I’m starting to see a pattern here with the names, at ELLEN brae we played with their dog EVIE and chatted with CLYDE at the Gibb river store and now at March Fly GLEN!!! Ellen Weeding and her daughter Evie, Noela and Ian Clyde and now Glen Sherritt(sorry Glen no beer here) all friends.
We all dragged our heels this morning, I reckon it was a good 10.30 before we broke camp. Our first stop would be Imintji, felt really spoilt they had real coffee and fresh bread and milk! We sat out and once again chatted to fellow travellers, one fellah is alone and has been on the road around Australia for 6 years now and still loving it. Oh look, Jocks mate from God TV, you do come across the same people travelling this road, we will leave you with him Jock!!!
After a nice lunch stop we were back on the road, it really is dusty now a horrible blackish grey dust as opposed to the red dust. For some reason this one seems to be getting in to everywhere. We passed the Bell Gorge turn off, this was our next place to visit, but for now we would go and set up camp and take it in turns to go to the Gorge because we cannot take the dogs. March fly Glen, yet another free camp. We set up over the back in an open area right next to a huge termite mound. Another couple pulled up next to us, Chris and Mick from Melbourne, they have been on the road for nearly 12 months and loving every minute. They were very friendly and joined us at the fire in the evening.
Chris is big into bird watching and told us the yellow breasted bird we had seen was a rainbow bee eater. She also showed us a brilliant app she had for identifying birds, it costs $80 but well worth it. I will get it one day in the meantime Michelle has a free app that has helped us out now and then. Chris and Mick have also been on the Cape York road and have told us it is definitely not worse that the Gibb. Great news as we are already planning our next big road trip in 2021 to Cape York. They had also come the opposite way to us along the Gibb so assured us the road gets much better and soon.
Bell Gorge.
This morning Michelle and Trevor headed off to Bell Gorge. Jock and I stayed to watch Ruby their dog and the caravan. Mick and Chris took advantage of Jock and I being at camp all day and left their van with us so they could go off and explore. Jock played about with his leather and started to practice plaiting leather for a belt. I wrote post cards and got up to date with my diary. Michelle and Trevor were back by mid day and had loved the Gorge, Michelle reassured me that I would manage the walk in to Bell Gorge. So Jock and I will go tomorrow, it is too hot in the afternoon to be starting out on a trek of any kind. Trevor was having trouble with his batteries in the van so Jock helped him change them.
The next day Jock and I got up early and headed for Bell Gorge, it wasn’t terribly hard to walk out there but difficult all the same. We had Michelle’s little esky stool with us so I was able to sit when I needed to. Bell Gorge was just lovely I could have sat there all day just soaking it all up, listening to the small amount of water coming over the falls and heaps of parrots, Jock and I were the only ones there for about 30 minutes.
I left there with great photos, great memories and a broken finger!! Jock wanted to cross some rocks for better photos and suggested I stayed where I was. Well those who know me will realise I do not want to miss anything so I insisted I came too. OOpps!! The rocks were slippy and I was soon sat fully clothed in a pool of water. At first pain and fright were present, then I was laughing, I could not get out, feet and shoulders out but bum stuck in the small pool of water. Jock was just angry, well not really it was pure frustration and concern, frustrated cause he told me not to attempt it and concern as to me hurting myself. I shimmied along and sat up on rocks then Jock helped me up, my finger was sore and I looked down at it!!!! @$#@!!! I had my hand out in front of me but my little left finger was pointing west?? I felt a bit queasy and announced to Jock I had broken my finger. He looked at it and told me it was just dislocated. I put my hand behind my back and he pulled it back into place. Once back at the car the first aid kit came out and he strapped the little finger to the next finger, by now it was throbbing. I reckoned I needed a coffee, so we drove back a couple of K’s to Imintji and got a lovely coffee then headed back to camp passing Mick and Chris coming the other way, they were heading off. That night with my black finger and an endone for the pain I told Jock I reckoned I had broken my finger. Not that there was much we could do until we reach Derby, no docs around here.
Douglas's Downunder 