I am sitting on the balcony of a ’safari tent’ listening to the babble of the creek not twenty metres away. The sun is setting, a cool breeze is blowing through our tent (a structure the size of a small apartment with a hard elevated floor, canvas and flyscreen walls, with en-suite, bar fridge and queen size bed) and the finches dart to and fro amongst the riparian foliage. It is very relaxing (at least until the credit card bill comes in as I had to leave a testicle as a deposit).
The day began with a sleep in, followed by the 7km drive back to the roadhouse. A quick check of vehicular fluids showed that the batteries really did need to be topped up every two days, but the oil being at half full could las a few days more (at least in a hire car). No sooner had our journey commenced, when we stopped at Galvin Gorge, “the most accessible gorge in the Kimberley”. Clearly it was. An adventure bus tour group had arrived before us but were leaving by the time we reached the pool under the waterfall, (standard fair for Kimberly gorges). With the duties clearly divided between Sue swimming and me taking photos, the time flew and soon almost everyone from the previous nights campsite was also in the pool.

We returned to recommence our journey, crossing the Adcock River (the Adwater River would have been a more appropriate name),which flowed into Adcock Gorge. The gorge was a 5km detour off the main road and not sufficiently different to any other gorge to really make it worth the effort. We next passed the road to Charney River Station (formerly Beverley Springs) and although we weren’t staying there, saw something called the “Frank Hann Boab Tree” marked on the map. We figured if a single boab tree was marked on the map it must be a very special tree, so we detoured 7km to see it. The reason it is called the “Frank Hann Boab Tree” is the prick who carved his 1.5 metre high initials into the trunk of this beautiful specimen. Maybe in 100 years tourists will flock to see the “AJ” carved into the back of the dunny door in Katherine, who knows.

From here it was not far to the turn off to Mornington Sanctuary. The Sanctuary itself is an 88km drive off the Gibb River Road and about 200m along the track is a small shelter where you radio through to see if they have vacancies. They did and we decided to stay two nights in the luxury tent and slum one more night in the car. About 55km along the track is the remains of the Glenroy Meatworks. Back in the 1950s, the cattle were slaughtered here and the beef flown out in refrigerated planes to market. The venture is long gone and only a shed, windmill and some cattle yards remain.

From here the track got rougher. We had been told the 88km would take two hours and including the time taken to change a flat tyre, that is exactly how long it took. We were worried now since we travelling without a spare, but the parks handyman has taken it away to fix it and hopefully all should be well.

There are two gorges on this property, both on the Fitzroy River and we will probably tackle one each day. We have a day up our sleeve in the schedule and will use it here (unless plans change).