I spent the morning trying to organise various things (our projector has died, warrant will replace it, but because I bought it from the U.S of A, I have to go through some extra steps to get the warranty transferred to Australia; trying to find a mechanic to fix the knocking in the suspension at the front; contacting company that I bought the inverter from, which also died a few weeks ago; food shopping; refuelling), so we didn’t get to the gorge until near noon. This is fine, I thought we’d be arriving here a little late in the morning. But, the spanner in the works came when we found out that we couldn’t hire canoes today. Or tomorrow. Or the day after! They still have some available for next weekend though! Damn! Lucky we’re going to be in town for the next week (fortunately our travel schedule aligned with work plans and I was able to pick up a weeks work with my old job, which is still technically my job since I’m on unpaid leave for the next twelve months). We’ve noticed recently a large increase in caravans and other travellers. I’m hoping that it’s just this area and that once we leave NT for WA it’ll quiet down a little again…
I was a little deflated/crushed/sad panda/annoyed at not being able to hire a canoe. I’d made mental plans, and they had to be changed. We considered going on one of the walks, but it was way too hot to be walking around.
… so we sat around in the car in the campground at the gorge (which cost us $18/person for an unpowered site! But there is a pool, and hot showers, a kitchen, and power points to charge phones/laptops/cameras etc).
The campground is full of wildlife, from noisy lorikeets, to cockatoos (even the beautiful black ones) and lots and lots of these little kangaroos. They’re cute, but they’re a little too tame. This one was trying her luck with our box of food beside the car.
We waited for the temperatures to drop (which won’t really happen until later tonight) and went for a walk to the first lookout, which I tried and failed to time for sunset. We’d missed it by about 20 minutes. I know that the first gorge isn’t the most spectacular (I’ve been here before, thank you Boeing) but after some of the places that we’ve been recently, the view was a little underwhelming. Yes, I’ve become a gorge/canyon/gap/chasm snob.
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