Day 45 Turkey Creek – Fitzroy Crossing

We woke up at around 8 today and we packed up the van to go to Fitzroy Crossing. Fitzroy Crossing has had a lot of damage from the floods that came recently so we weren’t sure if we could even keep going on the road after Fitzroy Crossing because the floods had fully removed the bridge over the river. When we were driving, there were a few signs saying there was a dip in the road. When we got to the dips, though, we quickly realised that they were much deeper than what the signs made them seem like. It was about 5 meters down from the regular road level and then it goes back up again. About halfway through the drive, we stopped at the Mimbi Caves. When we got there, they led us through a short bit in between the mountains and showed us some German houses from when German archaeologists were digging in the caves. There was also a makeshift chess board made from stone that was there as well. When we got there, they took us into the first cave. It was pitch black in there and you had to step on some stones just above the water line and some of them were even wobbly. When we got there, there was some rock art paintings on the wall and a small pool of water that you could swim in. It would be a bit weird to swim in complete darkness though. In the second cave, we went through a tight walkway that went into a bigger pool of water with some bats on the roof. After that, we went through a small tunnel in the rock. In the tunnel, there was some bats but since it was a short tunnel, they would get scared of us and fly away trying to get over our heads. We would have to duck or they would fly straight into your face. At the end of the cave, we did some climbing over rocks into another opening that leads into the bush. When we got back, we had some damper which is what aboriginal people usually make. It was actually really good and tasted like a pancake. We then did a smoking ceremony which is when you put some green leaves into a fire so it makes a lot of smoke and you walk around it 3 times. We smelt a lot like smoke after that! When we got back, we kept driving down the road and there was heaps of cattle herds just on the side of the road. When we were driving, one cow got scared and ran right out in front of us and we had to brake from 100 to 0 in a very short time with a caravan. We got so close the hairs on the cows legs were probably touching the car. It was getting pretty late so there were lots of animals coming out. We saw a dingo on the side of the road and a wallaby jumped across the road in front of us. When we got there, we set up and immediately had dinner because it was around 6:30. We are planning to go down to the river near us after and we will see if there are any crocodiles in there!

A small crevice entering into a pool (The phone made the image brighter, it was much darker in person)

Makeshift chess board that the German archaeologists made