We had an early walk to the falls near the river pool after breakfast and pack up.
The waterfall wasn’t hugely impressive but the setting made the picture beautiful.
The smooth red of the sandstone and quiet waters of the pool together in the morning light were lovely. We found a very deep whirl hole in the stone where rocks have eroded the soft stone as they tumbled in the water. It must have been at least five metres deep.
Some red tailed black cockatoos noisily greeted us as they whirled overhead.
We headed off down the road from camp and came up behind Al and Zita (who were stopped to rearrange their wood on top) just at an appropriate time for morning tea, so we talked them into taking a break with us and Al tipped his Jerry can of fuel into the tank.
As we were packing up we saw the Colwells cross at the crossing, so we knew that we were pretty close on the road.
Not long later we came to the grader working his way along the road. What a relief!!
It was quite amusing to see a white haired , white bearded fellow racing towards us on a red four-wheeled motorbike with his dog- no helmet, no face covering of any kind!! He must have got a face full of dust every time someone passed him, but he looked like he was having a whale of a time. His very loud shirt completed the picture.
We came up behind Craig and Evelyn just as they were crossing the last water crossing before Drysdale River Station. We opened the gates for each other as we entered the station.
First on the agenda was fuel- we put in 50 litres of fuel. This should at least get us to Imintji if required.
Craig discovered that he had lost a shocker on his Vista and unfortunately the shock absorber shaft had kicked up and had worn away the inside of his tyre. Luckily this had not yet caused the tyre to blow, but it was close. Unfortunately this meant a new tyre at Drysdale and a lunch stop (egg and bacon roll for us).
We continued on as the forward party to Barnett River Gorge to try to find a campsite. We didn’t find one well. The area was already pretty busy and trying to locate a spot that was OK for 2 vans plus us was a challenge. In the end we decided to park and walk in to try to see the gorge. We found a swimming spot after some stone hopping and path walking. Trev had a brief swim.
We were lucky to see a couple of rainbow bee eaters on our way out.
On the way out there were the others coming in. They had seen our van and come to the same spot. We decided to stay in the spot at the end of the track ( avoiding the car parking spaces) and spread ourselves around on the flattest areas. We had a lovely fire and admired the lovely clear dark sky with the stars spread out above us.
- Red tailed black cockatoos
- Rainbow bee eaters
- 50 litres of fuel at $2.15/ litre
- 267 km
Luvapuzzle 