The Gibb River Road Day 1


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Oceania » Australia » Western Australia » Gibb River Road
September 4th 2008
Published: September 26th 2008
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We woke early in anticipation of our adventure this morning, and was out waiting for the bus at 6.15, as we had been told, for the bus to pick us up.....By 7 it had still not come and then the doubt hit us that maybe it had been cancelled! noooooooo!

Fortunately it hadn't, and it never intended on picking up at 6.30, we had been told the wrong time, phew!

The first port of call today was the Boab Prison Tree. Boab trees are everywhere in northern WA, they are super cool trees with big fat bottoms, that’s the best way to describe them! There is a story told that the Boab tress were the biggest trees around and grew much taller than the other trees and mocked the smaller ones. So for punishment they were turned upside down with their roots where their branches should be. It a good story to describe what they look like. Anyway, the Prison Boab Tree is a huge tree with a split in one side. Boab trees are naturally hollow and they use this space to store water. This tree was used by the white people to put their Aboriginal prisoners in overnight whilst on their way to Broome where they would work on the pearl luggers.

Tunnel Creek was the next stop and this is where I became an instant master at croc spotting. Imagine wading through water in a pitch black tunnel with a small torch and there being crocodiles around! They may have only been the smaller fresh water crocs but I still didn't fancy a chomp from one of them! The way you can spot them is that their eyes reflect in the light, so I was on watch for their beady glinting eyes and walking the opposite side!

There were also lots of Fruit Bats and Ghost Bats in the cave, they were even hanging off trees outside in the sun and were flying around. I thought they were nocturnal!?

After heading back through Tunnel Creek for more croc watch we went to Windjana Gorge where there were even more crocs! At least here it was all in day light and I could enjoy it a bit more knowing that I only had bush and sand around my toes; it also meant that we could see the crocs in full rather than just its creepy eyes.

We headed back to camp before it got dark where Rory, our guide, had cooked us up a chicken roast!!! We truly are in the outback and we were having a roast! What's more is that there was apple crumble to follow!

Tonight we've decided to try sleep in swag rather than a tent; we had to try it for one night at least. I still don't know how I'm going to manage thinking of all the bugs, snakes, dingo’s etc etc that may fancy a share if my swag or more so a bit of my flesh ahhhh!


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