SATURDAY 24 JUNE     KEEP RIVER NATIONAL PARK

We were up about 7.30am. The tour group left soon after. It didn’t seem like they had seen much of the park!

It was a lovely morning, with lots of birds about – much bird noise.

After breakfast, I packed lunch, and we drove back to the main park track, then further north for about 16kms, to the other camp ground, Jarnem. That was larger than the one we were in, with more specifically marked out caravan and trailer bays. But it is not quite as impressive in its immediately obvious surrounding scenery, as ours. The track there was fine, but we could see a number of places where the track had flooded.

Our goal was to walk to Policemans Waterhole. On the information  boards in the National Parks office in Timber Creek, I’d noted that the western track was closed, due to water, so we took the northern route.

There was a large area of water over the track in one stretch, so we did get wet feet. We passed through high grass, in places. It did not seem that this track had been much used, recently.

Policemans Waterhole was on the Keep River, but when we reached there, most of it was obscured by vines, pandanus and high grass, so it was a bit of an anti-climax. However, the sandstone outcrops on the way had been scenic, so the walk itself was worth doing. We had travelled about 2kms from the Truck.

It was getting hot by the time we left the water hole. We retraced our route for some of the way, then branched off to the west to do the Nigli Gap walk. According to the information at Timber Creek, this track was closed, due to water, but it appeared to us that they had it the wrong way round, because this track was fine.

The Nigli Gap track went round some excellent sandstone formations – rather like those of the Bungles – most spectacular and very photogenic.

It was a hot walk back to the Truck. We had lunch in the camp ground there and watched birds.

Then drove back to our camp. The round trip today was 41kms.

We  lazed about for the rest of the afternoon. I marinated chicken drumsticks for tea. I tried to treat a heap of sandfly bites I must have collected yesterday, on my right elbow area – it is very hot and swollen today. We could see little sandfly/midge things around, so I put on repellent.

It was pleasant, later in the afternoon, as the day cooled down. The camp area became quite crowded by evening.

John had another go at fixing the kero lamp.

Tea was carrot soup, drumsticks, coleslaw.

There was one group of campers running a generator, which was quite noisy. They didn’t turn it off until after 10pm, by which time most other campers were trying to get to sleep. Inconsiderate pigs.

Our lamp gave up totally and wouldn’t go at all. We lit a small fire in the nearby fireplace and sat round that for a while, before turning in, and trying to sleep against the background noise of that infernal genset. Karma would get them, somewhere, sometime, I found myself thinking!