Beth and Mark's Gap Year 2014: The 50th Birthday Party Bandits strike again 5th May to 20th May

Disappointingly Darwin chose to turn on nice weather to celebrate our departure, but at least that weather seemed to carry through to Litchfield National Park, which was our next destination. On our way we thought that we would take a dip at Berry Springs, which sounded very nice, but alas, when we arrived the signs welcomed us to go for a walk, but forbade swimming on account of strong currents and even stronger crocodiles. We don't ignore these signs, so a walk had to suffice. Another sign at Berry Springs which quite amused us was worded "If the car park is full, so is the spring, please call back another day". No nonsense and factual, I liked it, but this one we could safely ignore because we were the only vehicle in the car park.

Our detour to Berry Springs meant about 40 Km of dirt road getting to Wangi Falls in Litchfield NP, which made me thankful that we did not invest in a car wash in Darwin. I think the car gets to remain dirty now until we reach Perth in about 6 weeks.

Wangi Falls was flowing beautifully, but as I have said previously, anything good seems always to be accompanied by something not so good. Strong flows mean nice photos but they also mean strong currents and crocodiles, so a swim in the beautiful plunge pool under the falls was not possible. Not so at nearby Florence Falls where we had a most enjoyable swim along with many others. The cascades was a little ambiguous with its warnings (which was a bit of a worry). The Cascades involved a walk along a creek and hopping up over rocks through a set of lower and upper cascades and then a steep walk back along a different path forming a loop. As we often seem to do, we chose to do the loop in a different direction to most, and one of the first signs we encountered was one indicating no swimming past this point, which of course we obeyed. When we reached the upper cascades we encountered a group of young French tourists happily frolicking on the rocks and in the shallow water. One of these folk asked us for directions and possibly seeing the concerned look on my face, also asked, "It is OK to swim here isn't it?"' To which we replied that we did not think so. As we made our way down the track though, we found another sign which said that all swimming spots were open. I suspect that this was the correct sign and that I had needlessly terrified these poor tourists. Oh well, I am sure that this will be great material for their blogs.

We did every walk on offer in Litchfield NP (except the multi day table top walk, which was still closed - another return visit candidate), but our walking average is still heading downwards, and we are starting to rethink our targets. Our last day in Litchfield coincided with the 100th day of our adventure, and amazingly, at the end of that day our documented walking amounted to 1000 Km (almost exactly). I think that the walking opportunities will dry up somewhat in the next couple of months, so boasting about our walking feats is likely also to slow down.

When we realized that we had hit the 100 day milestone, Beth decided that as the latest craze (and I use this word purposely) in the Public Service is to produce 100 day progress reports on any works undertaken, presumably to advise decisions regarding ongoing progress, but carefully manipulated to ensure that an embarrassing no-go decision is not made. Beth of course felt the need for us to produce one of these reports and include it in this blog. The report of course will cover key indicators such as distance travelled, performance against budget, quality of consumables (particularly coffee and cake), quality of services etc. In keeping with standard Public Service practise however, I intend delivering this report at about the 200 day milestone to ensure continued progress regardless of report outcomes.

From Litchfield NP we head back towards Katherine en-route to Kununurra and take the opportunity of spending a couple of days at Edith Falls at the north end of Nitmiluk NP. This was a beautiful stay which reinforced our need to come back to this beautiful place. As well as climbing to the top plunge pool at Edith Falls and taking a very enjoyable pummelling under the falls, we also took a walk out to Sweetwater Pools which is the first leg of the longer multi day Jatbula trail which takes you all the way to Katherine Gorge. This was a gorgeous walk and Beth is stating to think that maybe multi day bush walks are OK. I am not yet convinced.

Because we had been out of mobile phone coverage for a few days we took the opportunity to visit Katherine and take up occupation in the air conditioned Coffee Club restaurant (normally shunned by us in Melbourne, but the allure of free wi-fi was too much) and deal with all our communication needs. This includes posting my last blog update, catching up with our children and reading the Melbourne newspapers. Beth also decided to flick through the local NT newspaper and to our delight she noticed that our friend Tegan Caldwell had gained selection in the Australian netball side to compete at the Commonwealth games in Glasgow later this year. A fantastic outcome for all her hard work and family support. All up we had a delightful couple of hours at Katherine which had absolutely nothing to do with the touristic merits of the town.

We still had more than 500 Km to travel from Katherine to Kununurra and decided that we should take two overnight stops along the way. Our original intention was to spend some time in both the Gregory NP and the Keep River NP, but both were still ostensibly closed, largely due to roads damaged through the wet season. So instead we stopped on the Victoria Highway and took a few little walks along the way. The most impressive of these was the Joe Creek walk in the Gregory NP, which took us up into the shadow of an escarpment abounding in beautiful palm trees and ferns and with the red rock escarpment walls decorated by aboriginal art. It was truly a magical walk, which amazingly seems to be little known. Another gem that we discovered en-route to Kununurra was the little township of Timber Creek. We had expected the standard roadhouse types of town that we had grown accustomed to, but instead we found a lovely little town with mobile reception and a fantastic cafe serving delicious home made treats (giant scones with home made jam and lashings of real fresh cream - what a treat), good coffee (albeit plunger rather than espresso), but more importantly lovely people happy to sit and chat. I may need to manipulate something to make sure that Timber Creek finds it's way into the 100 day report because it will certainly drive up our satisfaction index.

Although I have said we were aiming for Kununurra I have been using this more as a general term for the East Kimberley area than the town itself. In reality our visit to this area covers Lake Argyle, El Questro, Purnululu (The Bungle Bungles) as well as Kununurra itself. We have arranged the first part of this trip to coincide with a 5 day holiday taken by friends from Melbourne (Mark and Robyn) to celebrate Mark's 50th Birthday. We are making something of a habit of this after gate crashing another friend's 50th birthday on the Gold Coast. Anybody else out there ready to celebrate a 50th birthday in an exotic place please drop us a line and we will see if we can gate crash that one as well.

After establishing ourselves in the caravan park of the beautiful Lake Argyle resort, we took ourselves into town and collected our friends from the Kununurra Airport. Evidently we are looking quite tanned. When we were told this we carefully adjusted our clothes to ensure that the lilywhite beyond the tan line just above the elbows and just above the knees was well concealed. Our secret was soon revealed however over the course of many dips in waterholes during their stay. After a very pleasant catch up over coffee (or in Robyn's case some peculiar concoction squeezed out of vegetables) at the Wild Mango Cafe in Kununurra we headed back to the resort.

Surprisingly, our friends decided to not take up the offer to share our digs and chose instead the far more salubrious air conditioned cabin accommodation beside the pool and overlooking the lake. Needless to say we spent more time at their place than they did at ours. Lake Aryle Resort was all about relaxing, and I think that we did a splendid job of that. Lake Argyle is a very interesting place. The lake was created by building a dam wall (completed 1972) in the Carr-Boyd ranges which held back the waters of the mighty Ord River to feed an irrigation scheme aimed at converting vast amounts of land downstream in the Ord basin to agriculture. The results appear to have been mixed over the years, but plans to open up more land seem to indicate that the crops settled upon (sandlewood and chia seem to be the mainstays) are viable and can be extended. The Lake itself is a very beautiful thing. Although it is man made and therefore a horror for naturalists, the mixture of craggy red outcrops and sparkling blue water are delightful. Interestingly the lake (which is so large that it is classified as an inland sea) has developed its own little ecosystem with a large variety of bird and marine life. Unfortunately a recent addition to (and plague upon) this ecosystem is the nasty old cane toad. Snake, dingoe and crocodile populations have evidently been significantly affected. I would take the primal fear associated with an encounter with a king brown or a crocodile any day in preference to an encounter with these odious creatures.

From Lake Argyle we travel to El Questro station and a similar story regarding accommodation. Caravan park for us, luxurious cabin overlooking the Pentecost River as it splashes it's way downstream over rocks for our friends. Again we shamelessly took full advantage of their privileges.

El Questro was a fantastic place and it was wonderful to share it with friends. We swam in the pools of Zebedee Springs and El Questro Gorge, took a cruise down Chamberlain Gorge, we walked, we talked, we drank coffee and we ate cake. All of this I think was mutually enjoyable. The other thing that we did was to explore some of the four wheel drive tracks throughout the station. Rivers were forded, ranges were traversed and rocks were bounced over. I finally figured out how to engage low range 4wd on the Jeep and it has opened up a whole new world to me. Oh what joy, unfortunately not universally shared. One of our first ventures into the 4wd territory was a seemingly innocuous trip to a sunset lookout after our Chamberlain Gorge cruise. We were later to find brochures describing this as treacherous, rough and only for experienced 4wd'ers. Mark clearly loved the experience (it was fun, the sunset was to die for and we were also able to watch a fire front from a controlled burn work it's way up the valley), but Robyn was less enthused as was evidenced by her white knuckled grip on the seat in front of her and her eyelids being clenched firmly shut for most of the journey. My comment at one point that I had lost sight of the track beyond the crest possibly did not help this situation. Robyn did not join us on another 4wd adventure, even though none were quite as invigorating as that first one. Unwittingly (as with many things I do), I think that I may have graduated from Novice to Competent as a 4wd'er. Beth of course did this weeks ago at Palm Valley.

After three wonderful days at El Questro we headed back to Kununurra via Emma Gorge where we took a lovely walk to a gorgeous plunge pool and again enjoyed a swim and massage courtesy of the waterfall. After Emma Gorge another detour to Parry's Lagoon which presented an incredible display of water lilies and bird life. The accommodation theme of course continued at Kununurra, our friends in the box seats and us in the bleachers. The next day we farewell our friends, but not before a drive out to some waterfalls (which sadly had only recently stopped running) and to the Ivanhoe crossing (which thankfully had recently been closed - my 4wd competency certificate does not qualify me for that one), and a final visit to our new favourite coffee shop, the Wild Mango. Our farewell was extended courtesy of flight delays, which was pleasant for us but probably frustrating for our friends. We had a very enjoyable week. It is really good to catch up with friends.

After a week of light exercise, we return to Kununurra to put our vehicles in storage for 3 days whilst we take on the challenge of a canoe trip 55 Km down the Ord River from Lake Argyle to Kununurra. Beth seems convinced that as we are paddling downstream we should be able to put our feet up and let the river do the work. I am not so sure.

The trip involves three legs, the first and the third being 23 Km each and the middle being 9 Km, but with the opportunity to make that around 20 by exploring some of the tributaries along the way. Between each leg there are designated camping spots which are described in the brochure as 5 star. I think that someone had their tongue lodged firmly in their cheek when they put this brochure together.

The adventure got off to a good start as we were collected by our man Scotty, who regaled us with all manner of tales of his adventures up north as he ferried us and our canoe (in a very suspect Mitsubishi van) to our starting point. He explained the finer points of paddling and the dangers that we could expect along the river, then he strapped on our provisions (sleeping bags, mattresses, mosquitoes dome and an esky full of food), helped us into our seats and set us on our way.

Everything was going swimmingly for the first hour of our paddle and we were beginning to think that we were pretty good at this. That damnable smug bug gets us every time. The first of the dangers which Scotty had cautioned us about was our undoing. A clump of paperbarks on the side of the river seemed to attract our vessel and I think that each of us took evasive action, but it was not what you would call co-ordinated, in fact it was quite miserable and the end result was a collision between canoe and trees, which flung Beth into the river and filled the canoe with water. I remained steadfastly in my seat, but the water was up to my armpits. Luckily the canoe has buoyancy at each end, so it did not sink to the bottom, it just pretended to be a submarine with periscopes at each end. I convinced Beth (Beth actually insists I ordered her - but surely that would be mutiny?) to climb back into our submarine and to continue along the river until we found somewhere to land and bail out the water. Beth lost her hat in the collision and I lost one of my newly purchased thongs, but that was the least of our worries. We thought that a landing point would be close by, but no, I think that we paddled a submerged canoe about 3 Km up the river until we found a rock we could land against, scramble up and raise the canoe enough to bail out the water. Although I wasn't laughing, we must have been an comical sight, fortunately no-one saw us, otherwise we may have been rescued and our journey may have ended there. Casualties of this little mishap were 1 Hat and 1 thong - Missing in action, 1 camera - drowned, 1 iPhone - drowned, 2 egos - destroyed, 1 loaf of bread and 2 hot-cross buns - disintegrated.

Once back in the boat things improved, we were less inclined to stray too close to trees and we grew more adept at handling the craft. Despite the beautiful scenery and abundant bird life a grey cloud continued to hover over my head as I mourned the loss of my electronic gadgets. Each comment from Beth about beautiful this and wonderful that pierced my heart as I knew I could not capture them. As the day progressed though I became a little more accepting of my loss and my spirits improved. Despite our mishap we paddled into our first camp at 2:00pm, which was pretty good going. The camp was rustic (the ECO-Camping label attached is code I think for rudimentary facilities which were in the process of being reclaimed by nature), but did provide all that we needed. Because the sun sets around 5:00pm here and we had only torches for light we made haste setting up camp and preparing dinner, which in the circumstances was quite a feast. With our bodies exhausted and our bellies full we fell into bed and slept for 12 hours.

After packing up camp, breakfasting on muesli bars and reloading the canoe, we resumed our voyage at 8:00am the next day. The paddle was less eventful and much more enjoyable, so much so that we took most of the optional excursions up the various creeks feeding into the river and arrived at our next camp at about midday. This camp was slightly less rustic than the previous nights, but still followed a similar back-to-nature theme. After a hearty lunch (cold sausage, bread, nuts and dried fruit) we decided to take our unladen craft for a spin up a nearby creek. It's handling characteristics were markedly improved and I was much more comfortable with less water being drawn. We are estimating that all up we did another 23 Km on day 2. We returned to camp at about 4:00pm and again we were knocking out zzzz's by about 5:30. Beth woke at about 8:00 pm convinced that it was almost dawn. Luckily she believed my watch and didn't start packing up camp, but went back to sleep and didn't wake until 5:00am.

We were warned that day 3 was more strenuous than the other days because the river widened out considerably making paddling a little tougher (Beth's view that the river would do the work was not well founded), so we made sure that we got an early start and were on the water by 7:00am. Again it was very enjoyable as we moved from virtual wilderness into the irrigation zone and finally into civilisation. We stopped off at a gallery along the river which we were told had pretty good coffee. Luckily we had a little money with us and we treated ourselves to a cappuccino (sadly our funds were insufficient for the very nice looking scones on display). As we left we apologised to the proprietress for our appearance and explained that we had paddled from lake Argyle, whereupon she smiled and said it was OK, she was used to things crawling in from the river. After finally reaching our destination we checked in again at the caravan park, where again we received jovial, but uncomplimentary comments regarding our appearance. Perhaps a shower and change of clothes was in order.

After reinstating our trailer and attending to our appearance we treated ourselves to lunch at the now famous Wild Mango and starting final research for the next stage of our trip which takes us to Purnululu NP and along the famous Gibb River Road to Broome.

You have probably heard enough about our canoe trip, but....

During our 70 odd kilometres of paddling we saw only one crocodile. As Beth was returning to our trailer this afternoon she looked towards the river and guess what she saw on the bank, yes, quite a large freshwater crocodile, not 100 metres from our trailer!! It's lack of movement convinced me that it was a prop placed there by the caravan park proprietor, but no, it was the genuine article, and I understand he is a bit of a regular visitor whose name is George. It makes you wonder how many crocodiles we didn't see whilst we were drifting down (and occasionally in) the water.

We are probably going to be out of communication now for about 3 weeks, so please don't be distressed if you don't see a blog update for some time. Also I apologise in advance for the lack of photos. Although Beth is hopeful that the camera will magically come back to life when properly dry, I do not share her optimism.