A leisurely start this morning, we didn’t get up until sunrise as the Geikie Gorge boat cruise we wanted to be on was the 9.30am one. Spent a bit of time doing some maintenance on the Karavan, then took the scenic route via the old, low, single lane Fitzroy Crossing bridge out the 21km to Geikie Gorge.  Bitumen most of the way – a pleasant change.  The one hour boat cruise is in large flat bottomed aluminium boats designed to hold loads of pensioners (just like us really).  The Geikie Gorge is very pretty, rather than spectacular, with a lot of water held in it.  The flood level is amazing. In the gazebo where the bookings are taken the flood levels are shown on the ceiling & the gazebo is a long way above the normal water level.  A couple of recent floods were way over the roof & 15km wide.  The water flow in flood is 30,000 cubic metres per second. (If Sydney Harbour would be empty it would fill it in 5 hours).

We managed to get front row seats in the boat in front of about 100 other people. A photographers dream.  The commentary by the ranger was interesting & informative.  The gorge is part of the same limestone reef as the Napier Ranges that form Windjana Gorge & Tunnel Creek.  It was an absolutely massive structure 360 million years old.  There is a special fallen rock in the middle of the water in Geikie Gorge, similar to Windjana, that has spiritual significance for the aboriginals.  The large rock is called Darngku.  Geikie Gorge will be renamed Darngku in the next couple of years.  We saw a few small freshwater crocodiles, on the way back a larger one that was under the bat colony waiting for (or just had) a feed.

Lunch was back at the campsite.  This afternoon was car & Karavan maintenance.  I greased the swing arms on the Karavan, checked the bottom for any damage or loose bolts, then pumped up all the car & Karavan tyres back to the higher pressures needed for bitumen roads.    The portable ARB air compressor worked surprisingly well & took hardly any time to pump the tyres up.  Tereza did a dust clean inside.  Next Tereza & I washed the car as it was absolutely filthy from all of the dust, dirty water & mud thrown all over it in the trip to date as we have finished with the worst of the bad dirt roads.  The car looks so much better now, outside at least. Though now it hasn’t got that wild outback adventure look any more.

Tereza had a visit from the resident Elegant Bowerbird wanting to share the apple she was eating, the bowerbird even put on a display of the brilliant purple courting feathers at the back of its neck, absolutely stunning, no wonder the female bowerbirds fall for him. (Tereza was besotted by the attention too).  The bowerbird then entertained the female at the bower up on the shed roof & put on a courting ritual display.  The actions he does is really unusual & was similar to the display we saw at Windjana campsite, though I’ve never seen this display before at a bower.

It was relaxation time with some good blue cheese & bikkies plus a few mixed nuts, with John & Sue enjoying a glass of red & I had a coffee (blogs to write).  After a couple of glasses, John & Sue tried their skills at putting their new camp table together & they passed with flying colours.  After all this it was time to continue catching up with the blogs now that we are back in coverage, so we are now up to date after uploading the last twelve days of wilderness adventure.  Time now for dinner.

We were only 10 days out of coverage & during that time Ron’ cousin Henry, Mrs Toth, a friend & my beloved Uncle Steven in America passed away (I will so miss our phone chats).  They were all strong characters from an era of hard work.  Life is so short, we have to make the most of every moment.  We will miss them.