Day 152. Ellendale Rest Area to Mary Pool Rest Area

Not another Gorge…

Bit of an early wake up from Scarlett again. However it wasn’t her fault, I think it was the mass exit of the grey nomads from 6am that woke her. My goodness they get up and move on early, and there were so many of them parked in here it was amazing. I wouldn’t have believed this many vans could fit into a free camp, if I hadn’t been one of them.

Needless to say we hit the road by 8am ourselves. We were on a mission to get in on an early tour of Geikie Gorge, and we had no idea what time they were run. We headed into Fitzroy Crossing to the information centre, so Shane could run in and get the tour times. We were in luck, we were only 18km’s away and there was one in 30min.

We took off and found the gorge parking lot, only to have it filled with a huge amount of tourists. This really is the peak season up here, and it’s starting to show. We had no worries getting on a tour as the boat was huge, and having a child we were lucky enough to get the front row.

The Geikie Gorge is situated at the junction of the Oscar and the Geikie Ranges. The mighty Fitzroy River has carved a 30 metre deep gorge into the remains of the ancient limestone barrier reef that existed here in the Devonian period. When the Fitzroy river is in full flood during the wet season, it covers the whole national park. Those floods rise over 16 metres up the gorge walls, and the continuous rise and fall of the water has left the bottom of the walls bleached white, it's an intriguing sight.

We didn’t see much wildlife other than a million freshwater crocodiles, but the views were spectacular. Our guide was so informative and so funny we laughed our way through the Gorge; no wonder we didn’t see any wildlife.

It was a long drive today, nearly 400km’s all up, but this afternoon we got to a lovely free camp called Mary’s Pool. Lucky we were early, as the place again is packed. There must be more than 60 caravans in here; and we had a little trouble finding a spot. After a lap or two, we found a great little spot between some other vans and under some trees.

As we were all feeling tired from the drive we had a slack lunch. Scarlett was introduced to the ‘potato chip sandwich’. She was a fan straight away, and we all had one outside under the trees together. They were great. Scarlett and I then had a big afternoon planned of craft, so she cleared off lunch and got every scrap of craft out she had. We then sat down and made some fairy wands. We had such a good time together, and both created the best fairy wands ever.

River at our free camp

After our craft session we decided to go down to the water and look for crocodiles. There aren’t any estuarine crocs here, but apparently there are heaps of fresh water ones. We walked along the river looking for tracks, and collected some really cool rocks. We didn’t see any crocs, but did see a million little fish trying to get up and over the weir to head up stream. Scarlett and Shane had a ball catching them, and helping the ones who found themselves stranding out of the water get back in.

It’s been an early dinner, and hopefully it will be early to bed. Scarlett and I popped over to the caravan next door to use their fire to toast some marshmallows, and now she and Shane are watching another Harry Potter movie, while munching on popcorn. It will be another big day again tomorrow driving to our destination the ‘Bungle Bungles’, where hopefully we will be camping at another free rest stop as lovely as this one.