Pentacost River. Easter 2004

The last hurragh of the Wet creeps across the skies. The river is flowing fast and clear.
The cliffs of the Cockburn Ranges loom over the valley. Phllip Parker King described these

At the entrance of the basin the high rocky character of the west shore
is superseded by low mangrove banks, with here and there a detached hill
rising from a plain of low marshy land, that, at the time of our visit,
was covered with a salt incrustation, occasioned by the evaporation of
the sea, which, apparently, had lately flooded the low lands to a great
extent: some of these plains are seven and eight miles in diameter. The
hills rise abruptly; those we examined are of sandstone formation. The
basin is very shoal, but there is a narrow channel in the centre, with
from five to nine fathoms water. The shore, opposite the Bastion Hills,
is low, and the gulf trends gradually round to the South-West for five
miles, when it is contracted into a narrow communication, called The Gut,
leading to an interior shoal basin, strewed with low marshy islands,
which the tide covers. This basin terminates to the southward in a narrow
stream, winding under the base of Mount Cockburn; and there also appeared
to be several others falling into the basin more to the westward. The
water was salt at the extremity of our exploration. The Gut leading to it
is two miles long, and not so much as a quarter of a mile wide: in some
parts we had nineteen fathoms, but in others it was deeper; it runs
through a chasm in the hills, which rise abruptly, and occasionally
recede and form bights, in which, in the wet season, the rains form some
very considerable mountain torrents. No fresh water was seen in any part
of the gulf; but as it was near the end of the dry season when we were
there, it might probably be found in a more advanced season in every part
of the western side, where the land is high and the gullies numerous:
there is, however, no durable freshwater stream without the Gut. An
alligator was observed swimming about, but very few fish were noticed

We camped close to the water and in the mornings I would move to a seperate painting camp.

Again the fish swimming in the depths crept into the image