absolutely spectacular and the road up there had just been graded and was in good condition. So, after reading up the Mitchell Falls we decided we should go. Just passed the turnoff for Home Valley Station at the top of a hill, all of a sudden we had a couple of bars of Telstra mobile connection! We turned off the road and joined a small gang of 4 others, standing in the middle ... read more