Manning Gorge

A bit shaky this morning.....stayed up until all hours with old mate (Peter) from Darwin who is in the ADF. He likes a chat, a bourbon and a healthy fire so we had nothing in common. We must have been going OK because Nat never comes and asks me to stop or be quiet, but she did last night because its a small world on a quiet cattle station in the outback......"one more can of coke to finish the bourbon" I said, apparently there were a few more opened after that I am told, and a huge dint in the bottle this morning...

We Packed up and took off to Manning Gorge which was highly recommended, again with the Darwin guys. Along the way we did a re-fuel and basic food stock up at Mt Barnett Roadhouse, diesel $2.10 p/l, & 10 or so items from the shop @ $79, so they didn't miss us.

Fuel has been consistent at that price right up the Gibb, Kununurra was $1.86 and before that mid $1.50's.

The pizza shapes we got the boys from there had a use by date of Sep 11 which we found out after they started munching into them, they are still breathing so all good. The eggs go bad in a couple of days and I refuse to check how old the bread is, albeit frozen.

To get into the gorge (after we set up) we found that you have to walk across a river at chest height with all your valuables in a floating box which you push across to keep dry. Good fun and different which is cool.

The walk in is challenging and takes about an hour to do, but definitely a good idea and no reason to not go.  Nat stayed with the boys and Lisa with the kids, and the two dads went alone.

To best describe it - a huge crystal clear waterhole at the base of a massive waterfall which you can swim over and into, under, and stand up to see through the water falling.......simply brilliant.

To give Nat and the boys an idea I recorded my swim over there and under, this was quite hard - deep water, powerful waterfall pushing you away from the falls, a camera in one hand swimming one handed and trying to keep it level and narrate the process at all once. Tricky work but I got there, and bloody funny to watch. I might be understating a couple of extra kegs on the old frame at the moment and a little unfit as to what I sometimes might be, but the heart rate was getting up there.

Just an overnight stop today, off to Mornington Wilderness Camp tomorrow for a couple of days. No beers tonight, early one for all of us.

Jase....