Nirvana at last

What a difference 24 hours make. After my torturous flight by light plane over the Bungle Bungles (the beehive range only discovered in the mid 1980s, I later discovered), I retreated to my stateroom in shock and didn’t reappear till the next day. While Steve disappeared on a day-long adventure, I pottered around in the morning until our Zodiac departed after lunch for a three-hour cruise down the King George River.

The water and sky were brilliant blue, the warm 28 deg C sunshine offset by a refreshing breeze as we chugged mellifluously along the river, surrounded on all sides by cliffs of rugged pink sandstone sculpted by the elements over thousands of years. As cameras clicked and guides pointed out nests high on the cliff face of sea eagles and ospreys, I fell into a trancelike reverie.
Back in the Big Smoke I had become oppressed by a sense of Groundhog Day. For weeks I had dreamed of communing with nature, and suddenly, at last, here it was... the moment I had imagined, and I gave myself to it completely.
As our Zodiac riffed along the sparkling water and fellow travellers oohed and aahed and chuckled among themselves, I was blissfully happy to be right here, in the Top End, far, far, far away from anything that was more of the same.
The King George River is pretty damn remote, and requires effort to reach, and it’s unlikely that the average traveller will visit twice. And here I was, gliding through a dream-like terrain of water, cliffs and sky, with each of my senses responding with subtle, trembling pleasure.
The afternoon sun began to sink as we approached the King George Falls, pounding furiously after a very rainy season. We teased our Zodiacs as close to the spray as we could get. Rainwater cascaded over the cliff face on either side of a rocky outcrop, and we bobbed in the foam whipped up by the sheer weight of the torrent. It was exhilarating to witness Mother Nature unburden herself in such lush, spectacular style.
After some playfulness at the waterfall, we turned back to motor relaxedly through our corridor of sandstone turning soft pink and grey in a sunset sky. I thought it couldn’t get better than this, but it did. We turned a corner and ...
... I kid you not, there was the MV Orion’s Maitre D, Roger, and his 2IC, Michael, waiting on a ledge at the bottom of the cliff face, with bottles of champagne poised for all passing Zodiac passengers. A toast to the King George River and its magnificent falls!
It’s silly, I know, to talk about champagne in the middle of such awe-inspiring beauty, but it was an unexpected gesture of bonhomie that struck the right note at the right time. It felt right to pay tribute to the grandiose beauty we were experiencing with a flute of bubbly. (And, truth be told, it also pretty much summed up the Orion experience which is all about seeing beautiful and remote places while maintaining a level of comfort that borders on the luxurious). Long live luxury cruising, I say!