The Gorge

Last week PC had a week’s holiday. He decided that he would like to simply spend the week at home, good news is he did go back to work this week feeling rested.

One day whilst he was home we took up trip up to the Gorge with friends. I have always wanted to visit the Gorge since we moved to this town 13 years ago. The Gorge is close to the beginning of our Mighty River. No its not quite the beginning to get there you would have to hike much further. The Gorge is in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range and was well worth the hour plus trip. It is not for the fainthearted though.
The first 40km of dirt road were pretty good, when we came to the property however council’s maintenance ended and the next 4 km’s were rather challenging in parts. Our friends were in 4wheel drive so they fared well, however a top heavy, low slung Toyota hi-ace was not the best vehicle for the roads, PC swore that a plank fell off one of the bridges as we went over.

When we arrived at the farmhouse the property owner was all graciousness, he even offered to run us all up in the boat a kilometer up the river so we could walk further on to see the waterfall. First he took my friend Deanne and I with our six little ones and a couple of big ones to help.

The boat trip was spectacular.

The river became narrower as we went.

We were deposited on a cliff face and told to perch there with the little ones whilst the farmer ran back for our husbands and the other five children. Imagine our husbands horror when they turned the riverbank to see us perched on this! Admittedly this only shows half the cliff face it is taller! Look at the previous photos and that will explain.

Actually it was safer than it looked, the scary part was climbing it. The toddlers scrambled up it like mountain goats but unfortunately Deanne has a horror of rocks and you couldn’t get much rockier than this.

A long trek was ahead of us, another kilometer, well it seemed long with little ones.

However Paul entertained us with Sound of Music renditions.

The waterfall was God’s splendour in force.

As we walked back we were extremely grateful that we were to be picked up in the boat. Aren’t these two cuties helping one another?

PC cooked sausages for lunch, we lazed in the shade, the children fished, swam and rafted and we all went home truly pleased we had visited the Gorge. Travelling out

And further down the river.

Oh yes, and Deanne and I spent the next couple of days commiserating about our sore thigh muscles and our husbands shook their heads at our lack of fitness;)