Swiss Cheese

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DAY 213

We were all up early today as we were heading out from the Windjana camp ground, which was an excellent place to stay, Kirsty and Andrew were heading back to Derby sum 2 ½ hours away in the other direction as they needed to pick up their caravan that was being stored there.

The reason for needing to put a caravan in storage is simple, most of the tracks are 4x4 only and to take a fairly conventional caravan down these tracks would be disastrous, they would just probably fall to bits or at least get grounded, some caravan manufacturers make off road Caravans but they are not cheap and you would certainly have to take one in very carefully, in order not to damage it too much.

Our Wendy house on wheels is great you can pull it virtually anywhere without too much bother, so anyway Andrew and Kirsty were going one way and Caroline and myself were heading the other way towards Fitzroy Crossing.

We were all packed up by 8.00 am done and dusted except for breakfast, so we sat around for another hour and had tea and toast.

We kissed an shock hands then jumped in the trucks and off we went, The Taylor/Wellingtons turning right and us turning left towards Tunnel Creek and beyond as we had around 97 K’s off road to do before we hit the highway.

The tyre pressures had been dropped from 45 down to 32 as the going was going to be very rough and we were trying to evade any more punctures, not long after leaving the site, we see in the distance something fairly large and dark coloured in the road, as we slow down and get close, saw a that it was a large Goanna just wandering along in the sunshine. On route we passed a couple of stations and some aboriginal communities.

Obviously a moment like this, I have to pull the truck over, Caroline has to get her camera out of her photographic rucksack and then go and get as close to the subject as possible. This Goanna was about 5ft long from snout to tail and eyeballed Caroline trying to work out what moves she was going to make, whilst Caroline tried to do the same with the Goanna, after a few frames I think the Goanna got bored and wandered off in to the under growth.

Back in the truck we reviewed the pictures of our Wildlife for today and were quite happy.

It took us about 1½ hours to cover the 100K track as we had 4 water crossings and plenty of steep floodways we had to slow right down for, not to mention the occasional photo stop, but all in all it was some great off road driving.

We pulled up to the T junction of the main highway to re inflate the tyres back to the road pressure for the 50 Kilometres into Fitzroy crossing. Whilst I was doing the tyres Caroline checked to see if we had any Internet access through our larger truck mounted Ariel and blow me we had 2 bars so she started to upload the back log of blog’s.

After a quick sandwich, parked under a tree for some shade, seemingly the only tree around for miles, we motored off and drove in to Fitzroy Crossing, the town gets its name from the Fitzroy River, near by.

We noticed lots of aboriginal people, on the grass verges, in the petrol station forecourts and just generally loitering around, but this is Aboriginal country so it is to be expected.

We drove straight to Geikie Gorge, which was named after Sir Archibald Geikie, the Scottish Geologist, but sadly he had never seen the gorge named after him. The gorge is to revert back to its aboriginal name of Darngku and is in the process similar to that of Ayres Rock (Uluru) and the Olga’s (kjat’a-juta).

The afternoon was really hot so parking the truck and trailer under a tree we umm’d and ahh’d about doing the boat trip around the gorge, so we first went for a short walk along the river bank and thought about it.

Getting back to the visitors centre at 2.30 we purchased our tickets and walked down to the pontoon with all the other people to get on the boat. The boat trip is an hour long up the Fitzroy river, there were some Crocodiles (Freshies) and lots of birds to see, we were especially pleased to see a White Bellied Sea Eagle which is the second biggest raptor in Australia next to the Wedged Tailed Eagle, we also are lucky enough to see an Azure Kingfisher and Crimson Finches.

Geikie Gorge part of the Devonian Fossil Reef, and about 30 metres deep, these cliffs are spectacularly carved out by the Fitzroy River floodwaters, you can easily see the previous water line of the Fitzroy river where the rock is white, when the Fitroy River is in full flow it can be up to 18 Mtrs deep.

Pink tinges are also visible in the rock; this was created by a species of pink coral found on the Devonian reef. 3.00 is a lovely time of day to do the boat trip, the sun is beginning to go down, although still hot and a hat is still required, there is a nice breeze blowing as the boat glides through the water one side of the reef is well lit up with the sunshine and again lends itself to some good photos with reflections in the water. The only disappointing bit was the part of the reef that is in shade, but then you cannot have it all ways, we could have taken a boat trip in the early morning to get that side lit up by the sun.

We took the boat trip run by the Department of Environment and Conservation Ranger (DEC), at a cost of $25 each, there is another company doing various types of boat trips which are costed accordingly depending on which trip you take, we though the DEC trip was worth it.

The rocks were like Swiss cheese with unusual formations and holes, these have been created by balls of clay being washed in to crevices then acting like a abrasive with the water rushing past forming the holes and fissures.

The Fitzroy River meets the Margaret River at a huge sand bar just up river, the sand bar is what allows the Fitzroy River to retain its water in the dry season, so the boat gently turned around and deposited its cargo of patrons safely back on to terra firma, all in all it was a most fantastic boat trip.

It is worth mentioning that when the Margaret River flows, it flows directly into the Fitzroy and barely without any warning at all the Fitzroy suddenly becomes alive and in full flow rising rapidly. The little visitors centre has been flooded out with the rising waters many times and twice it has been flooded right over the top of the roof.

We got back to the truck and headed back in to Fitzroy crossing as we needed to find somewhere to stay for the night. We were hoping to free camp tonight, but time was getting on and with sunset at roughly 5.30 daylight was not on our side.

In Fitzroy crossing the three campsites are all owned by the same consortium, so we put our finger in the air and chose the one just over the bridge and slightly out of town (Fitzroy River Lodge), and I have to say it was very nice. We pulled in and were escorted to our pitch, in no time at all the trailer was up and tea was on.

The campsite is busy tonight, people were still arriving after us, the manager said that it was his day off, but had been called back in to help out with the increasing numbers, apparently it is not yet their busy period. We were lucky to get one of the last powered sites.

Blow me we discovered that Andrew and Kirsty were parked 2 vans down which was nice they had made it from Derby after leaving us this morning and didn’t get away until 1.00pm and punched out 350 K’s this afternoon.

As Kirsty had a migraine and was going to bed without her evening meal so Caroline and I cooked for Andrew aswell.

All in all a fascinating day, so until tomorrow bloggers.

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Photos

Goanna
This fella was watching Caroline

Goanna
But he got bored an wandered off

Comments

[kangaroojack]

Touching Base
Hi there Jan and Ted! We were only talking about you a few days before your message popped up. Glad you are still with us on our travels, trying to make things as interesting as possible. I like the idea of a week on the Murray River!! sounds nice and relaxing. We loved Broome and you will probably have read by now that we have been into the Bungles, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Catch up soon. C&A x