Friday

Friday ( :-( sad face today it's the last Friday of holidays) 

With the pending weekend and the thought of having to be back at work on Monday when I woke up this morning, it was a fitting morning to roll over pull the sleeping bag up and hide for a bit longer in bed. This however did not last long, the thing with camping is the birds get up at the crack of dawn... And it would seem that it was even earlier than that this morning. But I did manage a small snooze. And the fact we did not have to drive anywhere today was a bonus. 

I got up finally and headed for the van to only find dad, sitting alone with just his radio. No mum and no breakfast in sight. Just about every day for the last three weeks mum has at some stage or another always had breakfast on the go. Last week they were on toast before I got there so this morning I thought I'd missed out all together. Not so, mum was down in the creek for a morning soak in the hot springs before breakfast... So I quickly got changed into togs and headed that way. In the creek was mum and no one else, there was a last just in front of me on the steps but it was so nice to have it like this. We spent about 1/2 an hour in before deciding we needed food. 

After breakfast we packed morning tea and headed the 17km down the road to Butterfly Gorge, this was the only driving to be done today and dad did it again. I was not too bothered by that as the road was pretty bad. It's easy to see why it's been closed before and it wouldn't take much for the road to be closed again. Butterfly Gorge is just a day area, not much there. A sign post for two walks. Down to the rocky outcrop was easy but then you come to the end of this track and its either up oner the rocks or swim into the gorge. We tried the rock climb, but decided it was too hard. And we also opted out of the swim, although there is only freshies in this part of the creek it was very deep and cold! We would have maybe if the water was warmer like lower down. 

Heading back along the track we see the marker for the lookout walk that we missed on the way in, dad headed for the car and mum and I took the hill.... Very glad we did, it took us around the rock climb we had tried before and down into the gorge on the other side a lot safer than if we'd gone over the rocks. There was water flowing over the rocks on the other side of the gorge, we again did not take the swim. But an amazing view and very pretty place to see. The 17km of crappy road was not wasted. We walked back out and found dad like he said waiting at the car, we had morning tea out there and then drive back to the camp site. 

Mum and I had a swim before lunch and dad did his usual, after lunch dad had a nana nap and mum and I found a book to read each. When I got bored with reading mum and I headed up the creek for a walk to try and find the spot we has swum in three years ago. We think we found it. They have closed off the track we took last time so we walked up the creek, and found a spring coming out of the bank that was boiling hot. Where this spring met the river was the point we think it was, it didn't really matter this was as far as we got. After about 1/2 hour 40 minutes we decided to go and get dad and bring him up. I kept the spot so no one would take it and mum walked back, it was not far! 

By the time mum and dad got back I had some other people joined me and got chatting, they live in Townsville and have lived in other places mum and dad lived. So it was nice to talk to them and mum and dad swapped stories with them when they got back. They are not staying in the national park but opted for the caravan park about 10km up the road. This has been one of the nice things about this trip, meeting people and just having a chat. 

After we felt we had pruned up enough we headed back to the van for happy hour! Had some dinner and played some Quiddler. I won three of the four games. I am getting better so look out aunties... 

We will head into Darwin tomorrow, it's not far about 100km. Mum and dad think they will head off on Wednesday. 

Not sure if I am ready for going back to work, but I guess the bills have to be paid.