Sir John Gorge to Imintji Campground

For this morning’s activity, there are two wildlife tracks that can be walked from camp. We first follow Annie Creek, a tributary of the Adcock River, which forms part of the catchment of the mighty Fitzroy River. It’s classed as a Riparian Habitat which means a vegetation community that occurs along a water course that provides habitat for many species that could not survive in the dry, open savannas. Annie Creek is defined by lush palms along its banks as well as a canopy of thriving trees and bushes. Its a bird watcher’s paradise.

To be honest, there’s not much wildlife to see other than a red necked finch and a flock of cockatoos overhead. Fresh Water Crocodiles lurk in the dark water of the creek seeking refuge but we don’t spot any beady eyes.

The savannah woodland habitat trail is literally across the dirt road from Annie creek and is a complete contrast. There are spinifex and other tall native grasses surrounded by snow gums and Boab trees plus many other hardy species. The rocky escarpment above is King Leopold limestone formed 1.8 billion years ago when the land was an ancient sea floor.

Here we can expect to find snakes in the grasses but again, to our relief, non cross our path and we spend most of our time walking looking down at our feet rather than the scenery just in case.

Our next activity is a 14km drive out to Sir John Gorge. The road is trickier than yesterday’s drive out to Diamond Gorge passing through sections of wilderness that have been burnt off creating fire scars on the open landscape. It’s a perfect example of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s fire management strategy as pockets of wilderness remain amongst the blackened land and we can even see young green sprouts shooting up as new life.

On return to camp, it’s just in midday so we decode to move on to Imintji on the way to Bell Gorge as we are already packed up.

With 10km to go of the 80km dirt road leading to the Gibb, we cross a grate and get a tyre puncture on the right rear. Not again, this one is a flat tyre and not shredded like the last one. Even so, out comes the jack and the tools and I put the old spare tyre back on the right rear in quick time as I am used to the process by now.

With no spare tyre, we turn left at the Gibb River Road and slowly make our way, fingers crossed, to Imintji Roadhouse 30km down the road.

Alas, they don’t do tyre repairs anymore as Neville, the tyre repair man set up shop a few years ago 50k back up the road at Over The Range. So if we would have only turned right instead of left... doh!

Well we are here now and silver lining, the Imintji Roadhouse has a small range of fresh vegetables and we haven’t seen a veggie for a whole week. The little things count... vegetables, yum, even tomatoes and a fresh cucumber and bananas too, heaven. We treat ourselves to Maxi Bon Ice Creams to soothe the nerves from another frustrating day driving the dirt.

The Imintji Campground is 400m away and we have heard good stories about how nice it is and it even has some green grass. So we bed there for the night and worry about a spare tyre tomorrow.

Those veggies we bought, well I have some rump steak in the fridge and cook it medium rare with a touch of balsamic to finish. We cube some potatoes, dice some onion, chop red pepper and tomatoe, forget to add the carrots, throw in some spices to fry in the pan and we have a sumptuous meal to finish off an eventful day.

A crescent moon is high in the sky, a million stars shine above and the southern cross stands proudly centre stage. A bat passes me by as twilight becomes darkness and soon everything and everywhere is well... quiet!Leer más