Manning Gorge

Friday 8^th July

After an early start, we had a drama on the road out, as the caravan came off its hitch because R had forgotten to lock it in!!


However, using the car jack to lift it up, it went back onto the car again..... but you can imagine there were some awful moments before it was over!

We called in to look at Galvans’ gorge which was really pretty.  (
I put these photos in the Mornington entry by mistake, I think - I'm working under diffi cult conditions, in the shade outside at the Information centre, but its hard to see!!)

We bought fuel and some fresh food at the roadhouse at Mt Barnett, then went in to the campground – pretty barren and filled up as the day went on.

The walk to the gorge was very long and hot, and we actually didn’t make it to the end as we thought we would be getting back in the dark!

There were some lovely flowers – including the red Rosellas, and the golden Silver-leaf Grevilleas. ( again, these phots are in the last blog...sorry

 But the waterhole at the start of the walk was enormous, and a lovely place to have a swim.

You had to swim over to the other side, or go in a boat and paddle, or swim your thigs in a polystyrene box....fun!

We had planned to stay 2 nights, but it was not nice enough so we decided to move on.

Mornington

Tuesday 5^th – Thursday 7^th July

We had heard that to ensure a campsite at Mornington, you needed to be at the phone check-in point by 7- 7.30 am – no bookings. We left early and had breakfast after getting the ok to enter, but in fact there was no real hurry  as the campground did not actually fill up very early each day. The campground is really spacious and bushy enough to make it really private, which was great, and there are hot (sometimes) showers, toilets and lots of water.

The GRR (Gibb River Rd) is in very good condition which made it much easier travelling than we expected, and the road in to Mornington had just been graded so that was easy, too.

Along the road in,

 which is about 80+ km, we stopped at a little creek crossing and saw lots of great birds,

eg Red-wing Parrots, Spinifex Pigeons,

 Long tailed Finches, Black-tailed Treecreeper and later we saw Red-backed Wrens.

In Mornington itself, there were really good birds – eg the Purple – crowned Fairy Wren, several Bustards at close range (one actually flew high over Rob S in his swag one morning!), Crimson Finches. Diamond Doves are in huge numbers a

nd we had a close view of a Jabiru just along a little creek that we crossed.

The surrounding ranges were absolutely stunning.

There were two gorges, each beautiful in its own way, where we could swim,

Sir John Gorge

 

and swimming water-holes as well.

Bluebush Waterhole -  all to ourselves

.
Dimond Gorge

.all on the Fitzroy River, and often not another soul there!

When the Fitzroy River is in flood, it peaks at 53m! ... it flows over the top of the escarpments. The flow of water would fill Sydney Harbour in 21 hours!

Some flowers - a white hibiscus

and lots of pink and yellow Grevilleas

Slver leaf Grevilleas

and the red Rosella plants

One of the walks gave information about termite mounds

A wonderful 3 days.

Bell Gorge

Monday 4^th  July

It was very pretty scenery driving to Silent Grove campground...had a few stops to look at birds.

Kapok trees and Kurrajongs were common and we wound through the Leopold Ranges. The road condition was really good.

Queen Victoria’s head...a strange rock formation.

.... it was 25 degrees by 9am and was very hot by the time we arrived. But we found a good camp site and then took our lunch with us to Bell Gorge where we enjoyed a lovely swim in pools at the base of the gorge.

We had to scramble up rocks and through water to reach the gorge itself, but it is a breathtaking gorge with water cascading down a wide waterfall into a big pool where people were swimming.

Rob S spotted a Mertons Water Monitor, perched on a rock in the water,

Then on the way back, he spotted another one climbing up a tree when we stopped to look at some birds bathing.

Windjana Gorge & Tunnel Creek

Saturday 2^nd and Sunday 3^rd July

The Gibb River Road is bitumen until just before the turn-off to Windjana Gorge, and is not very interesting, but we were pleased to see a goanna when we were on the dirt road,

and some pretty flowers.

The campground is pretty, though a bit crowded by the end of the day, with the backdrop of the jagged grey limestone range. 

We thought it would be better to stay a 2^nd night, and cut out Charnley station, so that we could take our time to do the walk and write up bird lists and blog notes etc! (I sprayed myself with water and put on the fan to keep cool-ish (your clue, G!)

 It was hot when we arrived at the campground, so we decided to go to Tunnel Creek, 35 km further down the road, where you walk, or rather wade through a creek which has tunnelled through the limestone range. It was an absolutely fantastic experience!

We had to strip off our shorts as we didn’t wear our bathers, and at times were in water up to our waist.

The water wasn’t cold, but it was totally dark for most of the way – about 400m, and stupidly we only had one torch, so it was slow progress. I decided to bale before the end, but Rob S continued on, and came back and said we must go through to the end – and it was worth it! The prettiest little tree-lined creek looked like a painting as we came to the end of the dark tunnel.

The limestone tunnel was massive, with interesting caves and formations.  The rocks were really pretty - lots of it looked like marble, shiny grey or rusty colour, with white streaks. There was a Peregrine falcon perched on a dead branch of a tree high up on the rocks outside..a great view.

The walk along Lennard Creek in Windjana Gorge is absolutely beautiful. We set off at about 7.15, as it gets too hot to do much by 11 or 12 o’clock, even though the track goes along beside the river and is quite shaded.

We saw lots of freshwater crocodiles, some really close – they are not dangerous.

Lots of good birds, and Rob S was pleased because he added several new ones to his list eg White-fronted Cuckoo-shrike, Sandstone Shrike-thrush, Paperbark Flycatcher.

Back to Broome - catching up with Rob S.

Since Broome, we have had no access to the internet, so I'll just add entries as I have access !

Thursday30^th June and Friday 1^st July

On the way back to Broome, we counted the cars that were going the other way, i.e. going to Cape Leveque or other places on that Dampier peninsula. ....47! A lot more than we expected.

It was great to meet up with Rob Scholes in Broome – he went to the Broome Bird Observatory where he was staying (the Broome caravan park would have been a horrible start to the holiday) and we went there after we had done shopping etc. We bought some Barramundi to have for dinner out there and it was sensationally good, so we had it again on Sunday night, and then bought some TripleTail which was suggested by the fisherman, to have at Winjana, and that was also a real treat.

We spent Friday going to various birding spots around Broome,

and Cable Beach of course!. The highlights: Frigate birds, Brown Boobies, and  White-fronted Whistler; we saw the ospreys catching fish and then taking them up onto the lighthouse scaffolding to eat .

 At sunset, we went to Point Gantheaume where the Ospreys have their nest, to see some Dinosaur prints in the rocks that are exposed at low tide. We scrambled over slippery rocks and finally found one of the footprints..quite a thrill.