Fitzroy Crossing

27 May

Geike Gorge

After a long trip from Lake Argyle we arrived in Fitzroy Crossing, a town which obviously borders the Fitzroy River. This river has the largest flow rate in Australia.When it is in flood it flows at a staggering 27,000 cubic litres per second or would fill Sydney Harbour in 5 hours. When you see how wide it is and how deep it gets (you can see the silt attached to rocks and trees) you can imagine the amount of water that flows down it.
We decided to take a cruise down the 30m deep Geike Gorge, a limestone reef that was built by lime depositing organisms when much of Australia was under the ocean over 350 million years ago in the Devonian Period. The Fitzroy River has carved a gorge through the Devonian reef and it sits over 50m above the surrounding plains - this place is the equivalent of the Great Barrier Reef only above water.
Tom and Declan thought they would go for a swim in the pool at the caravan park when we returned after the cruise. As with most of the pools on our trip this one was very cold. Tom decided not to go in but Declan thought he would jump in and, after swimming to the other side, came out with a cold headache. Fitzroy Crossing does not really have any other features so we decided to only stay one night in the caravan park before moving on tomorrow.