Chasing the Sun

 

Thursday 3 June 2021 – Chasing the sun

We had a good sleep although both of us at some point woke with a bit of indigestion from our large dinner.  The sun rose, but not quite where we were expecting and we noted with dismay that the arc of the sun would mean we would be predominantly in the shade all day and our batteries would slowly die.  After breakfast we noted a couple who had been camping relatively nearby were packing up so once they had left we checked out the access to sunlight at their sight and made the decision to move across.

Nowhere near as long a pack up as usual as we were only moving the van about 50m so we just put away anything that might fall off a table, hitched up without plugging in cables and moved across to our new site.  At least we don’t now have neighbours right outside our window!

Of course, no longer did we move sites and set up again a bank of cloud rolled over and we were once again in the shade but it was fairly high cloud and were still making power off the panels so all good.

So a little later than planned, we donned our swimming attire and packed a lunch of Ryvitas with vegemite and cheese and headed on down the track to Dimond Gorge. We hadn’t bothered to go there last time we were at Mornington as it had been a bad wet season two years in a row and the camp hosts suggested it wasn’t worth the effort of the one hour drive to get there.  This year, water isn’t an issue and we, once again, had a number of creek crossings to traverse to get there.  A very spectacular drive as you make your away along the edge of high red cliffs where you could still dark patches where waterfalls would have been flowing three or four months ago.  Apparently it is very pretty out here at sunset and they have even constructed a lookout point to view them from so we may come back here tomorrow afternoon to check it out.

Today’s mission, however, is Dimond Gorge so we continued along the windy road up and down gullies and even through thick sand as we got closer to the Fitzroy River.  We managed to knock off another chapter of our talking book, Artemis, as we drove as we are both quite enjoying the story.  Artemis is the first “city” on the Moon and the story follows Jazz a smart, sassy, gorgeous (of course) twenty something who is a petty smuggler and gets entangled in a plot to overtake the city which she and her assortment of friends and relations (a politically correct mix of ethnics and gays – this has potential movie script written all over it) then need to work together to save the city.

We reached Dimond Gorge and walked the 100m or so down to the river’s edge.  There was no one else around even though there had been cars in the parking area so we had a quick swim and then FOMO set in and the wonder of what was around the next corner (from the middle of the river on our swim we could see around the corner had steep cliff edges and was more of a gorge whereas where we were was just a wide river section.  So we followed the signs to ‘’canoes” and once again, using our best rock wallaby skills, clambered up and over and down the rocks to get to a small beach at the bottom of the gorge where four or five canoes were stored.  We hadn’t thought about canoeing as we had our trusty pool noodles and were more than happy to float around on those in the very spectacular gorge.  The current was quite fast flowing through there so we had to do a bit of actual swimming to get back to our towels after floating down the river for a while and checking out little niches and caves in the bottom of the gorge wall.  It was okay when it was just one or two other couples there but when more people arrived and others returned from their canoe trips it got too crowded for our liking so we headed back to our original part of the river where there was shade and convenient rocks to sit on to eat our lunch.

We started the trek back listening to more Artemis and passed a few more cars heading down to Dimond Gorge so we were happy we left when we did.  Not so happy when one car slowed and pointed out one of our headlights wasn’t working properly.  Same headlight we have been having issues with the indicator on so obviously some wiring has come loose on the bumpy roads and now Larry has another job to do!

We stopped off at Cadjedup on our way home which is a nice wide part of the Fitzroy River to swim at.  We had the place to ourselves (so perhaps many of the people heading to Dimond Gorge had come here first) so that was nice.  We had swum here in 2019 and the water level was lower and hence harder to get into.  This time the water was up to the grassy banks and it was easy to walk straight in without having to clamber down steep banks and tree roots.  The water was a similar temperature though (ie freezing) but Jenny was brave and floated out across the river towards the other river bank and sat quietly on her pool noodle to see and hear what birds were around.  The various tweets and squawks as well as the wind in the trees were the only sounds to be heard so a very peaceful experience.

Back on shore Larry had a quick go at fixing the headlight issue but it looked like a job for back at camp so we packed up and headed back there.  By this time it was about 2.30pm so a perfect time for Jenny to go and make use of the solar showers while there was optimum heat and no-one around so it was a decent shower and hair wash although I was still mindful of not wasting hot water and turned the shower off between each shampoo and condition.

Back to the caravan and Larry had half the engine out of the car so we could get to the headlight component and he got that fixed and then put the engine back together.  He was pretty hot and bothered by this point so it was his turn to go off to the showers while Jenny knocked off a Sudoku puzzle or two.

We made katsudon chicken and rice for dinner again as that is relatively quick and simple (and tasty) and Jenny made too much rice and has made the executive decision that tomorrow’s dinner will be fried rice with left over rice and left over sausages and then anything else we have to mix through it (we have soy sauce on this trip – it might actually get used!).  Beef sausages aren’t very fried rice authentic so I will have to think of a better name for our meal creation in time for tomorrow’s blog!

We managed to get dinner done in time to get back up to the main restaurant/bar/office area for a mango beer (the supply truck came in last night!!) and then to grab front row seats for the 7.30pm talk and slide show about the Mornington Wilderness Area and all the good work being done by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy not only here but all over Australia.  Interesting to know that the still lease this land as a cattle station rather than a conservation station as it being classed as a conservation station comes with a whole lot of antiquated rules about how it must be managed and most of which the AWC don’t agree actually work in terms of conserving wildlife.  So they run as a cattle station but a huge proportion of the leasehold is fenced off to cattle (or any other hard footed animals like horses, donkeys etc) and the cows their lease requires them to run are all congregated in one area and looked after by the local indigenous community so it’s a win-win for all concerned.

Back to camp for more reading, blogging and doctoring for Larry’s blister before bed.