1 July 2019.
Dad’s birthday today!
We packed up and made tracks for Manning Gorge today. Fuelled up at Mt Barnett Roadhouse and bought our day passes for Manning. It was only 7 km off the main road and a pretty busy campground. There was a great swimming hole right at the campground, however Dad, Bill and I headed off on the 2.5 km walk to the larger swimming hole at the end of the gorge. What an absolute cracker! Absolutely the best swimming hole for the trip so far and it is going to take ALOT to beat it. My nephews, Lachlan and Braden had told me it was the best spot for jumping off rocks, and they weren’t wrong. Only problem was that I was to much of a wimp to jump off the higher ones! Bill jumped, and then I stood up there for about 15 mins trying to get the courage to jump. I had young teenage boys giving me advice (“just step off”) and then the smallest scrap of a girl, probably about 8 years old jumped twice in the time I was up there, the second time telling me “don’t look down, just look straight out”. It was all pretty hilarious, and in the end I gave it up for a lost cause, climbed back down to the lower rocks and jumped from there. It was such a great spot, I could have spent all day there. However lunch was calling. We walked back out, had lunch, another swim with Mum, showers and then drove the 40 ish km’s to our camp for the night.
After setting up camp, I made Dads birthday cake – chocolate cake made in the Weber. We decorated it with jaffas and had it with cream for dessert. No such thing as roughing it out here!
Travelling the Big Island 