To Silent Grove

(View from our door - not bad, eh?)

Saturday 31^st May 2008

Leaving the Stanleys behind we set off for Silent Grove – the road still seemed pretty good – definitely not as bad as some of the, admittedly older, guide books had suggested. We drove past Lenard’s Gorge because we still have plenty of them to visit and we don’t want the girls getting too jaded just yet. Apparently, it also has a steep and rocky path in which wouldn’t have suited Paul’s dodgy ankle (forgot to mention that he rolled it a couple of days ago so now it’s swollen and sore).

We stopped at a lookout over the King Leopold ranges and chatted with a couple from Derby who had camped there overnight (right beside the road on a steep hill!). They’d cooked up their breakfast and were washing it down with a few beers – true Aussie style.

We had been considering camping at Bell Gorge but apparently there was fire damage to the toilets so only Silent Grove was available. We parked on the edge of the generator area because it gave us an excellent shady spot with picnic table and was ten metres from a huge, spectacular rocky outcrop. Naturally, the girls were up it within minutes of disembarking (with Katie actually leading the way!) and found plenty of things to interest them up there.

We then had a go at some school work and both girls were surprisingly compliant, in fact, they were happier to do that than to go anywhere. When we suggested going to check out Bell Gorge today they were adamant that we stay ‘home’ for the afternoon. Since it was a very pleasant spot and the weather was perfect – warm, but not too warm – Paul and I were happy to comply.

So it was a quiet and peaceful afternoon and evening until some younger, more rowdy, folk worked themselves up into a singing session. It would have been ok because a couple of them had excellent voices and they had a guitar but they kept starting a song then breaking off when someone had something more important to say.