Water + gravity = awesome.
Through a convoluted series of events, some of my family ended up at Fitzroy Falls last weekend. The falls are astonishingly well maintained and well run. Some of you antipodeans may have heard that it’s currently Winter, noun, the middle of. The falls were still worth seeing – arguably, more so than ever.
It was a peculiar day because we reached the falls around midday, but due to light rain and heavy cloud (and mountains), we found ourselves in a strange fantasy world of mist and moss and dripping water. The falls area has a lot of brilliant walking tracks, but we took the direct route to the waterfall viewing platform, which is so short and flat I could have done it with no legs while carrying a recalcitrant badger.
The short track is roughly parallel to the river, and surrounded by lush forest – all of which was glimmering with moisture as it had finished raining moments before.
I admit that even while admiring the rainforest I was beginning to wonder what I’d committed to – the river didn’t look that impressive. Very soon we could all hear the rushing water – but it didn’t sound especially impressive either, muffled as it was by trees and mist. I was horrified when we rounded a corner and saw the railing of the viewing platform – and a wall of white. Too much mist! But no-one else seemed to be screaming and cursing, so I walked up to the edge and – pow! Nothing but air below me for 81 metres (yep, I looked it up) of sheer cliff. We stood and gaped for a while, and then we gaped some more. The mist cleared a little to show the other side of the gorge – and these mountains (I swear they weren’t there before).
You can’t see the bottom of the falls here, but I assure you it was a long way down.
Clearly, geology was left unsupervised at some point in the past, and it decided to mess about.
Speaking of messing about, here’s my impression of Great Cthulhu (small children should look away now):
