Gibb River Road

This will be an episodic post as we’ve been out of internet service for about 10 days:

August 20:

After a restful three days in Derby . . . explored that old port town; found jam, fruit cake, honey and scones at the Saturday markets in the CWA cottage grounds; and discovered a butcher with not only fabulous meat but also lots of frozen barramundi and threadfin salmon . . . we stocked up with groceries and left town, pausing only to view the old prison boab and the longest cattle trough in the southern hemisphere.

500 cattle could drink at once from this trough.

The boab, of huge significance to the local Aborigines, is believed to be 1500 years old and was so big, with a hollow interior, that it was often used to keep prisoners contained on their way to Derby jail. The trough, attached to a bore, was used to water stock arriving at the town and could water 500 at a time, being 322m long.

Then we left town, but stopped on the Gibb River Road after only 3km to visit the Mowanjum Arts Centre, a glorious building hosting work by local Aboriginal artists. I’d done research on their website and knew we wanted to see some work by some talented sisters, one of whom specialises in Gyorn Gyorns, slim black figures. We found one that we liked and it’s to be posted to us at home in late October.

The prison boab in which men were held.

Just another 10 or so kms on, we stopped for the day at Birdwood Downs, a property run by the US-based Institute of Ecotechnics. It’s owned it since the late 1970s and has restored badly-overgrazed land to improved pasture. There’s a small campground and a set of nice little cabins surrounded by flourishing bougainvillea, and a pineapple and banana orchard, as well as horses and cattle. We were the only campers for some hours, then a Welsh couple arrived in a tiny little Suzuki with a ‘topper’ tent which unfolded on the vehicle roof.

The next morning, we drove 124 km (and the bitumen ended, putting us back on red dirt corrugations) before turning south towards Windjana Gorge National Park.

The campground has a dramatic backdrop of the Napier Range, an ancient Devonian-age reef through which a river has made its way, so the gorge walk is great, with freshwater crocs lying around in the water of the dry season pools. So definitely no swimming!

Another 35km down the road is the Tunnel Creek National Park, with a creek actually making its way through the range. So reef-walking shoes and a torch were necessary as the water was about up to our knees in places. The dirt road was appalling and it took us an hour to do the 35km but well worth it for the walk in the dark. 

Freshwater crocs at Windjana Gorge.

A National Parks volunteer had told us the day before to go outside the tunnel at the far end before returning and look for some Aboriginal rock art about 50m along the creek edge. This we found, much to our delight, but most people just came to the end of the tunnel, and turned around for the return journey.

The end of the tunnel.

We’ll have another shortish drive tomorrow to Mt Hart, about 50km north of the Gibb River Road, a former pastoral property now controlled by the WA Dept of Parks and Wildlife as a conservation park, with the homestead accommodation and campground run by the tour company APT. It has some pretty gorges . . . and a bar and restaurant!

 

August 23:

We had a wonderful time at Mt Hart, an oasis in dry season Kimberley weather. The manager was Bob, who’s there with his wife from Tumbulgum in the Tweed area for a few months. There were only a few other groups in the campground beside the Barker River, with a nice swimming hole right there. As well we drove to some other pools and gorges, having them all to ourselves, which was great.

Cooling off in Annie's Pool.

The DPaW is trying to destock the million-acre property, where it seems nobody made any money out of cattle, as they could fatten them all right, but mustering them out of the mountains and gorges was nigh impossible. Just before we arrived a contractor had managed to muster around 800 and they got trucked off to meatworks. But when we drove to some little gorges we saw some big old scrubber bulls that’ve obviously been hiding out for some time, as well as a family group of a bull, some cows and calves, and there were plenty of cowpats everywhere, so some more destocking is needed.

Reluctantly we left Mt Hart, which has an airstrip right beside the two homesteads and lush garden. Quite a lot of people fly in by light aircraft or helicopter and a very funny sign greets them.

 

We drove the 50km back to the Gibb River Road (only took us 1.5hrs) and went on to the Imintji Store, run by the local Aboriginal community and staffed by young backpackers. We had a real coffee and some freshly-baked muffins, and stocked up with some groceries and frozen bread and meat. Just as we were paying for that, a lad brought a basket of fresh baguettes out from the kitchen. We pounced on them at once, buying all four, especially when we were told that they were made by a French pastrycook.

A bustard out for a stroll on the road.

Imagine, on the Gibb River Road, baguettes that tasted as if they’d just been baked in Paris!  That pastrycook then emerged with a fresh apple pie that another customer was having with coffee. Yumm!

On we went, turning off about 25km later for an 88km, rather gruelling drive to Mornington Wilderness Camp, run by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy. There are two spectacular gorges here for us to visit, yet another bar and restaurant, and camping beside a little creek. We’re looking out at pandanus, paperbarks and ghost gums on the side of the creek.

Staff have warned us that a young female dingo has been seen lurking around the campground, so said we should leave nothing outside . . . such as shoes, books, hats etc as she may take them away. They’ve set a trap for her and will remove her to some other part of the sanctuary, a former cattle station that covers 322,000 hectares. It’s been destocked, allowing the native vegetation to recover and the populations of small mammals and birds to recover.

We’ll stay here three nights, exploring the area, then tackle that vile road back to the Gibb, where we’ll find another interesting place to stay.

August 26:

Dramatic scenery on the way to Mornington.

We left Mornington earlier than expected, but more of that later. We really enjoyed that place, bumping over 24km  of rough road to Dimond Gorge, one of the most beautiful in the Kimberley. On the way back to the camp we called into a swimming spot on the Fitzroy River, which was glorious.

That was when we discovered that our #$**! batteries had gone again so we hightailed it back to camp (where no generators are allowed) and managed to get some plastic bottles full of frozen water to put in the bases of the fridge and freezer to get us through the 

Fabulous Dimond Gorge

night, as we obviously couldn’t keep the truck motor running all night.

Close to the end of the Gibb River Road . .  Pentecost River

At the crack of dawn, literally, we were out of there, and the 88km access road took us almost 3 hours but once we were back on the Gibb, John just kept driving, stopping once at a roadhouse on an Aboriginal community to get fuel, and again for a quick sandwich beside the road.

In all, he drove for nine hours, and we almost covered the rest of the Gibb River Road, arriving at Home Valley station, which has an excellent campground, a bar and restaurant, where we got a powered site for the night.

Today, we set off on the final 30km of rough dirt road, with the bitumen starting about 33km before the road ends. That was when John got out to change the truck’s 4WD wheel hubs . . . and found one of the rear dual wheels had just gone flat, probably pierced by one of the sharp rocks. So he changed it, we tootled along into Kununurra, only about 80km away, saw a tyre bloke and arranged to get a complete new set of rear wheels, as those have done sterling service of 60,000 km around some of Australia’s roughest roads. That will be done once we get our auto-electrics sorted.

The tyre bloke gave John the name and number of a fellow who’s coming to the caravan park tomorrow morning. We’re booked in for at least a week, and the park is glorious!

Our site is under trees, including the distinctive boab of the Kimberley, everything is very lush and green, and we have already soaked in the swimming pool, just a few steps from our site.

One of the first things we did after making sure we had a caravan site was take the truck to a car wash and get rid of the Gibb River Road dust. It came off in great red gushes, a bit like it will leave our clothes when I wash them tomorrow.

We have no regrets about not calling at even more of the Gibb River Road places, because of our battery problem.  We think we’d already seen the highlights of the road, explored some wonderful gorges and were frankly, a bit ‘gorged out’.

Now we’re in Kununurra, there are several tours we’ll take, including a flight south to the Bungle Bungles, landing to do some of the walks ( more gorges!); a day at El Questro (where we had told ourselves we’d spend some time); and a cruise on either Lake Argyle or Lake Kununurra.