21 June 2026
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| Waterfall in The Amphitheatre, Berkley River |
As expected, the night was a fairly rocking rolling ride and I slept intermittently
Some particularly delicious gluten free cheese puffs prompted me to request that any leftovers be kept for me for morning tea and crew member Sarah promptly put some aside for me, which was very sweet of her.
An announcement after breakfast told us that because of the weather we had detoured to travel closer to the coast and it was going to take us some 3 hours longer to actually reach the Berkeley River. So the day's schedule would be reviewed a little later in the morning.
The sea is no the longer particular that it was yesterday but more a greeny-grey. Possibly, the effect of the white caps on the colour.
We approached the mouth of the Berkeley River and with a massive clattering of bottles in the bar (and a certain kamikazi of many items, fortunately without breakagers) we were over the sandbar and into much smoother sailing and the most amazing ancient sandstone walls of the Berkeley River gorge.
The morning activity of visiting and swimming in the pools was cancelled, due to our late arrival at the Berkeley River and the fact that the tide was too low to access them.
After lunch, the Reef Prince continued up the Berkeley. Then we boarded the tenders and travelled further upriver looking at various sites.
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| aboard a tender |
A couple of small crocodiles were spotted or one crocodile was spotted twice and a large dead crocodile was also seen.
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Dead crocodile
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My first croc sighting - that line at the water's edge :)
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I spotted a small shark possibly a bull shark; other spotted a number of bird species, including a sacred kingfisher which was much smaller than I expected it might be.
A water fall in a geographic feature called. The amphitheatre was duly admired and later on so was Casuarina Falls, along Casurina creek.
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In the Amphitheatre
 | Casurina Falls and Mount Casurina
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The cliffs are just amazing and there was considerable oohing and ahhing about them - the photos don't really do them justice.
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| Fabulous cliffs on both sides of the river |
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| The tenuous hold of vegetation on the cliffs |
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| Great cliffs |
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| More great cliffs |
We also duly admired a feature known as The Berkley Eye
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| The Berkley Eye |
The sandstone cliffs, dated at 1.6-1.8 billion years old, really are stunning. That timeframe pre-dates the evolution of the earliest life on earth - no fossils in these cliffs. That is a bit awesome to think about.
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| They pre-date life on earth! |
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| Some looked as if a giant toddler had been stacking blocks |
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| More of giant toddler at play :) |
After the tender excursions, I took up the opportunity for a beach walk and enjoyed finding a few rather interesting things, including a sand dollar and an oyster shell with two beautifully shaped deformities each of which housed a tiny urchin.
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Beach treasures - sand dollar
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Another beach treasure - oyster shell with urchins
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After dinner and the briefing for the following day, there was an evening activity of stargazing. Jasmine our cruise director director, gave us a talk about the stars and there were some people amongst the passengers who'd not seen the stars as clearly as we could see them for a long time. It was not as dark as it might be because we had to keep a riding light due to the presence of at least one other boat nearby and another couple not far away, and that did detract a bit from the total darkness as did the waxing moon.
However, Jasmine told us the indigenous stories of the dark emu, the Pleiades and the Orion clusters, Orion not being visible at this time of the year. But we could see Scorpio and the Southern Cross and with the aid of my sky tonight app, I could identify a few other constellations and stars. Part of the Milky Way was visible but part not easily seen because of the riding light. One of the other passengers and I went to the back deck hoping it would be darker there for us to see in the other direction but that was not to be. We were looking for the Magellanic Clouds. I know I can see those at home but Gary hadn't seen them for quite some time and had good memories of seeing them. It was rather lovely to see some stars reflected in the water around us
The boat is anchored for the night in the Berkeley River, so we can definitely expect a better night's sleep.
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| More cliff spam |
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