Day 36 10/07/2013 Roe River to King George Basin.

As our youngest daughter wished us well for the cruise, she commented, " 8 days on a boat.......help!!!!"
I must admit, that until she said this, I had not contemplated that we would find it claustrophobic, so I did begin to feel a little anxious. However, so far everything has been so amazing and so magical that claustrophobia could not be further from my mind!
Of course being out on the water means that we are driven by the tides, especially in tidal river systems where there is such a dramatic difference in the amount of water. Mud flats can disappear in minutes and where there was dry land, creeks can appear.
So..........at 5.30 this morning we were awoken by a door knock! We were ready by 6am for the first activity of the day. Dave chose to go fishing with Ben and I chose to go bird-watching with Louis, so we were in separate tenders. It was a beautiful morning and the sun was just rising as we left on our excursion. We had a wonderful scenic cruise down the river and spotted quite a few birds....as well as a crocodile or two, including a very small one.... about a year old, apparently. Amongst the birds sighted were ibis, egrets, herons, Brahminy kites, sea eagle, imperial pigeons, bitterns, sacred kingfishers and a jabiru. We also heard a red-headed honey eater and mangrove robin.
I managed to capture the jabiru in flight on my camera, so I was quite pleased about that.
On returning to the boat we all tucked in to a delicious breakfast, but not before photographing Dave with his Barra (Barramundi) catch! He looks pretty pleased with himself in the photo!! Two other Barra were caught, and ably filleted by Matt, so they will be on the menu in the next day or so. Dave said that he can 'retire' from fishing now that he has caught a fish!!
After breakfast, at around 9am, we all went out in the three tenders for a scenic cruise, croc spotting and a swim in a freshwater pool.
The Roe river has plenty of crocs, (the dangerous kind!), and we saw so many that I've lost count. As well as basking on the mud banks and hanging around in the water at the edge of the river, we have also seen crocs in the water off the back of the boat. Amazingly we also saw one croc with his 'catch-of-the-day' in his mouth.......what appeared to be a freshwater saw-fish, which is a type of shark. I got some good photos of that too! We weren't sure how the croc was going to fare when he got the 'saw' part of the fish into his mouth.....although I expect it wouldn't bother him too much!
We had great fun zooming at high speed in the tenders. We learnt about a certain type of mangrove which was traditionally used by Aboriginals to make their rafts and canoes but given the number of crocs in this river, we were all thanking our lucky stars that we weren't travelling in wooden rafts!
We were then taken to a spot where there were some freshwater pools, quite close to the river, and after the boys checked them out for crocs, we all went for a little dip which was very welcome, because it was very hot.
We were back on board by12.45 and a delicious lunch awaited us. Afterwards we had some 'free' time while the boat was cruising towards Careening Bay. On the way we slowed down for 15 mins or so because we spotted a humpback whale and her calf. We only had a glimpse of them. Ben did not want to take the boat in too close because he thought that the calf might be fairly newborn.
At about 4pm we all jumped into the tenders and had a 'wet' landing at Careening Bay.
This was all a bit scary because of the possibility of crocs. The water was quite clear, nevertheless we were told to go quickly onto the beach! Careening Bay was first visited by Phillip Parker King in 1820. Parker King was commissioned to 1. complete the charting work left unfinished by Matthew Flinders; 2. find the great river which John Oxley, (surveyor general of NSW), was sure would lead to a great inland sea in the centre of Australia; and 3. identify and catalogue native culture and language, flora and fauna and any valuable resources. He was also instructed to leave a 'mark' of his presence in the area.
His vessel, HMC Mermaid, was damaged badly in QLD and rather than sail back to Sydney against the trade winds, they elected to continue their voyage, which was arduous, to say the least. Eventually they found a perfect spot to repair the cutter and this is now known as Careening Bay, owing to the fact that the vessel could be deliberately tipped over to one side, (careened), on the sloping beach, whilst repairs were undertaken. During the two weeks spent there, using the sails as makeshift tents, they inscribed a magnificent bifurcated Boab tree with 'HMC MERMAID 1820'. They were also the first Europeans to catch a frill-necked lizard. The tree now stand as a memorial to the courage of the men of the Mermaid and a unique piece of Australian history. We also saw some examples of ancient Cycads, Cycas basaltica, growing amongst the basaltic rocks there.
We got back to the boat just on sunset and sat on the forward deck with a G&T and watched the sun go down. As the sky darkened and the boat cruised through the evening, we saw the new moon and Venus as the brightest objects in the sky, on a perfect diagonal alignment with each other. Pretty soon the whole sky was filled with stars and Venus and then the moon set.
The early evening passed with drinks and nibbles and conversation. We ate dinner indoors tonight. Everyone was tired from our early start and active day, so by the time the anchor was put down at 9.30pm we were all pretty much in bed, especially since breakfast tomorrow is at 6.30am with our first excursion scheduled an hour later!