The next dawned with the promise of yet another gorge excursion. We climbed into our 4WD bus at Fitzroy Crossing not knowing what to expect and imagining another walk. It didn't take us long to alight on the banks of the Fitzroy River with waters still high after the end of the monsoon season. We were told about the Aboriginal tribes on whose traditional lands we were standing before we found, to my surprise at least, that we didn't confront a walk, but rather a trip in a flat bottomed boat.
We soon departed on the broad, but placid, river. At this point the banks were low and thickly wooded, but soon the banks heightened and became much steeper on both sides. We also began to see some unusual rock formations - but on an even grander scale than I reported in a previous post.
And we drifted closer to shore to get better images of the rock formations and even view some Aboriginal art.
The banks even began to overhang, as shown above and the colouration of the rocks reveals how massively high the water rises in the wet season. I enjoyed the fancy patterning shown here on the left. But on the other side of the river, the forest lingered.
The were even some interesting rock formations in the middle of the river at a spot where the rover banks lowered dramatically close to where a tributary entered.
On looking closer at the sandy beach we spotted something that shouldn't have surprised us - a crocodile, but I'm pretty sure that this specimen is the fresh-water variety and not a saltie. This was nice to know, but I'm pretty sure that not even a saltie would attack a metal flat-bottomed boat however attractive the potential meal! More interesting cliffs are shown below.
Again, the sizeable overhangs suggest massive erosion at work in the swirling monsoon waters. I'm glad we were viewing the gorge at the start of the dry season!
How's the above right picture for a massive wall of rock?
Well! That's some gorge and it was lovely viewing it from the boat. Its name? It's the Geikie Gorge on the massive Fitzroy River which flows into the massive King Sound near Derby (pr. Durby). That sound is about 100 km (c. 60 miles) long and up to 50 km wide! It's well worth a visit.
AS
We soon departed on the broad, but placid, river. At this point the banks were low and thickly wooded, but soon the banks heightened and became much steeper on both sides. We also began to see some unusual rock formations - but on an even grander scale than I reported in a previous post.
And we drifted closer to shore to get better images of the rock formations and even view some Aboriginal art.
The banks even began to overhang, as shown above and the colouration of the rocks reveals how massively high the water rises in the wet season. I enjoyed the fancy patterning shown here on the left. But on the other side of the river, the forest lingered.
The were even some interesting rock formations in the middle of the river at a spot where the rover banks lowered dramatically close to where a tributary entered.
On looking closer at the sandy beach we spotted something that shouldn't have surprised us - a crocodile, but I'm pretty sure that this specimen is the fresh-water variety and not a saltie. This was nice to know, but I'm pretty sure that not even a saltie would attack a metal flat-bottomed boat however attractive the potential meal! More interesting cliffs are shown below.
Again, the sizeable overhangs suggest massive erosion at work in the swirling monsoon waters. I'm glad we were viewing the gorge at the start of the dry season!
How's the above right picture for a massive wall of rock?
Well! That's some gorge and it was lovely viewing it from the boat. Its name? It's the Geikie Gorge on the massive Fitzroy River which flows into the massive King Sound near Derby (pr. Durby). That sound is about 100 km (c. 60 miles) long and up to 50 km wide! It's well worth a visit.
AS
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