Day 458 | Boodjamulla again: a 'rest day' spent walking
resy day
Boodjamulla is terrific, glad I came.
There’s a spring somewhere upstream upstream, someone tells me New Guinea, the water flowing underground through sandstone and limestone for a 1000 years before it pops out, in this instance there’s 5 cubic metres a second, which gives a significant flow.
There’s 3 main gorges, chiselled into ancient red sandstone, like from 1.56 billion years ago, with the water running a green tinge due to high calcium levels and some particular organism that thrives in such conditions. There’s lush green leaves of native figs, paperbarks and cabbage palms near the water’s edge but further away it’s all spinifex, occasional bloodwoods and termites.
One of the remarkable birds to see here is the bright little Crimson finch, plenty down on the river flats picking out grass seed rather unconcerned by my presence and it lives up to its label, at least the male is well adorned.
I’ve now done all the walks, tramping off 7 km to the south and 4 km to the north today. Surprisingly there was no one else out there on the trails, walking, although there were a few paddlers, $25 an hour for a clunky plastic canoe, it’s my usual solitary travel.
Two swims to cool off, the water is cool due to the underground component of the flow, it’s 36ºC out here in the afternoons these days.
And it’s going to heat up more as we move towards summer.