Today we took the explorers to the site of the Historic Mermaid Boab Tree. This is where Phillip Parker King brought his boat the Mermaid off the sea to repair its leaks – without much success. Parker King was an intrepid explorer and circumnavigator of Australia all those years ago.

While there he found the Boab tree that was probably already a few hundred years old – and on it he inscribed HMC Mermaid 1820. It’s a magnificent tree and well looked after – it may well be some 700 years old now. Many theories abound about how the Boab came to Australia. After the continents separated, brought by humans or on rafts ? Not sure it is clear yet.

The area is full of basalt rock so much richer and the vegetation here is thicker and more varied. We saw flowering bushes of the mulla mulla and the original cycad basaltica collected by Cunningham on his voyage to this area with Parker King. A bower bird had built its nest and a croc sunned itself.

The afternoon saw us sailing down the Prince Regent River. Beautiful calm green waters reflecting the rocks and the vegetations. The sandstone pillars were extraordinary Jenga towers. The pieces one on top of another precarious towers of orange, blocks interspersed with vegetation.

We turned a corner into King Cascade and what a view that was – a torrent of water coming over an amphitheatric setting –

We all jumped to the front of the boat to stand in its cascade -a good soaking for all the passengers and such a refreshing feeling.