Gibb River Road / Mornington Wildlife Camp 10/9/2013

We woke up to another flat tyre, the same one as the first puncture. Somehow we had managed to pick up a screw somewhere on the road, we strongly suspect the Mount Barnett Roadhouse. It was a slow puncture so Iain pumped up the tyre and put a plug in the hole. That done we set off for Mornington Wilderness camp.

It was a fantastic road – better than the Gibb, the last part was a little rough, but nothing too bad. We arrived just after 9, and as we had heard that they had really nice safari tents for hire we asked to have a look at them. They were expensive, but absolutely fantastic, so we decided to give ourselves a treat and splash out. 

We had also found out that there was a very special gorge on the property that only had one canoe for hire on it – only 2 people a day allowed onto the water. Now  and paid for the day. We had a coffee and a piece of the most delicious almond cake I have ever had, and drove down to the gorge to spend the day.

Wow what a treat, there was something absolutely magical about the place, hard to describe but we both felt very humbled and grateful to have the opportunity to experience this. There was a series of 3 pools with a canoe in each, a climb over rocks was necessary to get to each subsequent canoe. We spent the day, rowing, just sitting still in silence taking it all in, taking photos and exploring.

 The staff had said it was worth waiting for the sunset, so at around 3 we started to paddle back to the beginning. As we got closer to the beginning we saw a few people sitting on the rocks drinking wine.

We hauled the canoe back up and climbed to the top of a large flat rock overlooking the gorge, and watched the sun slowly sinking until the sky was ablaze, so special, one of those I can’t believe it’s real moments. 

No-one else had thought to bring a torch, so they left before it got dark, once again we were left to savour the magnificence of the place. When the sun was well and truly down, we went back to camp, had a shower and then went to a talk they were having about Mornington and the work the Society is doing. I must say I was very impressed, for a non-profit organisation they are having a massive impact on saving and preserving native animals all throughout Australia.