Mornington, the third

Day three at Mornington Wildlife Reserve began, again, early with a canoe trip down the mighty Fitzroy River. The water that flows through the Fitzroy is plentiful enough to fill Sydney Harbour. Just coming out of the wet season, the water was flowing pretty fast, and since we were canoeing with the current, the excursion zipped along. We arrived at the launch site early after another killer breakfast at the camp (courtesy of the inimitable Jane). Butch landed the chopper on the river rocks, ferrying us in shifts. Our guides for the trip were Catherine (expert in wallabies and other marsupials), James (expert in lizards and other reptiles), and Joey, general all-around specialist.


I paddled with Joey so he could point out all the birds (honey eaters, mostly, and an odd-sounding kookaburra). Philip went with Emmett, and the girls split up with the two conservation scientists. Looking in vain for crocs, goannas, legless lizards, water monitors, the other canoe-ers soon got silly, pretended to be gondoliers and tipped over the boats. We stopped for morning tea on the mudflats--good talks and some swimming and we were off again. This time, I managed to spot a legless lizard (!)--a reptile that looks, you guessed it, exactly like a snake. The scenery was spectacular--the trees on the banks of the river were still bent over from the floods of the rainy season, telling quite a story. Another stop, some more food, another quick paddle, and we were at the end of the trip. Butch came along to take us all back to camp via chopper--and I think that was when he spotted some crocs slipping into the waters we had just navigated (uh, and swam in).

Later that afternoon, we took a swim in Annie's Creek by the camp, spotting a large goanna on the way. The girls and Philip swam again in croc-infested waters. Emmett and I looked on wisely. While we were swimming, Sarah and Butch had begun their eco-burns--they firebombed about 200+ km of land--burning it early while the lingering wet and dew would curtail the fire somewhat but allow enough of the bush to burn to prevent a massive wildfire late in the dry season. This kind of land management saves wildlife and prevents tons and tons of carbon from escaping into the atmosphere. It is good work but hard work. Sarah had earlier demonstrated her preferred genre of bomb. We cannot disclose the recipe here, but it involves exploding ping-pong balls. Cool!

We had to leave by 4:30 to make it to the "secret location" for dinner--we ended up with the conservation gang on a hilltop a few km from camp.


With the sun setting on Sarah's eco-burn (smoke rising in the background), we had cocktails and canapes, followed by a gourmet dinner under the stars (most notably Orion and the Southern Cross)--dingos howling in the background. Heaven.

That night, after chasing the frogs around the loo, we once again fell asleep to the sound of soft splashes in Annie's Creek--a reminder of the freshies (crocs) that live there.