We leave the ship anchored at the mouth of the King George River as we prepare to board the zodiacs - the resilient dinghy's made famous by Jacques Cousteau, to cruise down the narrow inlets and gaping gorges of the waterway. On the way, the crew throw out nets in order to secure the evening meal which we will retrieve on the return journey and this exercise is repeated each day to ensure the freshest fish. As we journey down the river, the gorges narrow only to enlarge again as we emerged through the openings dividing the 500ft cliff faces that tower over us.

The majesty of this area is hard to adjust to straight away - there is no sound but for the engines of the zodiacs as we speed along this untouched terrain, unreachable by land and also by sea during the wet season. The series of deep gorges have been hewn from millions of years of erosion and the vast rock monoliths that loom menacingly overhead have been carved over an astounding 2 billion years. Some of the formations are precariously balanced upon each other at right angles to the main structure like experimental sculpture that threatens to collapse at the slightest touch. It won't of course, it will be here long after we have gone, just as it has weathered the epochs before our arrival. We cut the engines just as we near the end of the craggy gorge and float towards an enormous dry waterfall that gushes millions of litres of water a second during the 'wet'. Leaning over the side of the dinghy, I trail my hand in the waters which are warm and clear to the point of transparency and many metres below, schools of fish can be seen swimming in and out of the underwater caverns. We pull up next to the walls of the gorge and Bruce, the ship's Mate, takes out a tomahawk and penknife to hack off the layers of briquette sized oysters encrusting the mammoth pillion. They are enormous, very salty and we eat them straight off the rocks as fresh as they will ever be...