Alice Springs & Lawn Hill Trip - Day 20

Day 20 - 21/6/2016 - Swimming in Lawn Hill National Park

We enjoyed swimming around Indarri Falls so much we decided to head back for another swim.  Instead of canoeing up Lawn Hill gorge this time, we walked one of the bush walks to the falls.  It was a relatively short walk of only a few kilometres but we were looking forward to the swim because it was so hot.  Jodie found an interesting way to carry the pool noodles.

Because there was no risk of us capsizing I was able to take my good camera and not just rely on the GoPro for photos.

Purple-crowned Fairy-wren (only found in a small area near the Gulf)

The portage rails for the canoes

Getting the hang of these GoPro selfies!

While Jodie was standing on the landing that was used to lift the canoes out of the water for the portage, she was pointing something out on the other side of the gorge when she felt a big droplet of water hit her hand.  It was strange as there was no clouds in the sky for rain.  It took us a little while to work it out, but it was the Archer fish spitting water at Jodies hand!  We had heard of Archer fish spitting water but had never seen it before.  It was pretty cool as she was pretty much able to train them by repeatedly extending her arm out over the landing.

  

Jodies Minions

Ready, aim

Fire! 

The fish were easily able to spit the water to a height of about 2 to 2.5metres with very good accuracy!

After one final swim we packed up our gear and started to walk back to the carpark.  As we were leaving Indarri Falls We ran into a couple and they asked us how much further that could walk up along the portage track.  As we were talking to them the guy looked so familiar but I just wasn’t 100% sure that I recognised him.  It bugged me all afternoon but I finally remembered where I had seen the guy.  It was actually one of the local surveyors from back in home that I have a met a couple of times at industry functions.  How strange is that to come across someone from your home town all the way out here!

We stopped at the lookout over the gorge on the way back.

A bit of the wildlife on the track on the way back.

The afternoon was spent starting to pack up camp so it was not as big a job in the morning.  After the packing was complete, it was time to retire to the Adels Gove deck one last time for some afternoon drinks.

Being a nice clear night I also tried some star trail and time lapse photography.  This is made up of 724 frames from 9:45pm through to 4:00am.  I am not sure what caused the big smudge mark.  It might have been a speck of dust on the lens or the GoPro case catching and reflecting the light from the moon.  Unfortunately I could’t work out a way to remove it, and it was going to be too time consuming manually adjusting all 724 frames!

And a time lapse video.