This experience truly deserves several posts - we'll break them up chronologically.
After our stay in Broome & environs, we headed out to Mornington, a reserve or sanctuary owned and managed by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC). The AWC is a fantastic organization, dedicated to the preservation of Australian native flora and fauna. Some incredibly dedicated, smart and impressive people work for the AWC - we're big fans, as I hope will become apparent from the next several posts. We've known Atticus (yep), the CEO of the organization for a number of years and have been to various events with them (see our earlier blog post of the party on Jim Clarke's yacht). On his recommendation, we visited Mornington, their most important and best staffed sanctuary...and the one in some of the most spectacular country you'll ever see.
Some of our travelling party expressed some concern about flying out to Mornington on a small chartered aircraft. It had 2 engines (good) but seated 8 passengers (bad). The pilot, Mark, was very re-assuring, the weather was fine, so off we took for the 90 minute flight.
As you can see, Mark had some willing co-pilots during the flight.
And here we are on the ground, having bumped along the dirt airstrip.
After settling in (to our terrific tents - pictures to come) we had a lovely lunch at the bush restaurant (how do these people do it so far away from civilisation?), then took off on a cross country 4WD trip to the mighty Fitzroy River for a swim.
Oh, I forgot to mention - on our way to the camp from the airstrip we came across a blue tongue lizard. Sarah, the head scientist for the AWC and pictured here, spotted it, dove into the bushes and retrieved the reptile, reportedly the largest one they'd seen for some time. We of course wondered if one of their scientists had released the beast just before we passed, but they maintained it was serendipitous. These are harmless (to humans) strong, wiggly, scaly things...the kids took turns holding him before we let him (or her?) go on his merry way.
Back to the Fitzroy. After the wettest rainy season for many years, the rivers were flowing, the flora blooming and the entire Kimberly looking absolutely lovely. We all dove into the river without a second thought for a cooling swim. Only afterwards was it revealed to us that there were crocodiles in the waters...OK, freshies ("fresh water crocs"), not salties ("salt water crocs") - these latter being the ones of nightmares, but still...
In any event, the water felt great, very cooling. Then, the wonderful people of the AWC (Swanie is pictured here) opened the hampers revealing a spread of cheese, bikkies, beer and wine as we gazed at the wonderful light & colours of the Kimberly. What a way to start our visit to the sanctuary.
All of a sudden, the AWC helicopter appeared - yep, that was to take us back to the camp. Butch, the pilot, is apparently the most experienced pilot in Australia for the R44 'copters. In addition, he's an expert on Aboriginal art, a believer in conservation...again, one of the impressive people we encountered on this trip. After agreeing on a split of our party, the first group took off for a breathtaking flight back to the camp.
Taking off, the rest of the party on the rocks...
More co-piloting
So ends the first day at Mornington. We were all entranced by the countryside, the people, the mission, the hospitality. But the best was yet to come...
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