Day 3, June 29th

By now we're starting to get into a routine- and with group members taking turns with cooking and preparation, camp set up and pack up it's not overly arduous. We're up at dawn each day, about 5am, breakfasting with tents down, swags rolled up and the sun rising. This way we make the most of the days, sunset is about 5.30pm but as we travel East and head towards a different time zone it creeps a little earlier. Dinner is eaten round the fire because although the days are warm once the sun goes down it becomes very cold. Then we drink beer or tea and chat until exhaustion overcomes us and we head for our sleeping bags.

Today at 7am finds us standing at Manning gorge campsite, where we stayed the night, on the edge of a river. To visit Manning gorge it's necessary for us to swim the river and although we're happy with swimming generally it's a bit early and a bit cold. Being English I can't be seen to let a bit of cold water put me off and with shoes and bag packed in a tiny pull-across boat I'm soon plunging in. The sun's shining, it's a beautiful river and actually because the air temperature's low the water's not that bad and at least I'm soon awake- and wondering why I don't do this every morning.

An hours' hike once dressed again takes us down to Manning gorge and another beautiful swimming spot, plus waterfalls for the teenage boys of the group to leap off.

We continue and that night camp wild in the bush beside the river Durock. It's us and 2 grey nomads who we thought might be rather put out that their isolated camp was invaded however they seem glad for the company and inadvertently become the object of gentle parodies for the rest of the trip. The river is beautiful but also full of Salties and after dusk our guide Rob shows us how to use a torch to scan for the red reflections of their eyes. Creepy! It's also possible to scan along the ground and find spiders by the same trick- their eyes shine blue.