SATURDAY 15 JULY     JACKS WATERHOLE

We woke up early – it gets very light inside the tent!

I washed out a few items of clothing that I’d soaked in our wash dish, overnight – it makes washing by hand so much easier.

We ate breakfast looking out over the waterhole, admiring “our” superb view. We really were lucky to get this spot.

The family that came in at 9pm yesterday had a very mangled tyre on the back of their Jayco Hawk – and the camper looked very much the worse for wear, overall. They did not appear to have any extra spare tyres, either. We thought they were really not well set up for these roads.

We went walking, downstream. Followed cairns that guided us to an area of aboriginal art, up in the cliff wall. It did not seem of much note.

The way was over blocks of sandstone and big rock shelf areas, so it was quite interesting. We saw a rock wallaby and a white quilled rock pigeon – finally – I have been trying to spot one of these for ages! There was a large water monitor on a rock ledge, and we saw a freshie croc in the river.

We eventually reached a place where, on the other side of the waterhole, a tributary stream came in over a set of rapids – really pretty. There was quite a flow of water coming in. We thought this was where some people had been catching barra.

We continued on to where Jacks Waterhole ended in its own set of rapids, after which the river became quite wide and flowed on. There was too much water flow for us to be able to cross to the other side.

We talked for a while with a young couple, with kids, who’d walked that far. He’d tried fishing, with no luck. We walked back towards camp with them.

The sandstone cliff walls were varied colours and interesting to look at, as we walked.

After lunch, we had a lazy afternoon at camp, in the heat. It was beautiful to just sit and gaze over the waterhole.

John listened on the radio to the football.

The chops that I had planned to cook for dinner had gone decidedly “off”. A bone must have put a minute hole in the cryovac bag. They were very green and slimy and smelled ghastly. I resolved not to ever again get things with bones cryovacced!

We had steak instead. It took ages to cook on the wire BBQ frame, over the fire. John had his quite rare. I left mine cook longer and ate my potato and salad first. The steak tasted of strange smoke and I didn’t eat it. The wire frame sits a bit high up for some cooking, and the fire wasn’t the greatest, either. After we’d finished cooking dinner, the green chops were thoroughly incinerated!

We were tired from the walk and went to bed before 10pm.

The night was cool enough for the doona again, despite how hot the day had been.

The curlews were calling again.