Trekkin

Bacon & eggs on the BBQ to start another day in paradise.  This morning we awoke to a sea mist, the Broome township was covered in fog that had drifted in from the sea.  Apparently it’s common this time of year as the temperatures start to rise.  We visited the Buddhist gardens, just next to the caravan park, where there is a 4 metre Buddha carved from crystal sitting serenely in the back corner of the garden, there were a number of people meditating in front of the statue.  They also have yoga classes there.

We decided to part our ways with Sue & John this morning, they haven’t had the chance to see the pearl shops – I told Sue she must get a string of pearls to go with that little black number we girls all have hanging in the cupboard.  Ron took me to the wharf to watch the sea mist & fisherman trying to catch fish just so that we would be as far away from the pearl shops as possible.

Next stop was the wharf & a walk along the pedestrian footbridge, the fog was still thick & the far end of the wharf was barely visible.  A number of people were fishing off the footbridge with little success & we chatted for a while to one of the fishermen.  The tide was out so it was a long way down to the water, we saw a good number of large fish swimming around the wharf pylons or close to the wharf.  We walked down under the wharf & around on the rocks a bit, the tide was rising very fast.  I found a mermaid sitting on one of the rocks & decided to bring her home with me (she really wanted pearls).  We called in at Woolworths on the way back to camp for a few food essentials plus a few more bottles of red.  (We had no RED, we have plenty of food).

After lunch we went to the Broome Bird Observatory, 16km down a rough red dirt road – more corrugations.  It was set up on the shores of Roebuck bay by Birds Australia as a research & education facility.  Around 150,000 migratory shorebirds visit Roebuck Bay annually.  The migratory birds have just started returning from Siberia where they spend the Siberian summer before heading back to Roebuck Bay for the Australian summer.  We saw around 20 different species of birds during our afternoon visit, timed to coincide with high tide that pushes all of the birds to the shore closer to where we can get a better look at them.  (There were more birds in our bush caravan parks).

We made a brief stop at Malcolm Douglas’s crocodile farm & wildlife park where Tereza had to wrestle her way out of the mouth of one of the giant crocodiles there, it lays in wait for unsuspecting visitors in the doorway.

The rest of our afternoon was going to be spent at Cable Beach swimming & watching the sunset but we had to cancel the swimming part, a 4 metre crocodile had been spotted at the beach by the beach patrol & they closed the beach for swimming & got all of the people out of the water.  http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/7864891/crocodile-closes-cable-beach/   So, we had to get by with sitting on Cable Beach with some nibblies (smoked salmon, pate, dips, blue cheese, etc) & a bottle of Margaret River red watching the sun set & the camels walk past, it was absolutely magical, we really enjoy our time with Sue & John, it’s lovely to have good friends to share moments like these.

A late start today, up at sunrise & packing for our trip to Broome, its only 220km & on bitumen so fairly easy.  The only interesting bits, apart from the amazing boab trees that I always admire, were the single lane bridges over the various arms of the Fitzroy River & the need to give way to road trains on these bridges.  The trip was uneventful & we drove straight to the Cable Beach Caravan Park, booked in & set up. They have plenty of vacant spaces this week as there has been a mass exodus, the manager said that last week they were full, all 430 sites, this week they have at least 200 vacant sites.

After set up, John & Sue drove into the Post Office to collect his replacement shock absorber & then came back to the caravan park & fitted it to his car, he is much happier now.  Tereza & I went for a drive to familiarise ourselves with Broome, we went to the port (of course), then the boat ramp just nearby.  The Indian Ocean has such an amazing turquoise/azure blue colour, a totally different colour to the Pacific Ocean on the east coast.

Next we drove down onto the beach at Gantheaume Point where a lot of people launch their fishing boat from the beach.  We saw a very unusual boat that had three large motorised wheels under it that was used to ferry tourists from the shore out to a much larger boat.  The single wheel on the front of the boat was hydraulic & was lowered to allow people to climb into the boat with the hull resting on the sand.  The front wheel was then extended down & the boat driven into the shallow water until the boat was deep enough to float, when the wheel was retracted & the outboard motor started. The boat could also drive in reverse on the sand. It was fascinating to watch.

Chinatown was the next stop & we looked over a couple of old restored pearl luggers in dry dock as well as looking through & around 6 or 7 pearl shops.  The different colours, sizes & shapes of these pearls is amazing (as well as some of the prices).  The strings of pearl necklaces & matching earrings are a beauty to behold.  We had a very good seafood salad at the Roebuck Hotel for lunch before continuing to look through a few more pearl shops then reading the storyline of the Broome beginnings in the Johnny Chi Lane.  The planes fly very low over Chinatown when landing & add a bit of noise & excitement.

In the afternoon we went down to the famous Cable Beach for a walk along the beach.  There is car access to Cable Beach & there must have been over 100 cars parked on the beach, with people either swimming, socialising or waiting for sunset with some nibblies, wine & beers.  There are three lots of camel ride operators also plying camel rides along the beach & as we arrived they were all just starting out for the final ride of the day, the sunset ride where they get back just as the sun is setting.  It makes for great photography with a string of camels silhouetted against a setting sun with the ocean as a backdrop.  We took lots of photos, along with everyone else, then watched the last of the sunset from the top of the dunes.  The colours were stunning & again the photos don’t even begin to do justice to the beauty.

Dinner was a very simple affair after such a big lunch, not even a red.

Another pre-sunrise start to the day.  Today we were picked up at 8.15am by a minibus & taken to the Derby airport to catch a seaplane out to the horizontal waterfall.  The seaplane looks very ungainly on land, sitting so high up on wheels attached to the bottom of the floats.  There were eleven passengers & I got to act as co-pilot on this flight, they need to get as much weight forward as possible.  The flight lasted around half an hour & was very interesting, the mudflats around Derby have complex fractal patterns on the surface as the water makes channels when flowing out with the tide.  The different rivers flowing out into King Sound are very muddy & the Kimberley scenery is very pretty from the air.  The pilot flew over the Horizontal Falls so that we had a good look at them & understand how they worked before seeing them by boat.  The landing on the water of Talbot Bay was very smooth, it was our first seaplane adventure & we were a little excited.

They have a very good setup, with a large pontoon & mother ship where the seaplane docks & the other boats that take us to the horizontal falls tie up.  We transferred straight onto a 12 seater speedboat with twin 250hp Yamaha outboards & went the short distance to the falls.  It was just on low tide so we were able to go through both channels very easily as there was hardly any flow.  The first gap is around 20 metres wide & was very placid, the second gap is around 12 metres wide & was flowing well & Ryan, our boat driver, gunned the boat up the waterfall & into the feeder bay.  There are actually two horizontal waterfalls, caused by the tidal flow into & out of two bays that are otherwise landlocked.  The tidal rise & fall of around 12 metres ensures that the tide rises or falls much faster than the gaps allow water to run through them, causing a massive build up of water on one end of the gap compared to the other & there can be up to 5 metres variation in height between one side of the gap & the other.  The water really roars through.

We headed back to a well set up flat boat called “Cyclone Creek” for morning tea that was moored close to the falls, then headed out on a fishing trip to turtle reef, a reef that is exposed at low tide & has a hole in the middle of it that has fish trapped in it.  We moored right on the edge of the exposed reef & walked around 150m over the reef to get to the hole, looking at all of the clams, fish, sea cucumber & other sea life up on the top of the reef.  We only had around 40 minutes at the “Blue Hole” before the rising tide forced us out again, most people had a turn at fishing & John won the prize for catching the largest fish, a blue line emperor of around 1 & ½ kilos.   A sea turtle was also swimming around in the hole & popped up for air every now & again.

The tide was rising fast & starting to cover the reef again as we got back to the fishing boat & headed back to the “Cyclone Creek” where Ryan & Celine prepared a nice BBQ barramundi & salad lunch.  During lunch we motored slowly back to the mother ship, then after lunch it was shark feeding & patting time.  There is a shark cage set up at the back of the mother ship pontoon & around half a dozen large lemon sharks respond to the feeding (as well as a host of other fish, including garfish, yellowtail, trevally) & get a pat on the head, although you do have to watch out for their teeth, they are very sharp.  Celine wasn’t quite quick enough & got nipped on her little finger, drawing blood.  Tereza fed the sharks & had a lot of pats, though she was very cautious about being bitten.

The next boat ride was an exploration of Cyclone Creek itself which got its name from the pearling luggers that holed up there during cyclones, it is a very sheltered location with high mountains all of the way around the anchorage.  This is where Ryan & Celine sleep, in a converted pearl shell seeding hut, a pontoon with a roof on it & one end closed in for sleeping.  A very rudimentary lifestyle. The pearling industry has shut down significantly after the global financial crisis & this pearl lease is currently not being used. Ryan showed us the pet batfish that they have around their “two story house with swimming pool” & caught one with his bare hands to show us what a batfish looks like.  We went a little further up Cyclone Creek & looked at some of the folds & bends in the exposed rocks.

Next it was back to the horizontal falls where by now the tide was in full swing & both the falls were really working hard.  We took time to take some photos then Ryan gunned the boat up the outside falls & it was an exhilarating ride through, very bouncy but not as wet as I had thought.  We then motored over to the inside falls & it was really working hard, there was an amazing amount of water rushing through the narrow gap & dropping around 5 metres whilst doing so.  Thankfully Ryan considered a ride through too dangerous to attempt, so we just went close for some photos, then turned back & had another exhilarating ride back down the outside falls, it really is such an adrenaline rush.  Back to the mother ship then back onto the seaplane for the return to Derby.

We flew back a different route & went over the top of a barramundi farm & saw all of the growing pens plus the island that they base the operations from & live on.  Apparently the workers there call the island “Alcatraz” as there is no escape, it is really remote.  The township of Derby looks a lot bigger from the air (or maybe we were very low) & the wharf looks better with water all around it.  The landing on the airstrip by the seaplane was just as smooth as the water.

We celebrated a great day with some cheese & bikkies & a nice cold sparkling Seppelts shiraz & sat around chatting for ages.  After such a big barramundi lunch plus this, dinner was definitely not required tonight.

The dawn bird chorus this morning was particularly noticeable, apart from the close birds in the trees around the Karavan, there was a distant chorus of a multitude of wading birds on the vast mudflats next to the caravan park, the breeze must have been drifting in our direction.  A leisurely start & the excitement for the day was a morning visit to Woolworths in the air conditioning to top up our groceries. There is a chemist, a news agent, Woolworths & IGA grocery stores, couple of fuel stations, couple of churches, hardware & camping store, & today we found a King Gee shop.  They have street lamps & a taxi & that is Derby.  It’s really hot here, 34C again today.  We followed up with a drive out to the Derby wharf with a few others & witnessed the great variation in the tide, last night the high tide was lapping at the foundations of the restaurant, this morning the jetty was out of the water on the mudflats, around 10 metres of difference.  The colour of the sea looks like some muddy river water & the current flows very fast.  An absolutely massive amount of water flows in & out of King Sound each day.   We walked along the wharf, chatted to a kid fishing & de-hooked a couple of small fish he caught & tried to stay away from the edge, it’s a long way down.  We kept our eye out for a 4.5 metre salt water crocodile that is supposed to inhabit the area around the wharf, however didn’t spot it.  It’s amazing all of the old fishing line tangled around the rotted pylons of the old wharf & the general rubbish that is visible at low tide around the wharf, such as old pipes, tyres, steel bolts from the old wharf, etc.

During a chat with a fellow camper today we discovered that the Kalumburu Road that we travelled last week & complained bitterly about is in the worst condition it has ever been in, according to a professional truck driver that travels that road every week.  He also said that is the worst road in the Kimberleys, no wonder we struggled on it.

This afternoon was spent on catching up with reality again, Tereza cooking & preparing dinner tonight plus a few extra dinners for our next travels. I had to do something. I spent the time paying bills again, rates, phone, insurance, registration, you know, those things that never go away, so that is up to date again.  We had our fix by talking to Monica, Charles, Jackson, Austin & James.   We turned the air conditioning on in the Karavan so that it was bearable & were relieved that it also withstood the major shaking test that we have given it recently.

Tereza cooked a lovely roast pork dinner tonight with cooked granny smith apple sauce, vegetables & gravy with John & Sue providing the ginger covered in dark chocolate for a touch of decadence washed down by a really good Wolf Blass cabernet sauvignon.

Fitzroy Crossing like most of the small outback towns are just small hamlets with a few houses & mainly aboriginal people, if you are lucky a small grocery store, one or two fuel station/road house (to eat basic meals & very basic groceries) & one or two caravan parks.  The other sad thing is that most stores etc. have heavy duty security mesh on them.  Homesteads are usually fuel station, basic meals, sometimes you can pick up frozen bread & some tin foods.  Often they have cheap bush sites for camping with or without toilet facilities & fantastic bird life (if you are lucky a nice waterhole).  Many rivers & creeks we cross are just sand & rocks.  Life is so different out here, we use so little water & hardly any power (early to bed & early to rise).

An early start (nothing new) we are leaving today.  After breakfast the 4 of us had to wash the very dirty caravans, they couldn’t be towed with shiny cars like that.  At Fitzroy Crossing water is a NEVER ENDING resource (is there such a thing?) the sprinklers are on 24 hours a day (I wonder if they have a never ending money well too).  The drive is easy on the tar road, back to 90 km/hr.  The scenery is flat land dry grass, small trees & shrubs.  At one place on either side of the road two “jump ups” a poor excuse to call them a mountain range.  We almost missed (tourist’s photo opportunity) the BIG Boab tree because they didn’t put a sign out.  Just before Derby they have a big Boab tree jail with information about it & the sad plight of aborigines in the hands of the new settlers.

Then, finally, we reached the western end of Gibb River Road just outside of Derby.

Derby is a town of about 5,000 mainly aboriginal people, 2 caravan parks, IGA & Woolworths grocery stores a few cafes, other than that very few other stores.  We are almost in town at the Kimberly Entrance Caravan Park – it has everything these civilized parks have.  John has been having trouble with his caravan hitch for a while & now it has really got out of shape, he had to search out a 4WD place to get it fixed.  We have to stay longer in Derby than planned because we couldn’t get on a whole day seaplane & boat cruise to see the Horizontal Waterfall until Monday.

One of our new neighbours told us something very exciting, that a touring South Australian Opera company was putting on “La Boheme” tonight.  Like all civilized people (who have been deprived culture) we rushed out & bought tickets.  We found a small café & had a nice sea food salad.   In the afternoon we had cheese, fresh vegetables & drinks with Sue & John.  Ron & I went to Woolworths to stock up on fresh food & went to explore Derby – like always with Ron we end up at the wharf where we had the freshest Barramundi & chips & watched a magnificent sun set – we had no camera with us.

We had problems – no appropriate clothing for the opera – we scrubbed up & put on clean clothes (not ironed) & the locals (around 100 of the who’s who) didn’t throw us out of the city hall (it had a magnificent boab tree out the front with leaves on it).  WHAT A TREAT WE HAD, sitting outside under the stars with a slight breeze swaying the palm trees.  The opera singers had great voices & they performed a wonderfully touching entertainment under the conditions. The orchestra was outstanding & complemented the performers very well. To top the night off, a lovely walk back to the caravan park on a beautiful balmy starlit night.

An exciting fun day at Derby Caravan Park – woke to the distant sound of birds or was it the sound of our fellow campers waking.  We are at a powered site so mod con it was – made breakfast in microwave, toaster & electric jug.  Another treat, I stripped off the bed linen, the towels, etc. & washed in a real electric powered washing machine.  Now that Sue & John’s caravan faces the other side & we have all got our heads in the computers to catch up with E Mail (& write up yesterday’s blog) we hardly had time to see each other.  Sue & John went to Woolworths & site seeing.  Ron decided that it was a great day to wipe out the inside of the Karavan & all the rubber dust seals outside, plus clean a large number of small stones out of the hitch, the hydraulic brake, the cover plate under the gas bottles, as well as lots of small stones in nooks & crannies under the Karavan.

It was a really hot day so we powered up the air conditioner & it worked very well.  For lunch I cooked spaghetti Bolognaise in the community kitchen.  The 4 of us missed each other’s company so we decided to watch the sun set (which happens very quickly here) from the little restaurant on the jetty.   We had a lovely sea food dinner & an excellent gold medal shiraz BYO wine.   Since it was 7 o’clock when we finished eating we headed home for bed (may be blog writing first).   I took a photo of the closeness of our neighbours, its what I call a close community.

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.

We got up with the birds this morning, wolfed down breakfast & we were inside the track to Windjana Gorge just as the sun was rising.  With John & Sue, we were the first ones out enjoying the tranquillity & beauty of it all.  No, we haven’t been bird, gorge, big rock or water holed out yet.  This is a completely different gorge, the rocks are limestone made of corals about 360 million years old. It’s something like out of middle earth.  We enjoyed every step of the 3 km way, watching the birds, bats & the crocodiles.  We saw around a dozen crocodiles in the shallow water, goodness knows how many more we didn’t see – we didn’t tempt fate by having a swim. A few of the larger crocodiles were waiting patiently under the bats waiting for one to drop into the water.  A special treat was sighting a mating pair of grey goshawks, this is only the second time I have seen one, the last in Canberra around 15 years ago.

On our return to the camp it was time to pack up.  We travelled 35 km to Tunnel Creek. The sun was beating down, luckily we only had a short walk before the entrance.  Great big boulders to climb over & through – wow, what an amazing entrance into this unreal cave.  The walk is easy after the initial entrance – sand & wading through water up to your belly button if you are me or not getting your bottom wet if you are Ron, 6’2” tall.  We used our head lamps as it is pitch black up to about half way, a break through the cliff & back to dark until the end, 1 ½ km return trip.  The cave runs from one side of the Napier Range to the other & in the 1890s was used as a hideout for Jandamarra, an aboriginal freedom fighter until he was killed there.  The cave had a lot of fruit bats in it & wonderful ghost bats, tiny catfish, freshwater prawns & on our return Ron noticed some shiny reflection, on closer inspection crocodile eyes.  The ceiling was formed through millions of years of water erosion & formed some giant stalactites.

The road to Fitzroy Crossing was about 110 km of very rough corrugated dusty road, then we hit the Northwest Highway – bitumen!  20 km out of town our mobile phone came on – hurray!  Back to civilization!  Great to catch up with the kids, Mum, Dad & family.

Tereza & I were up before sunrise yet again & saw another great sunrise with the birdlife becoming active.  We had a leisurely breakfast of bacon & eggs before packing & on our way again.  There were a few creek crossings on the way out, which John filmed, then we were regaled by the splendour of the Leopold Ranges as we continued our journey westward across the Gibb River Road.  We stopped at a couple of lookouts on the top of some ranges & appreciated the stunning scenery.  John had to stop & do some running repairs to his car, the front bumper on the Toyota Prado is very close to falling off as most of the plastic brackets have broken, so, it was out with the duct tape & Sue did an impressive strapping job to the front bumper, now with silver stripes.  Just before the turnoff to Windjana Gorge we stopped at a tiny snack stop, (this is in the middle of nowhere) a lonely caravan a couple of hundred metres in, run by an elderly man on the banks of the Leopold River, he was obviously a keen bird watcher as he had a couple of spotting scopes set up.  We bought some ice creams & drinks & turned onto the Leopold Downs Road for the 20km trip to Windjana Gorge.  People think that John & I are brothers, they reckon we look so alike (Tereza says brothers from another mother).

Windjana Gorge campsite looks directly at the Napier Ranges, an impressive Devonian Limestone range that would not look out of place in a science fiction movie, it looks that old & worn.  We rested after setting up as it is stinking hot, it must have reached 40C again today, we read & watched the birdlife in the shade of some trees we camped under.  We watched the antics of an Elegant Bowerbird as it was courting its mate, with a stick in its beak & making strange looking strides with its tail up & wings outstretched.

As the sun was setting we went for an exploratory walk into Windjana Gorge, the entrance is impressive, walking through a narrow crack in the limestone for around 20m before getting onto the sand walking track.  The cliff walls are extremely stunning with the setting sun glowing off them & the reflections in the still water making postcard type scenery, you really have to see it.  These gorges are just so different from anything we have seen before. We saw a couple of dozen freshwater crocodiles basking in the shallow water & a lot of archer fish in the shallows.  The walk back was impressive, looking at the setting sun glowing off the walls of the cliffs.  Thankfully the night started to cool down with the sunset.

John & Sue cooked a great lamb casserole tonight with vegies & washed it down with a really nice Shiraz. We ate outside under a full moon & it was a balmy night – can this get any better? We talked about our next destination.  Time for a cool shower to cool down & write up our blog.            The last couple of nights we slept without covers.

It is our 24^th wedding anniversary today.  We drove the additional 11km into Bell Gorge from the Silent Grove camp ground.   The walk from the car park to the gorge was along a creek bed to start with, not too hard, then once at the gorge to get down to the large pool below the waterfall the track turned into a test track for mountain goats, it was very steep, very rocky & slippery.  The rocks lower down had been worn so smooth by years & years of raging flood waters in the wet season.  Bell Gorge is spectacularly beautiful, with the waterfall dropping over four ledges around 20 metres into a large pool.  We had a wonderful swim, the water was so nice & crystal clear, we swam under the waterfall & got pounded by the falling water, it was warm & hard to stay under the waterfall as the current kept pushing us away from the cliff face.  We stayed in for ages, got out & sunned ourselves, then had another long swim. A tour group arrived & we shared the pool with them.  There were a few more waterfalls further down, Tereza & I swam to but we didn’t get as far as the next big fall about 200m further on.  All the rock climbing & swimming made us hungry so we ate our lunch on the rocks next to the pool alongside the tour group.  We had a bit of a chat to a few of them, the usual –  where they had been & where they going to.  The walk out of Bell Gorge was very hot, 38C & the sweat was rolling off us by the time we got back to the car park.  The drive back to Silent Grove was very pleasant in the air-conditioned car.  We spent the afternoon reading, Sue & John had a sleep in the heat.  We rubbed some aloe-vera into our sunburn, we had spent too much time having a good swim.  I think Bell Gorge is one of the nicest gorges we have been to in the Kimberley region.  A couple of corellas have a nest in a hollow in the tree near our camp site, they entertained us for a while.  We also saw some absolutely beautiful variegated wrens on our walk, the colours in these birds are amazing.

I took a bit of time to replace some screws in the microwave that had shaken loose on the trip & used some Loctite to hopefully keep them in place.  Dinner tonight, for a change, was cooked by me, BBQ steak & onions with boiled potatoes in the jacket, with Tereza doing all the preparation & the salad.  The red was a nice Taylors merlot.  John broke open a lovely ginger dark chocolate to make the anniversary dinner more special.

We see a lot of young German, French & some Spanish & even a few Danish, Swedish, Italians & English but we have never come across any Americans.  I can’t help remembering our famous tourism advertisement in bad taste. They must have missed it in America or (not surprisingly) didn’t do the trick to entice them to come down under.