Another big day ahead , we were ready to go at 7:45am , the walk started with a swim ? yes a swim . In the photo you can see the pool we had to cross - this is looking back to the camping ground , and the 2 half drums are used by everyone to transport their gear across without getting it wet . I had to swim across to get the drums , take them back across , load up and come back across again - luckily the water wasn't too cold .
This is another view of the pool .
The walk starts out easily enough , the 1st 1.5klms were easy enough and reasonably flat . The last kilometre however , was the interesting part - down into a gully , then up the other side , a flat section then down and up another deeper gully , along a short flat section to a steep rocky downhill to the gorge . There was a lot of walking over sandstone rock shelves like these .
There were many of these variety of Mulla Mulla , which would have been very pretty a couple of weeks ago , we were seeing the end of them .
No shortage of Boabs as well .
This was our first views of the gorge , still had to get down there !
Getting down to the floor of the gorge , this was looking back toward the campground - the water flows from here back to the campground .
Here's a scary one of me at the main pool below the falls - a bit of water coming down - more like a shower than a flow .
Here's an uninterrupted view of it haha .
I climbed up and had a look around on top of the falls , while Lyn cooled off in the lower pool . We swam and chatted to Helen , someone we met and chatted to along all of our trip so far . We then had some lunch , swam again and headed back the 2.5klms to the campsite .
Getting back to the pool we had crossed early this morning was a pleasure , some children brought the drums over to us , and I took the gear across while Lyn cooled down in the middle - I then joined her and we sat and chatted to another 4 people travelling in our little bubble . Tea , showers & bed was the order for the rest of the evening , and we did sleep well !!
Our original plan was to go further to Mount Elizabeth Station and see what was there before turning around and heading back to Derby , this morning we decided we'd stay here a 3rd night and head back tomorrow . And with that decision we jumped into the ute and drove down to Barnett Gorge . The track in was interesting , not difficult but a little rough , there were no signs , so we took a couple of side tracks to an old camp ground , beside the river and some Boabs .
This is the river beside the old campsite .
We came around and found a parking area , and got ready for the walk . Helen & Pam arrived and we chatted briefly before we headed off . There was a kilometre walk then some more , not long after we'd arrived at the main sign , Helen came down telling us we'd left our lights on , so away I went to turn them off ! I drove the ute back to the sign at the START of the walk and parked under a Boab . Walk directions weren't really clear , so while Helen & Pam went one way , the drone went up for a look to find the track which was in the other direction . We all headed off the right way then , finding this great spot by the river. We took a photo for Helen & Pam and they took this for us .
Such a beautiful spot , this is looking toward the gorge .
We wandered around the river banks & rocks and I got the drone out for some photos .
Take note of the cliffs on the bottom of the photo , the drone decided to perch itself in between some rocks after clipping a tree branch about 8m above the river - fortunately it didn't decide to go for a swim - I just had to find it .
Climbing up & over the rocks wasn't too bad and it was only 400m away from me - how hard could it be ? As it turns out , it was hot & sweaty , finding a way to climb up , across , down , then back up again - oh and also finding the drone . I took the remote and after checking the map on it showing where the drone was I managed to reconnect with the drone and determined it was below me - just had to get down that 10-15m cliff . I made it down & walked to the edge , checking to see if I could see it - I walked to the edge of another huge rock and looked down in-between 2 rocks to see the drone 3m below me . I climbed down and recovered it , then the fun began again , getting back up to the top of the cliffs again and back to the river . It didn't take too long to find my way back to Lyn - I was hot sweaty and had a few scratches that were leaking a bit . Getting back to the river was great , boots & socks came off and I just walked into the river , not caring that my swimmers were still in the backpack , I needed to cool off quickly !! which I did then we dried off and headed back to the ute drying off as we walked . We jumped in the ute and drove back around to where there was a campground sign and had some late lunch . I changed a couple of propellers and test flew the drone - it flew just fine and did everything it needed to do - happy about that !! This is looking back toward the gorge .
Just to remind us how deadly the Spiral Pandanus are , here's a close up of it's thorns .
This is a ridge that ran all the way back toward Barnett Roadhouse .
Another view looking back to the roadhouse .
And that's another day done - a little more excitement involved today than we necessarily wanted , but all part of the fun ???
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