El Questro - day 3

Wednesday 24 July 2013

El Questro – day 3

Up at 6am at first light. Rob was in his element this morning and decided to cook up an El Questro big breakfast of sausages, tomato, baked beans, poached eggs with toast and coffee. This should sustain us for our drive and hike into El Questro Gorge this morning.

The gorge itself is a 6km drive from the Station where we are camped. The drive into the gorge was interesting and involved the longest and deepest drive across a creek yet – the watercourse was around 800mm deep - with the water coming up to the top of the tyres – door seals were all good with no water coming into the vehicle. Another plus for the Red Beast!

Drive into El Questo Gorge

The walk into the gorge was very interesting as it was a narrow gorge with lots of the Livistona
palms (nasmophila livistona) and several types of ferns growing on the walls of the gorge. The walk in was very slow as the pathway was all rocks and small boulders. It never ceases to amaze me the people who walk in with no shoes, no hats or no water.

 

 

Boulder blocking gorge walk

 

We returned to the Station where we are camped and feeling a little peckish we decided to head up to the canteen for a pie. However Paul and I elected to buy a ham and salad roll while Rob had a steak and pepper pie.

During mid afternoon we drove out to the Chamberlain Gorge where we boarded a small boat holding about 40 people for a one and half hour tour of the gorge. It was all very interesting and of course we were hoping to see crocs but were disappointed when we did not even see one. The gorge formations and colouring in the late afternoon sun was quite spectacular. The highlight of the cruise of course was the cold champagne mid way through the tour where the boat turned around. We were expecting a glass (really a plastic cup) but instead had as much as we wanted. I of course was quite restrained with only 3 small cupfuls but I cannot speak for the other two who made a real spectacle of themselves. Anybody would think that they had never had a drink before. The champagne was accompanied by slices of fruit including watermelon, rockmelon etc. The drive back to the station at the end of the cruise was very interesting with certain words that I had never heard of before coming from the mouths of both Rob and Paul. The cruise cost us $55 each and I can thoroughly recommend it.

 

 

That night I cooked up a tuna pasta dish with my secret herbs and spices being added. The boys gutsed it all down with Robert being heard to say – “no bullshit Lindsay, the combination of flavours in this meal is extraordinary”.  For our regular movies, we watched the first half of Shutter Island with Leonardo de Caprio but called it quits after one member elected to down tools and go to bed. Cheers.