Saturday, 5 July 2014 284.9kms
It was freezing last night. Maybe we shouldn’t have given our big yellow blanket away to Mrs Macs Op Shop after all. There was a late arrival at about 11pm right near us, but then at 12.30am, it took off hooning down the road trying to do a burn-out, but failed! Haha.
It was still really cold this morning but fine and sunny. We got up at 6.30am, packed the van down and ate breakfast. Last night we made the call to put all of our stuff back in the van, eat breakfast out of the car and climb over the benches, that way we couldn’t have someone steal our stuff. I was glad we made that choice after that late arrival clown.
We were on the road 8am. We drove to Derby for a top-up of diesel and to fill up a jerry now that we are going on the Gibb. We also went down to the jetty to see that the tide was in-between. They have done up the car park since we were here last. After a quick look we headed back to the BP for fuel and then to Mitre 10 where Nath and Elokin went and bought a new dolphin torch for us. We had been putting it off for a while, and decided that we would need something better than our headlights for walking around in the dark of Tunnel Creek, and so we can see the crocodile eyes at night.
After that we drove back the 5kms to the Gibb River Rd turnoff. We stopped at the signs before making our way along the road. It starts out as a thin tar road, so overtaking and passing is done half on, half off the bitumen. We found a huge boab tree on the side of the road and stopped to get a photo. Then two road trains passed us, so Nath moved off the road for them and we almost came to a stop. The day was warming up by now. It was a beautiful temperature, but it was almost the middle of the day.
Our first walking stop was at Windjana Gorge. Windjana Gorge is where the Lennard River has carved a 3.5km gorge through the limestone of the Napier Range. The Napier Range is part of an extensive barrier reef from the Devonian Period around 360 million years ago. Back then, where we were standing would have been the sea floor. Today the gorge walls rise abruptly from the sandy river bed and in some places can be towering over 100m above. Windjana Gorge is the foremost place for viewing freshwater crocodiles in Australia.
We ate lunch in the car park before heading off on the Time Walk. There was a tour bus just finishing their lunch and I think they may have been leaving scraps around because there were at least 20 Whistling Kites flying overhead and landing near them. They were calling their beautiful whistling sound. After we finished eating, we had a drink of water, put our crocs on and at 1.40 headed off down the track. We read the information boards to Elokin and Hendrix and checked out the bloodwood tree. They had to identify which of the two species it was by looking at its leaves. They got it.
The gorge was itself was an easy one. We walked through a crack in the gorge wall which was cool. That led to an open sandy area with Lenard River on the left and the limestone gorge wall on the right. There was a fossilized nautiloid imprint in the limestone wall, that we had to search for of course. Further up we got close to the bank and on the opposite side we saw our first freshwater crocodile. It was just a small one and it was very cute. A second small one started moving along the water, drifting like a floating log. We continued to walk and this time there was one on a log on our side just out in the water. As it turned out, I had walked right past 3 sitting on the bank under us. Nath got really close to them and it wasn’t until he got up to move away that one hissed at him. It puffed out its belly and deflated it as the hissing sound came out. We moved on after a group of people went past. We continued to walk along the bull dust river bank until we got to a big open sandy area where the river sakes around some large boulders. There was a bigger croc sitting in the corner as we walked down. We heard some people jumping into the water near one big boulder and after a couple of photos made our way towards the noise. The two fellows had finished their jumps and swim by the time we got there. I personally wouldn’t be getting in there. We walked all the way up to the end of this big sandy patch before turning around to make our way back. Another freshie landed came waddling out of the water on the point so I called Elokin and Hendrix back to have a closer look. We then made our way back to the bigger freshie at the entrance to the sandy patch and conveniently he was still there. We got closer to it this time for some close up photos. It is such a cool looking creature.
Back at the car, we had afternoon tea and made cups of tea for the road. We had spent 2 hours in the gorge. The camp host came over to make sure we were all good, which we were. We then left Windjana and headed south towards Tunnel Creek. Tonight we have found a track off to the side of the road and it has a dried creek bed behind it. While I unpacked the van, Nath took the kids into the creek bed to look around. The sunset not long after we arrived and we have decided to get an early night so we can make an early start on tomorrow. It is definitely not as cold tonight as last night which is a pleasant relief.
Until next time…. Happy and Safe Travels.