The Call of Nature

Now those of you who know me well will be expecting an embarrassing bush toilet story or a red bucket drama due to the title of this post, but no, I sincerely mean 'The Call of Nature'. As I layed in bed last night feeling unwell, unbeknownst to me, Will read all the travel brochures on National Parks in the region. He'd heard me say I'd hope to get to one today so this morning he said "Well  Mount Remarkable National Park is the best option" to which I agreed. But I put a caveat on it, 'The place I want to see is Alligator Gorge and you can't take a van in'. I suggested maybe we could find a caravan park nearby, unhitch and then go on to the park. So off Will went reading different pamphlets, cross referencing until I grabbed the trusty old iPad, did a quick google search and found Beautiful Valley Caravan Park, opposite the Alligator Gorge turn off.  It was agreed, that was the plan, after a quick stop and look around Port Pirie we would head to Wilmington, home of Beautiful Valley Caravan Park. Let me tell you I don't think Trip Advisor has ever rated it and I'm glad. If we'd checked their website we might not be one of only 3 vans in the place, I might not be sitting by a camp fire with a creek to walk along in the morning and we wouldn't have met Ros and Greg, a down on their luck couple with hearts of gold.

Before I tell you about Alligator Gorge just let me say that as we pulled out of Port Wakefield this morning an unspoken question ran through my mind - is that, could it be? when the undeniable YeeHaa from Will confirmed that yes indeed, that was the first Road Train we were to see of our trip.  Now for you amateurs', as I've fondly been called this afternoon, a B double can be a road train. It all depends on the A-trailer and pivot points - "Didn't you know that?" I thought I had it figured out but alas I'm not so sure anymore. So I'm going to take a piece of advice I read on the drinks fridge at the Cranbourne Botanical Garden, It's better to keep your mouth shut and have others think you might be an idiot, than to open your mouth and confirm their opinion!

Now, back to Nature. After making our way through the Flinders Rangers which had called for an "I don't like the look of this" comment from Will as we headed the poor old, heavily laden Patrol up what appeared to be a steep  mountain pass, we made our way uneventfully to Alligator Gorge. Of course the plan was to walk the two simple trails but we found ourselves on a steep trail of carved stone steps to the base of the gorge. It was remarkable. In the words of Will "This is awesome, why don't they advertise it, it's, it's like the stuff at the Kimberley's but nobody knows about it, this is amazing." To be with Will, to hear the moment when nature really took his breathe away was simply Special! "Take a photo of this angle, take a photo here."  It really was special to jump from rock to rock making our way along the creek deeper into the gorge - we both hope the photos show just how spectacular it is.

Whilst walking to a lookout I called Will to look at a kangaroo, in fact it wasn't a kangaroo it was a Euro.  I didn't know we had them here, we might have more than Greece!

As we drove out of the parking lot Will's humour surfaced once again. A little Suzuki was parked on the edge overlooking a deep decent, "'The Mighty Patrol' could push that little thing over the edge, that'd be funny," he said with a wicked laugh. Images of Mr Bean popped into my head but we left without causing any trouble.