Dimond Gorge

Tuesday 3rd June 2008

Paul went up to sample some of Richard’s proper coffee and came back armed with the aforementioned itinerary – very impressive.

Our first jaunt was out to Dimond Gorge for a spot of canoeing (uh oh – hope everyone has forgotten the bad bits from our last canoeing expedition!). We went in Thelma the Troopy with a paying guest called Gordon and two of the bar staff who were on a day off – Di and Casey. The Stanleys followed behind.

It was a pretty long drive and we were lucky that Holly had her book and I’d brought Guess Who for Katie (but even she is beginning to lose interest in that game!). But we got there eventually and it was definitely worth it.

After a short scramble over rocks we reached the canoes and all piled in – Katie and I shared a yellow one and we had a lovely time meandering down, floating with the current and the wind, checking out the high rock walls, taking photos of the others. Katie was a little put out that we were behind Paul and Holly and a couple of other canoes but ‘at least we were in front of the Stanleys’.

Richard steered us towards a small steep beach that looked more trouble than it was worth (specially since it was mostly sticky mud we had to climb out onto) but behind it was concealed a great little waterfall with rocky pool below. A welcome refreshing dip was enjoyed by our two families before we devoured our sandwiches.

The paddle home was equally beautiful but considerably harder work – against the current and facing into a stronger wind. Holly had been assigned to my canoe this time (or rather, she’d chosen NOT to accompany Paul who had encouraged her to do more paddling than she’d been comfortable with) and we had to work hard to keep up. My upper body strength is obviously seriously in need of some work because to me it seemed as though I was paddling as fast as everyone else and yet we kept dropping behind. Perhaps we had a dodgy canoe??! It didn’t help having only a one ended paddle when I was doing the majority of the paddling – switching sides all the time is a pain and caused a definite zig-zag in our progress.

Luckily Di and Casey had decided to go for a bit more of a paddle downstream (forgetting about all the advantages nature had afforded them on the way down) and were faced with a strong wind on their return so we had plenty of time to recover while we waited for them. I think Casey might be giving the canoes a bit of a miss from now on!

We stopped off at a lookout on the way back – panoramic views of Fitzroy Bluff and the surrounding country – where Richard led the way in tasting the Kapok flowers – apparently they can taste like pistachios – but he decided it was probably when they were a bit drier later in the season because they tasted of nothing today!

We then had a quick turnaround so that we could get back out to an excellent sunset spot on a little mesa with drinks and nibbles. The girls all made a fairy ring while we swigged our beer and wine and exchanged stories. We spotted a collared dingo on the way – it looked way healthier than the mangy one we saw at Karijini.

Back at camp Paul was asleep before 8pm – please let the history books take note – and he hadn’t had that much to drink, either.