I woke up early and moved Sirocco about 2 ½ miles south, close to an area that I wanted to explore in the dinghy.
It was a bloody hot day without and breeze and I first
headed off to take a look at the arches, a couple of very large archways in the
rocks on the beach.
I found this site quite easy and walked around for a while
to check it out. The rock formations are really spectacular here in the
Kimberly.
After this, I headed off in the dinghy to look for some
caves and some aboriginal paintings. I did find some caves, (not the right ones)
but not the paintings. I also found this huge sea cave that has a massive
chamber that floods at high tide.
I climbed down into the sea cave and found this really
strange fossil. Not really sure what it was, but it was in perfect condition.
If anyone knows what it is, please send me a message.
By now I was hoping the tide had come in far enough to
venture up into the shallow bay to visit some of the other sites I wanted to
see.
There is a resident four metre crocodile that lives in this
creek that has attacked several dinghies before, so I was nervous and on my
guard.
It was still too shallow to venture up the creek, so I
decided to leave the dinghy on the outside and walk into these sites as it
didn’t look to be that far. (Very bad decision)
Walking in the Kimberly would have to be by far the hardest
place in the world that I have experienced to try and hike through the bush. It
blows my mind how the aborigines used to do it in bare feet and without water.
The country side is all massive rock boulders and every tenth
boulder moves as you either grab it or stand on it as it is so unstable, and
the bush is sharp sticks and prickles that cut you and catch your clothing.
Then there is the heat that saps all your energy while the
sun is burning your skin. It really is the hardest terrain I have experienced.
What looks like a very short distance can end up taking you literally hours
once you have climbed up very steep rock faces and back down into gullies.
There is very little open flat country for fast walking and there is lots of
old dead wood laying around everywhere and it’s almost impossible to walk in a
straight line due to the terrain.
After considerable time, I managed to find the first site I
was looking for, a cave with a massive seven-metre-long painting of a snake and
a few other things.
Bradshaw paintings
that have been vandalised and covered up
It was good to see and a good achievement to find it, but by
now I was really knackered and my water was back in the dinghy. I decided to
walk overland to the next site and after about an hour and a half of extremely
hard going, I gave it away and headed straight back to the dinghy which
probably took another forty minutes.
I located my dinghy that was by now getting battered against
the oyster covered rocks, and headed around to the creek. My water bottle was at
almost boiling temperature by now, and I gulped nearly a litre of it.
I moored up to some mangrove trees and scooted up the
slippery rocks before the big crock could get me and headed up the steep rock
boulders to look for the “Apartment”, a massive cave system that the local
aborigines used to use.
I found this one quite easy and it really was an impressive
site. It was a massive sea cave high up in the hills a long way from the
water’s edge.
Massive tunnels and cathedrals had been eroded out of the
sandstone and there were tunnels and chambers leading off in all directions and
the odd bat flying here and there.
The tunnels were cool and offered a pleasant refuge from the
heat outside. There were shell middens throughout the cave system where the
aboriginals had been munching clam chowder for thousands of years and up the
back at one end was a large overhang that had quite a lot of paintings.
My back already hurts just thinking about sleeping on a rock
in a dirty dusty cave.
I left the Apartment and walked back to the dinghy. After a
quick look around for that sneaky croc, I jumped in and headed off further down
the muddy mangrove creek. The tide was still too low and I couldn’t get right
to the end, so I would have to more the dinghy as far in as I could and walk
the rest of the way which I was dreading.
What should have been about a five-minute walk took me about
forty minutes to reach the “Bird Cave” with a painting of twenty-four birds or
what looked to me like fish.
From the bird cave I thought I might as well walk up the
creek and hopefully find some water still flowing so I could have a swim to
cool off. I walked right up the back and there were lots of stagnant water pools
and only a trickle still flowing. I was about a month too late.
It was really nice under the pandanus and paperbark trees,
but it would have been a lot nicer sitting under a waterfall. Now totally parched,
I had to walk about fifty minutes back to the dinghy through some very
difficult terrain and by the time I got back, I couldn’t give a shit about Mr
Crocodile, I just wanted a nice long cool drink with ice in it.
I only had a bit of hot water left in the dinghy that gave
me no relief. I did a bit of trolling on the way out of the creek and never got
a touch and as I rounded the corner a fifteen-knot breeze was blowing making
the three-mile ride back to Sirocco very wet, slow and uncomfortable.
Back on Sirocco, I drank about three litres of water, had
some fish for lunch and fell immediately to sleep with blood still oozing from
my cut feet and legs.
After that lovely nanny nap, I woke around 16:30 and took
Sirocco back to Cyclone Bay for the night.
I was very tired tonight and went to bed early, ready to move
on to the next location.
Track Sirocco’s
progress
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