The Gibb River Road (GRR) was originally built to facilitate the transport of cattle from the remote stations of the Kimberley to Derby and Broome where they would be put on ships, but now it is also a popular destination for 4WD travellers like ourselves because of the beautiful mountain ranges, and numerous gorges and waterfalls that can be accessed.
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| Hidden Valley - Kununurra |
The town of Kununurra is the eastern gateway to the GRR and therefore a must stop to stock up on groceries (no fresh food on the GRR), fuel (to avoid spending $3/L) and alcohol (no take away booze, and very expansive at the bar). The town is nothing special but I love the Boabs lining the streets and the surrounding landscapes are quite beautiful. The Lake Argyle, south of town is where the very rare and expensive pink diamonds are mined and has also one of the only deposits of Zebra Stone. Both are so pretty that I could already see myself with a pink diamond wedding ring and a house decorated with Zebra Stone objects, but the prices brought me back to reality real quick! Diamonds were out of the question but we did buy a little vase of Zebra stone.
On starting the GRR, the view was already breathtaking with the Cockburn Ranges rising ahead of us. The landscape is quite dry, it being the end of the dry season, but there is many different sort of trees (many species of gums and other natives), some with white barks, some with fire blackened barks, some with dark green leaves, some with vibrant green foliage and some with dried up withered brown leaves, and a strange one with long dangling red pods; and the Boabs, standing out with their weird shapes and bare branches. The ground is mostly covered with spinifex with colors ranging from pale beige to bright yellow. The dirt road was quite corrugated with numerous sharp rocks and we had heard of many punctures and damaged vehicles, so touch wood it wouldn’t happen to us!
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| Cockburn Range |
Our first stop was El Questro, a one million acre cattle station still operating a small herd of 500 hundred head of cattle but mostly converted to tourism with accommodation ranging from camping to luxury rooms in the homestead. We were camping by the creek, where it is safe to swim and had fun observing the white cockatoos’ mating dance and a lace monitor wandering around and creating a lot of shrieking from the birds in the surrounding trees. On the property there is many gorges with waterfalls to drive then walk to. We went to El Questro Gorge and Emma Gorge and both took us for a 40 min walk clambering over rock and boulders, following a creek with Livistonia Palm on its banks. The first walk ended with a small narrow Gorge, a mini Waterfall and a pool with the most crystal clear water I have ever seen (and I have seen my fair share of crystal clear water on this trip already!) Very cute and intimate spot to freshen up before the walk back . Emma Gorge was much more impressive with a long drop of water falling from a very high red rock cliff, ferns growing on the walls and a deep freezing pool (max 16°C) at the bottom. We did swim (well took a dip in my case) and then discovered a trickle of warm water from a hot spring on the left side wall of the gorge with a narrow “bath tub” carved in between two slabs of rocks. Wonderful to sit in, really hard to get out of. We also had a quick bath in the Zebedee Hot Springs, a series of small hot water pools in a little pocket of rainforest. Nice but far too crowded and I got a leach in a very uncomfortable spot. Yuk. Bitter Springs at Mataranka kicks the ass of Zebedee I reckon.
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| Sunset Lookout |
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| Zebedee Hot Springs |
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| Drive to El Questro Gorge |
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| Livinstonia Palms |
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| El Questro Gorge |
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| How clear is that water! |
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| Emma Gorge |
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| Emma Gorge Hot spring |
Next stop on the GRR: Home Valley Station. The camp by the homestead has the only lush manicured lawn of the GRR but we decided to camp further down, by the Pentecost River where Pete could go fishing. From there we had the most amazing views on the Cockburn ranges on the other side of the river, with the sunset light reflecting on the red rock cliffs. Absolutely stunning and Pete’s favourite camp spot so far. Our mornings were spent fishing on the bank the fast flowing river full of crocs (well Pete fishing, me reading) and our afternoon chilling by the pool back at the homestead. Hard life. Pete wanted to try night fishing and I came along to hold the spotlight on the water watching for crocs. We could see some bright yellow spots made by the light reflecting in the crocs eyes and were finally spooked out by one giant eye that seems to be headed towards us. At the end not much luck in fishing but still a lovely spot to see.
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| Pentecost River |
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| Home Valley Station |
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| Camp at HVS |
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| Cockburn Range |
Next we had a long day of driving (6hours on corrugated road, you are glad when it’s over) down the GRR then up on the Kalumburu road heading north to the King Edward River (KER) camp from where we would do a day trip to the most famous (and remote) Mitchell Falls. On the way we had to go across the Pentecost River, already quite large this late in the dry, I can barely imagine how it might look in the wet! At KER we caught up with Phil and Fiona whom we met at Home Valley and ended travelling most of the GRR with. We did the trip to the Mitchell Falls together; it was another long drive, 4 hours return on heavy corrugations, sharp rocks but great vegetation. The walk to the falls was one hour and very hot but with good views from the top of the Mertens Gorge and a rewarding swim at the top of Mitchell’s. Then we walked around to get a good view of the 3-tier Waterfall. Really gorgeous (pun intended) but even better was the 18 min helicopter ride back to the camp, with no side doors, a bit scary but so much fun. We first flew north towards the coast (30 km from there) passing Rivers and Waterfalls and did a few loops above the Mitchell falls. We all loved it. Even though it’s a long day trip the KER camp is worthwhile staying at. The riverbank is made of flat smooth stone with a red tint that looks like spray paint and round holes carved by water. We had some good swims in the river and the little rapids and Pete had a close encounter with a little freshie that was peacefully sunbaking on the rock. I wish I had been there to see his face and how quick he swam back to the other side! We also went to a nearby aboriginal art site and found a pile of bones in a hole in the rock.
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| Big Mertens gorge |
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| Mitchell Falls |
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| View from helicopter |
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| Aerial of Mitchell Falls |
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| Rocks at King Edward River camp |
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| Aboriginal Rock Art |
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| Traditional Graves |
We planned our next stop with Phil and Fiona and went to Mount Elizabeth Station. The camp was basic but there was wallabies wandering everywhere. I got to feed and pat a cute little mummy that had a newborn in her pouch. How gorgeous to see it’s little red hairless head poking out. There was also a troupe of six noisy Peacocks including one female albino. They look beautiful but they sound awful. The road to the Wunnumurra gorge was a real 4WD adventure with steep slope littered with big rocks. Phil and Pete had a ball negotiating the passage. Fiona and I were standing outside taking pictures hoping nothing would break. The Gorge was reached by climbing down ladders and in addition to a great swimming pool had a nice rock art section where we saw paintings of the Wandjinas, spirits of the Dreamtime in Aboriginal mythology who influenced the landscape and its inhabitants. These paintings are a few thousand years old and regularly repainted over to ensure the continuity of spirits presence.
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| Camp at Mt Elizabeth Station |
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| Wandjinas |
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| Wunnumurra Gorge |
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| Rock Art |
Our next camp was at the Mount Barnett Station. There was the most amazingly tall 3-trunk boab there and of course we forgot to take a picture of it! We could swim in the Manning River just by the camp and Fiona and I were most excited by having to swim across pushing along Styrofoam boxes carrying our gears to do the walk to the gorge 3 km further (doesn’t take much to make us happy, does it). Pete preferred the option of crossing with the small rowing tiny (he wouldn’t trust the boxes with the cameras) on which he stood picturing himself as a gondolier cruising along the Venetian Canals. The walk offered good views of the ranges around and the large swimming rock pool at the end was an absolute delight, with rock to climb on and jump off.
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| Red-tailed black cockatoos |
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| Pushing the styrofoam boxes |
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| Pete the Gondalier |
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| Manning Gorge Falls |
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| Goanna |
Overall we spent about a week travelling with Phil and Fiona; it was a lot of fun and Pete made two new convert to his favourite card game: Chocolate Starfish. They were also very generous in sharing their booze with us as it turned out we hadn’t planned the two weeks all that well. But we parted ways after Manning, they were heading for Derby and we wanted to keep going for a coupe of days. We were by then getting a bit “gorged out”, after all every stop consists of walking to a gorge, seeing a waterfall and swimming in the rock pool; It’s all very beautiful but two weeks of it was enough.
The last spot we did was absolutely worth it though: Windjana Gorge is part of the large Devonian reef that was formed over 300 million years ago, then standing at the bottom of a vast tropical sea that later receded due to movements of the Earth’s crust that resulted in the uplifting of the Kimberley region and left the Devonian reef standing as a high limestone range towering over the savannah woodland and grasslands. During the next millions of years, the Lennard River proceeded in carving through the range leaving exposed the level of sedimentation and fossilized marine life. The range view from our campsite was stunning, especially with the sunset light increasing the colour contrast between grey and red rocks. The walk through the ancient reef was quite different from the other gorges we had seen; the bottom layer of the range is made of a white porous rock, the first layer of reef formation at the bottom of the sea 360 million years ago. We saw the distinct fossil imprint of a Nautiloid, a squid- like prehistorical creature. It was mind-blowing to stand there imagining the marine life around the reef so long ago and the dramatic landscape changes since then. The walk had another thrilling sight to offer: fresh water Crocodiles absolutely everywhere, in the creek and sunbathing on the sandy bank. More than we have ever seen. We slowly walked up to a group of three and were standing about 3 metres away from them; they just stood there, one with its mouth open (apparently a cooling technique), completely unperturbed by our presence. Beautiful creatures.
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| Queen Victoria Head - Uncanny! |
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| Windjana Gorge from our camp |
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| Inside Windjana Gorge |
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| Fossilized Nautiloid |
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| Ancient reef |
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| We counted 13 freshies just in that group |
Our last little trip on the GRR was to Tunnel Creek, also part of the ancient Devonian reef, this is a walk that took us under the range, on a two km walk in a pitch black cave, trudging through freezing water, with bats and stalactite over our head, quite fun.
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| Tunnel Creek |
But now it was time to head for Broome to meet up with Kim and Graeme and plan our next adventure together: the Dampier peninsula with its beautiful beaches and great fishing.
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| Ex-prison tree |
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| Boabs ar such amazing trees! |
