Day Three: Swinging From Trees

Our third day began nice and early, a record for us, getting away from camp at 8:57am!

We stopped in at the Imintji Store, the first real place along the Gibb that sold essentials such as; fresh coffee, Internet and diesel for $2 Ltr. After a small browse, we left without buying anything and continued on towards Adcock Gorge.

We arrived just as a few families were leaving, who said that there was no one else there and we would have the place to ourselves. As we started walking Alex stubbed his big toe, it was not the first time in the last few days but this time he hit it extremely hard and there was blood involved. At the time he was carrying my water bottle, in his stubbed toe anger he threw the bottle at the ground, which unfortunately hit a jagged rock and split the bottle in two.

There are no pictures of the bottle, it was a sad moment, but Alex bled for it’s death so it was a fair compensation. Thankfully Alex is ok, it was not nice to see him in pain, but the bottles life has sadly come to an end. Ales now has some bunged up toes and we have to share a bottle. #alexandalycestruggles.

After the bottle murder, and a small track in, it was confirmed that we had the whole place to ourselves. So we went for a little swim and then enjoyed the sun on the rocks. It was definitely amazing to have such a beautiful spot to ourselves, but with the waterholes and the chance of encountering crocodiles we were also a little uneasy. Our swim was definitely only in the shallow bits, where one can easily get to the shore, not that it would make much of a difference if there was a croc. We stayed around an hour and as we were leaving another group of people arrived, perfect timing for all of us.

Galvans Gorge was the next stop for the day, it was only a short walk and there were many cars and tour buses there, so we assumed it must be a good stop. Adcock was definitely not as popular place to stop, nor was it well signed, as you can see below;

But Galvans was popular for a reason. Once we got to the pool we saw the beautiful cascading waterfall, with a beautiful big boab tree sitting right on top.

Galvans Gorge was a really fun place to swim, with all the tour buses it was of course lovely to chat here and there to people, but the best part about the gorge, external to the waterfall and pool itself, was the rope you could swing from into the water. In the picture above you can just see some people standing next to the tree, you climbed there and off you went.

Alex tested the rope out a few times first and it looked so fun I joined in also, definitely worth the loud screams I made. People swung from the rope the entire time, and there were a few even more courageous people who decided to jump off a rock next to the waterfall, doing flips and all kinds of cool tricks. A little out of our comfort zone but very cool to watch.

We also encountered a very large lizard whilst swimming at this gorge, we were able to get nice and close to snap a picture of him baking in the sun. But of course like all animals I get close to, it ran away.

The next part of our journey that day was driving to Mt Barnett Roadhouse. This was also the halfway point on the Gibb River Road and our home for the night, just behind at the Manning River Gorge campsite. The campsite was massive, we were told we could pick a spot anywhere, so we chose a nice quiet spot at the back and set up camp.

That night we decided to watch a movie. It got a little cold so instead of making it an extremely early night, because what else can you do if you cant sit outside, we watched the only movie I had been able to download from Netflix; 21 and Over.

It sounds strange to say it, but it was so cool to watch a movie in the bush, after a while with no screens it was refreshing to watch, and also not go to sleep at 6:30pm…

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