Wednesday 19 June 2019

Real out back

Hi again

Well we haven't been eaten by crocodiles or buried by ants we have just been well and truly in the bush without any real means of communication We are now back in Darwen we returned today and returned mighty Midge the camper she may have been old but she served us very well. the past 6 days or so has been quite and epic journey starting with the wall art the Aboriginal tribes in this areaa have been custodians of this land for the past 60,000 years the oldest inhabitants of one land in the world. It all makes it a fascinating place. We have treked up 300ft escarpments scrambled up rock faces walked along with kangaroos followed Emus and had a great time we did also find time to celebrate our 50th Wedding anniversary with a evening river cruise down the Butterfly gorge in the Kacadu  national park  However even though we were dressed for the evening we still had to do some scrambling over rocks as the river was low and we had to walk the parts the boat couldn't go and then get another boat ( it reminded me of the African Queen )
We then decided that we would attempt to swim in every pool that was on top of a waterfall. Just to point out now that through the national parks there is a large escarpment that was thrown up when Australia left south Asia about 3 mil years ago anyhow this range being close to the sea collects a lot of moisture and rain that then cascades to the wet lands of the Northern territories making for one of the most diverse habitats in the world. There are many waterfalls off these escarpments of which some are sacred to the locals and no swimming is allowed. We challenged ourselves to scramble the ones we could  and swim the top pools. as being a national park most of the sites are accessible by road and most tourists get a chance to swim in the bottom pool BUT where is the fun in sharing a big bath with a load of tourists, Now to be fare to the Rangers have cut paths and  beaten through the bush but as tropical rain forest grows at a tremendous rate some paths are just unrecognizable, now  of course remember we would be scrambling  between 3/5 hundred feet high over a distance of 2/5 k I hear you know saying that's easy, maybe but also consider  we did this magnificent fete in temps of 30/35 which for two Pommy over 70s isn't so bad. As well as treking through tropical forest, desert and swampland we did call in whenever possible for an expresso I think we had two whilst fueling up.
Just two days left  to explore the delights of Darwen
God Bless you all

How do these trees hang on

Noreen bashing through the bush

isit a cave bloody dark down there

Kacadu Gorge by night

Scrambled over rocks to get next boat As you see all dressed for dinner ??

50th Anniversary 9couple of months late but after 50 years who cares

out bush no media no water no light just us the bats the snakes the spiders ????

By Ek thats cold at 300 ft 

one of the bottom pools for the Tourists

this water fall is about 400ft on of the sacred ones 

are they not really inviting

Trying out the highest pool that little gap behind me is a 300ft fall as seen by the tops of the trees they are half way up the falls 

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