Fortescue Falls, Fern Pool and Moving East

Karijini sunrise

After my physical exertions the previous afternoon, I'd ended up going to bed early instead of being a good little camper and organising my packing in preparation for my flight to Darwin. I knew I'd have to offload quite a bit of stuff (mostly food but also my temporary beach towel - essential for preserving modesty when changing into swimmers, but too bulky for backpacking and unnecessary as a drying device when I already had my micro-fibre travelling towel (a gift from, Chris, my teaching assistant back in Blighty).

I was up early to make breakfast, which was a slow job on the ruddy barbecue since my Himalaya stove had conked out the night before - I suspect a fuel-line blockage and hope to find a camping store that can service it for me before I need it again. Manuela was up with the birds too and we had a good chat while we waited for the painfully weak gas jets to cook our eggs. The beautiful mellifluous call of the Butcher bird had us both smiling, as did the gentle rays of morning sunshine, spreading long, dappled shadows from the spindly trees. I ended up off-loading most of my food-stuffs on to her and Markus, as I knew they'd make use of them and I just liked their genuine warmth and relaxed attitudes.

After breakfast, it seemed to take me forever to squeeze everything back into my rucksacks and my large pack was definitely looking considerably bigger than it had on arrival - some cooking utensils and a few essentials like laundry detergent and salt & pepper were amongst the new acquisitions that I was loathe to dispose of - but I was concerned about excess baggage charges at Port Hedland. Manuela and Markus came to say goodbye before I'd finished (one distinct advantage to sleeping in a car, rather than a tent, meaning they had less packing up to do) and we exchanged contact details so that we could stay in touch.

Dales Gorge from the top

I eventually finished sorting myself out by 10:30 and was desperately in need of a wash after two days of rough camping, al-fresco dining, hiking and perspiring. The site had no facilities so my only option was to go and take a dip in one of the Dales Gorge pools. I had a choice between the Circular Pool and Fern Pool, both at the opposite ends of the gorge but I'd been reliably informed by my campsite neighbours in Coral Bay that the water cascading into Fern Pool was 5 degrees warmer than the pool itself, due to being fed by underground springs. Also, given that Fern pool was at the western end of the gorge, I was pretty sure it would be far more likely to be bathed in the mid-morning sunshine so that's where I set off.

Fortescue Falls

On the way, I was encouraged to see plenty of damp folks in swimmers, carrying towels and, after a 10 minute hike, I came upon the Fortescue Falls, only a short walk downstream from the Fern Pool. The gorgeous red rock was again illuminated by the sun and the crystal clear waters had a welcoming green hue, which boded well for my bathing plans.

...and Fortescue Pool

I hurried on to Fern Pool and was not disappointed - a beautiful, tropical paradise with water gently cascading onto the rocks at the far end of a calm, green pool.

Fern Pool

There was no messing about testing the water - I had to have a wash before getting on board a plane with other humans, so I just dived in. It was cool, but not too cold and a few strokes brought me out into the sunshine as I headed for the falls. I had not been duped, as they were indeed warmer than the pool waters and I sat happily in the flow, like a thumping shower, scrubbing at the ingrained dirt on my feet, legs and hands. I hadn't brought soap or shampoo, not wishing to pollute the lovely waters, so my scrubbing was all elbow-grease and calloused fingers but it did a pretty good job in the end…and gave me plenty of excuse to sit and hog the waterfalls. Amusingly, my confident dive and subsequent claims of the water's relative warmth had encouraged some Aussies to join me in the pool…needless to say, their wussy, southern hemisphere notions of warmth were somewhat different to mine and there were plenty of loud exhalations and hurried thrashings, followed by a speedy exit.

Refreshed, and feeling a little cleaner, I headed back to the car for the drive to Port Hedland. It was a decent drive, although there was a lot more heavy-vehicle traffic than the last time I'd used the road so it took a little longer than expected to get to the airport. However, I still had plenty of time to drop of the hire-car keys and Satnav, before checking in to for my flight.

Hey, what's the weird white stuff up there? This isn't allowed!

Air North provided a very good service aboard their miniature jet aircraft - plenty of shoulder and legroom, although the 430 dollar ticket-price demanded nothing less! I arrived in Darwin at 11.20pm and discovered that the money I'd sent to my prepay card account three days previously, had still not been credited! With 20 dollars to my name I had to get into town and do my laundry, before catching some shut-eye and heading off on my Kakadu adventure.

The shuttle bus took 16 of my remaining dollars and I had to offer an apology to the proprietors at my hostel (Melaleuca on Mitchell) when he asked for a 10 dollar deposit for my key and bedding. He was extremely understanding though and even made arrangements with the security guard to leave the laundry unlocked for another hour so that I could wash and dry my clothes. While this was happening, I was able to do some blogging and battery charging and I finally crawled into bed at 2:30, with a 5:30 alarm set so that I could sort out which luggage to leave behind while I went bush again.
I've not shared a hostel room since my first week in Vietnam back in October 2004…and by the time I got up, I'd remembered many reasons why! I had drawn a top bunk - the only remaining spot in the room - in a squeaky, metal bed that defied all attempts to do anything quietly. On top of this, the guy on the bottom bunk had some weird twitching fits during the night, consisting of huge leg spasms every couple of minutes, meaning that my sleep was about as useless as you could imagine. To be fair, I was happy with getting my laundry and blogging done, as I dipped in and out of civilisation for a few hours. I was even happier when I woke up in the morning, connected to my 3G internet and received the confirmation e-mail from my credit card company that my funds had been credited overnight. My last act in Darwin, after collecting my laundry and stowing my bag in the left-luggage room, was to withdraw 200 dollars - and it was nice, once again, to have a wallet carrying more than my not-so-flexible friend.