We had our first night under canvas at the Eco Retreat Resort, which was cheating a bit as there was a good restaurant and bar at our disposal. There were safari tents available at $250/night but we thought $30 for a tent site more reasonable! Early in the morning we were woken by the howling of wild dingoes. We were told later that this was a mother dingo teaching her offspring how to howl in preparation for being booted out into the world on their own. Alan got up during the night for a leak and said the stars were amazing after the moon had set.
Colin decided after breakfast to start to file down his Pivot Pegs to fit onto the VFR. The Pivot Pegs were the same as Alan had on his BMW and Colin knew that the pivot pin would fit OK. After 20 mins of heavy work with the file Colin realised that this was a bigger job than he had hoped so he inquired if the Resort had a bench grinder in their workshop - they did and 30 minutes later the pegs were fitted. These pegs help to spread the pressure on the sole of the foot when you stand up on the pegs for rough road sections.
We had been told that access to Joffre Gorge was round the back of the resort so off we went in late morning and found a rather well hidden track which soon lead us down a side gorge into the floor of the main gorge just down stream of Joffre Falls, which only flows during rain storms. There was a long narrow pool of water in the base of the gorge and we decided to swim along it as we had brought our swimmers and towels. The sides were of highly layered iron stone and iron ore and stood vertically 70 m above us. The gorge was 10 - 20m wide and the water was comfortable. 
We could stop and stand on submerged ledges of rock along the way and decided to swim the whole 300m to the end. It was a great experience. We learned the next day that Joffre gorge leads out into the junction of the 3 gorges at Oxer lookout. The gorge was home to a large population of dragonflies of different size and colour. There were several tandems where two dragonflies latch on to each other and fly around making a relative loud buzzing noise. After our swim we had a look at the falls, which were dry.
We could stop and stand on submerged ledges of rock along the way and decided to swim the whole 300m to the end. It was a great experience. We learned the next day that Joffre gorge leads out into the junction of the 3 gorges at Oxer lookout. The gorge was home to a large population of dragonflies of different size and colour. There were several tandems where two dragonflies latch on to each other and fly around making a relative loud buzzing noise. After our swim we had a look at the falls, which were dry.
We got back to the Eco Retreat in time for lunch and Alan ordered what he thought were 2 lunches of sandwiches and fruit. They came in neat little insulated back packs. I went to pay for them and discovered that we had ended up with 4 lunches at twice the price I was expecting. Each back pack was two lunches! Being gutsers we didn't notice. At least they came in handy for storing our rubbish which must be taken out of the Park.
We decided to take our first nana-nap of the trip and it was well worth while. A friendly camper came and offered us a couple of cold Carlsbergs after we had been amused by his attempts at squeezing a huge double inflatable matress into his van. This all recharged our batteries for a heavy game of cards after dinner, which we cooked ourselves on the Eco-Retreat barbeques. I had emu sausage, kangaroo and crocodile and Alan had a steak. I managed to peg Alan back to under 100 points in our card game saga.
Alan booked us into a guided tour for the next day to see the other gorges in the park. I called Morag on the landline public phone and heard all about her disasters with the AdventureTour through the GRR, which had been closed off due to rain.
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