We were up early & drove to a point on the Fitzroy River from where they operated trips through the Geikie Gorge. The boat left at 8am & took us on a very pleasant trip, which lasted for an hour. All sorts of things were pointed out to us - limestone formations, martins' nests built under cliff overhangs, small fresh water crocodiles basking on the banks, birds, wallabies & various types of trees. We saw red gums, paper barks & coolibah trees & were amazed when the tap root of a tree, which was growing on the wall of the gorge, was pointed out to us - the root grew down through crevices in the rock for an amazing distance in its mission to reach water!
As we disembarked, a little rock wallaby observed us from way above us at the rim of the gorge.
Back at the Lodge, we packed up our caravans & were on the road again before 10am. After Fitzroy Crossing, the terrain was largely flat for many kilometres & was dominated by the rather ungainly mounds made by the local termites. These varied in colour from cream to beige to an orangey-red, depending upon the host soil.
Some of the trees had beautiful foliage, which was a delicate silver-greyish blue. When we stopped to make coffee, we saw flocks of galahs, the first we'd seen since leaving Victoria. A lovely lilac-coloured bush also cropped up frequently, which could almost have been lavender, but wasn't.
Bob had to keep his wits about him as two over-sized vehicles, carrying mining trucks, came towards us, forcing us to use the verge. Shortly after that, a huge bull decided to cross the road infront of us, so we stayed well back until it disappeared into the vegetation. There is a need to stay alert, even on roads that appear almost empty.
We had planned to spend the night at a free camp called the Boab Tree but, when we arrived there, we saw that there was no shade & no toilets, so we decided to continue on to Derby & try to book an extra night there. It was quite a long drive in all - over 300km - but we found it worthwhile. We didn't have high hopes of Derby (thought it would be similar to Wyndham). However, we were pleasantly surprised & found that it had more to offer than we'd expected. It was Rodeo Weekend & the town was "swinging". After settling in at our caravan park, which was another pleasant one & not far from the sea, we had a restful afternoon before going into town for a meal. We chose the Spinifex Hotel, where we had dinner & then listened to a band, whose members played a great selection of rock & roll songs. The musicians were probably in our own age group (young!) but were very lively & the singer was excellent, even though he appeared to have no teeth! We had a most entertaining evening & finally found our way back to the park, mainly due to Bob's reliable, in-built sense of direction.
No comments:
Post a Comment