Another early start to drive the 45km back to Mornington to
check in by 8am. From the gate it was a
further 91km off the Gibb River Road to reach the camp. The road in wasn’t too bad, but it still took
us almost 2hours to drive it. On
arriving we checked into Reception, where we noticed there is also a bar and a
restaurant…
We spent our first afternoon exploring the Sir John
gorge. The gorges here in the Kimberley
are different to Karijini… the most obvious difference being the sheer size of
them… Unlike in Karijini, you can’t
simply walk from one end to the other…
The trail to the gorge
The point at which you reach the gorge
Looking at the photo above, we walked all the way to the end. It took us a fair while and it was pretty hot. It turned out the end wasn’t the best spot for a swim so we had to make do with a quick splash…
We then walked all the way back to find a suitable rock where we could jump in (or in Dave and Aiden’s case, to bombie into the gorge). Once again, the water was bordering on the temperature of ice. I was so hot I jumped in but then turned around and got straight back out again…
On our way back to camp we stopped in at a swimming waterhole known as Blue Bush. Dave and the kids found a rope swim so they were happy… I hadn’t thawed out from the last swim so I was content to stroll the banks looking for birds.
A Rainbow Bee-eater (there are LOADS of them around here)
To keep going with the manic time schedule we seem to be
keeping, our day didn’t end there. Back
at camp it was hot showers (gas boosted solar power… awesome), dinner, then we
headed up to the Reception area for a presentation about the conservation group. It was a really good presentation – we
learned a lot. The 3 main adverse
effects on the environment and the wildlife are fires, feral cats and
introduced herbivores (mainly cattle).
It seems the uncontrolled fires are the worse of the three, and
contributing to the effect is the impact the cats and cattle have after the
fires. When there are uncontrolled dry
season fires, the landscape is completely decimated. All the trees and scrub are completely
destroyed, and a massive area can be burnt out over a period of weeks or
months. This not only decimates the
wildlife, but for a period of time afterward, there are vast areas of land
where any remaining wildlife cannot find refuge… thus leaving them vulnerable
to the feral cats. The really
interesting thing was their approach to managing the feral cats. Rather than culling the cats they focus on
their fire management plan. At the end
of the wet season they implement a program of controlled burns. Because everything isn’t tinder box dry, the impact
of the fires is minimal, burning out the scrub below but leaving the trees
alive and intact. By burning vast tracks
of land via this ‘cool burning’, they effectively create fire breaks so the
uncontrolled fires are contained and can only impact a much smaller area. In addition, the low impact of the early
season burns mean there is still plenty of vegetation for the wildlife to find
refuge in. All the evidence shows the populations of the native animals,
including the rare and endangered ones, are thriving since they have
implemented a program of prescribed burns.
(We had heard the same thing about prescribed burns in Cape Leveque
being responsible for the re-emergence of the Gouldian Finch in that area).
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