Fitzroy Crossing

It's Monday afternoon, we are in Broome with two new tyres and a fancy-dance wheel alignment, stocked up on fuel, food and clothes and our destination is Fitzroy Crossing 400 klms away and times a-wasting.

 Some pictures of the waters in Broome. Very pretty

 What is called Staircase to the moon. It only occurs once of month. This was taken from our hotel room

We won't make our destination today, sunset is at 5.30 and there is no fun in driving around here at night. Too many roos on the road. We have an hour to get as far as we can and then we can continue on early tomorrow.

We got as far as the Boab Rest Area about 154 klms from Fitzroy Crossing. Have I told you about the rest areas around here? Back in Victoria where you can reach any part of the state in one day, rest areas are usually a small area, maybe large enough for 5 to 6 cars with a toilet and one or two picnic tables.

In Western Australia (and South Australia) rest areas are huge and usually always crowded with at least 30 cars and caravans, 99% of which are grey nomads (retirees who sell up and spend several years travelling the country in big arsed, state of the art vans) The down side for us is we never get a good position in the areas because we normally pulled in around dusk. The grey nomads have been there since 1pm ...... and they don't leave until 10am the next morning. Yep, that leaves a whole 3 hours per day travelling to the next rest stop and catching any sights along the way. The upside of spending the night with the over 70's is they are all snuggled up in their vans by 6pm so it's peaceful. 
 Boab Rest area was no different, actually it was probably more crowded than the other stops we had spent the night. The one thing I really don't like about the rest areas are the toilets. You would think I'd be happy not having to dig a hole but you would be wrong. The toilets here are the ones where they build a little hill, dig a hole right down the middle, put a tin shed on top with a thunderbox covering the hole. Yuk.....

It's about now I could say they scare the shit out of me but no ..... they scare me so much nothing comes out :) Anything could be down that hole, I don't know what sort of creature would want to live in such a hole and I don't really want to know, do you? My imagination runs overtime when it comes to these dunnies. Whatever lives down there is slimey, slithers, bites, sucks blood and has huge hands. No siree ..... I'll dig my own hole thank you.

  We pulled in around 7pm, didn't even bother to eat dinner, just climbed into bed and fell straight to sleep and woke 10 minutes later at 5am.  (it felt like 10 minutes)

Fitzroy Crossing is a nice place. It is primarily an Aboriginal settlement and is larger than most due to the tourist trade. It is situated on the sealed road taken from Northern Territory to Broome and sits on the banks of the Fitzroy River  (hence the name) Once upon a time not so long ago there was no bridge and crossing the river was a seasonal thing but not anymore.

We stayed in town for 2 hours and never left the information centre. The staff were lovely ladies who were up for a chat. One in particular, Jolene, was Aboriginal and she spent over an hour talking about her life and beliefs. She was so open we sat fascinated and could have stayed longer.

The original Fitzroy Crossing


The original crossing is still intact so we checked it out as well as visiting Mr Sawfish, a glass blower. Really beautiful work and a man who also likes a chat. 

We left Fitzroy Crossing an hour later and around $400 poorer. We were heading for an Aboriginal guided tour of Geiki Gorge and totally excited at the prospect of learning more of the Aboriginal culture.

Have you ever experience anything so bad that it's actually really good? Geiki Gorge itself is amazing. Nature at it's finest with majestic orange and white cliffs and calm crystal blue water, it was our guide who failed us in every way possible. Firstly, we doubted he was Aboriginal at all, he certainly didn't have the look or the voice but hey, who are we to question his heritage? (we discovered later, courtesy of Mart's sister, that he was married to an Aboriginal woman and he was as anglo-saxon as I am)

His attitude was wonderfully unique, a tourist guide who was obnoxious, rude and downright nasty. There were 6 of us in the group and within minutes we were all looking at each other with bewildered faces and wondering which of us will be voted to be the one who drives a knife through this guy's heart. We were all comfortable with the silent knowledge that whoever did the deed he would have the protection of the rest of the group.  

He gave us a 15 minute lecture about Aboriginal marriages, before we walked down to the water to board the boat. He also pointed out that he had told the people at the information centre that he had the flu and he was not in the mood to take a tour out but they never listen to him ........ great, only 1 hour, 45 minutes to go.
Because he had a cold or flu or ebola or whatever he spent the whole trip there and back making that horrible noise men make when they want to spit ..... and then spitting into the river. Lovely. This is where the whole 'its so bad, it's good' kicked in. After about the 10th spit I started to giggle. Martin started to chuckle. The others in the group started to snicker and before we knew it we were actually enjoying ourselves. When he made snide remarks there would be secret looks amoungst ourselves and secret smiles.
We weren't allowed to ask questions, He would snap "I'll get to that!" or "well, if you wait a minute" and each time Mart would respond cheerily "I'm sorry!"...... 

More secret giggles.

Our guide took us to his private camp area for "real" bush tucker. Lipton tea boiled in a rusty billy and stale Arnotts biscuits. Witchety grubs sounded more appetizing.  I didn't partake. Infact I had tuned this guy out 15 minutes ago and I couldn't tell you what he said or did for the rest of the tour. I just enjoyed the view. The Kimberly's never stops surprising you. When you think you have seen the most beautiful landscape ever, like never ever in the history of the world has there been a more wondrous sight, you turn a corner and BAM you find something even more beautiful.

Geiki Gorge is one of these places.

We made it back to the set off point without throwing the guide overboard and set off to our next destination. Tunnel Creek.
The road was one of the worst we had traveled so far. But we had two new tyres and a gold encrusted air compressor so we just sat back and enjoyed the ride.

Tunnel Creek is hmmmmmmm..... not for the faint hearted like me. Had I known what was in store I would have stayed in my car, so I'm glad I didn't know what was in store because it was fun. Scary, but fun.

The walk is through a cave, so it's dark, like total blackness. It's also filled with water. Can you see me walking through a black cave in thigh deep water? Yeah, no, me either. But I did it. Freshwater Crocs are known to be found in the cave but I was so freaked out by the whole blackness I didn't have enough freaked out left to worry about crocs. 

Half way through the tunnel the roof has broken away in places and allows light through. Just stunning. 

And when we emerged at the other end we were stunned at how large the cave is. 
Another must see in the Kimberlys. Just remember to bring a good strong torch.

Derby Day

Early morning at Windjana brought with it decision time. 3 punctures yesterday and a close inspection of the tyres revealed that the front two were scrubbed to canvas on the inside part of the tyre. We had serious alignment problems, the remaining parts of the two tyres were almost like brand new.

So we had 3 choices. We could continue on to Fitzroy Crossing over 104 klms on a sometimes rocky, sometimes sandy, always bone shattering track where there is a tyre repair guy or we could travel 20 klms on that same sandy, rocky, bone shattering track in the other direction and then 124 klms on sealed road to Derby, a town which we were told has a Tyre Power outlet. OR we could do the whole 20 klm thing and then go on for another 310 klms to Broome where we knew there would be a couple of tyre retailers.
This was something the ship's captain had to decide. He knew better than any of the crew members (me) what risks were involved.
He picked Derby.

Gibb river road heading to Derby. Very flat and very empty.

It was Saturday morning and we limped into port right on 9am, hit the tourist info centre for tyre outlet locations (there were 2), bought up big on the whole souvenir thing, hey, I needed retail therapy ........ and around 10 am we pulled into Derby Tyre Power. They were open but not to sell tyres obviously because the guy didn't want our business. "Come back on Monday"
Oh Brother ............
But not too worry, there was also a Bridgestone Outlet.
The place was locked up tight as a drum.  
We dropped in to the 4x4 store next door and purchased a you-beaut, dinky di, kick arse air compressor for over $300. I know, I know, you're rolling your eyes too right? Am I kidding? No I'm not kidding.
For $300 I wanted to know what else it could blow up. A children's jumping castle? A hot air balloon? The Lindberg Blimp? Come on people, we just spent over $300 for this thing, I want to blow something up. Sydney Harbour Bridge? The Queen Mary? The great barrier reef?
I almost couldn't wait to get back on the road again so I could go into one of those trancey things I go into when we are driving for hours and hours ......... and hours.......... just so I could think of things to blow up.

Anyhows........
Mart asked the gold lined, jewelled speckled air compressor seller guy when Bridgestone opens. "Should be open now, he always opens on Saturdays." They both went outside to take a look. "Well, whadya know. He ain't open today. Gotta be a first."
..............ok...........
 We are stuck in Derby, we can't go back out on The Gibb River because of the state of the tyres and we have to wait until Monday to get new ones and then we don't even know what brand of tyres are sold here.

So we went to the jetty and had lunch.

Barramundi, chips and salad and a bottle of wine. Brown Brother's Moscato. Not as delicious as Brown Brother's Orange Muscat and Flora but a very good drop none the less. We had bought 2 bottles of it at the local grog shop along with a bottle of scotch and Irish Creme. I think Mart was planning to drown his sorrows. We also wanted to buy a bottle of port but the grog shop was not allowed to sell port. Yeah I can see how that helps the aboriginal drinking problem. And we had to have it bagged up because you are not allowed to display alcohol on the streets of Derby. Because, you know, if you can't see it you won't do it. Right?

So here we are, eating great food, sipping great wine looking out at a great view of the ocean, well at least it would be a great view if the tide wasn't out. Derby has something like 10 meter tides so when the tide is out, it's way out. It's like over there in Paupa New Guinea out. Then Mart utters something that reminds me why I married him. "Let's just book in a motel, have a decent shower and a good night's sleep"
Thank you Mart.
Thank you tyres........... thank you Tyre Power ............ thank you Bridgestone.
And thank you Brown Brothers

We checked into the closest hotel which also happened to be the newest and the finest hotel in Derby. The Spinefex. Great room, great bed, fantastic shower. The shower was so fantastic is washed off my great tan.  

We even went out to dinner. There we decided that tomorrow we would drive to Broome. Perhaps they would have a larger range of tyres to choose from. Mart was keen to get the same brand of tyre he already had and we didn't think Derby would stock them. Beside we did all there was to do in Derby. Yeah, Derby is that exciting.

You may notice there are no photos of Derby. I did take them and I have spent quite a bit of time going through them to decide which ones were worth looking at. The results of this search is evident. None of them were worth looking at except this picture of 3 black kites which wasn't really taken in derby, it was taken in Windjana and I forgot to post it.

By 8.30 we were sailing out, travelled 30klms and remembered that the grog was still in the fridge at the hotel. (normally I would call it booze but when in Rome and everyone calls it grog in these parts) so we turned back to Derby. There is only one road in and one road out so we were getting to know it quite well. People waved to us, they thought we were locals, we were touched.

So once again we headed out of town, first stop the famous Prison Boab Tree. I suspecting that it is famous because it's the only thing in Derby to see and they need something famous.

I'm glad we looked at it, not because it's estimated to be over 1500 years old though that is impressive, and not because it's was the fattest tree I've ever seen though that did hold interest. I'm glad we looked at it because we got to see something from our ugly history. All the advertising for this tree neglects to mention that the prisoners held here were Aboriginal, most of which had never commited any crime. 
  Signs claim this is a sacred site for the Aboriginal. Martin's statement read more true I think "If I was Aboriginal, I'd want to blow the thing up."

I started running for the compressor.

You know, we are sickened and saddened by the past treatment of the black people in America and apartheid in South Africa and yet we don't ever look at what happened to the black people of Australia. We don't cover it in History lessons, in fact I bet most people don't know or even want to know what the white man did to them.

The quality of the photo is not great , sorry

It so sad.

But this isn't the forum to uncover our shady past so like most other Aussies I'll bury my head in the sand and continue. (for now)

So we are on the road again and for some unknown reason Mart decides he want to get off a sealed road and venture down a dirt track. Really? He's not had enough of dirt? The corrugations? He's not concerned that we are living on borrowed time with the tyres? Seems not. He wanted to take a look at the Fitzroy River and crossing it on a two laned sealed road was not the way to do it.
We travelled maybe 20 klms down this track

Then turned around and came back without ever finding the river. The map said it was there, the GPS said it was there though I'm not sure how reliable the GPS was because as far as it was concerned the road we were on didn't exist.
It just wasn't there. Had they moved it? Can you do that?
Oh well, onto Broome.

Surprise, surprise! It's the Fitzroy River and we did find it ........... on the highway

We made it to Broome by 11am, headed for their Tourist Info Centre and whaky-do whaddya know, we had another puncture.
That's No4.
At least we have that huge fan-dangled compressor that I had now decided could probably blow up Uluru.

While it is true I was still in need of retail therapy I kept the souvenir shopping to a minimum at the centre and I grabbed info on tyre outlets while Martin blew up the tyre. I was waiting for the explosion but it never happened. Hmm, ripped off again.

Broome is a surprising place, the biggest surprise being that it's there. It really is isolated. It's this big, busy town with lots to see and do, all geared for the tourist and it sits dap in the middle of nothing..
It has shopping complexes. I liked it.  

We did the touristy thing, checked out Cable Beach, walked the jetty, took in the sights, thought about washing some clothes and decided to buy more instead, ate. 
Broome's a nice town.

So we settled in to a plush hotel, watched the sunset over Cable Beach while sipping Tequila Sunrises and called it a night.

Tomorrow was Monday, we could have two new tyres fitted as well as a wheel alignment and head out once again and if all went to plan we would acomplish this all by 9am. 
 After two days of clean bodies and clean sheets we were itching to get dirty again.

View from our hotel room

Big Travel Day

We had spent the night camped along the Pentecost River not far from the river crossing. There are no bridges on the Gibb River Road but we are here in the dry season so the rivers aren't too deep.

It was peaceful and pretty and while we couldn't actually view the sunset I'm sure it was a beauty. Around these parts the sun was setting by 5.30pm but it was the hour before sunset that had us enthralled. When the sun is low in the sky everything around us took on a perfect orange colour. We took many photos of this over the next few weeks but none of them really captured the beauty.

We watched as a young couple pulled their car over near us and the man went down to the water for a swim. We wondered if he was German. Crocs seem to have a preference to them. Truly, I am not making fun of Germans, but it is common knowledge that more German tourists have been attacked by crocs in Aus than any other nationality.
 
The thing is the Kimberlys are home to thousands of Johnson's Crocodile, usually called Freshwater Crocodiles or Freshies. They are smaller than their mean cousins the Saltwater Crocodile (Salties) and also far more pleasant in nature.
Everyone seems to be a little too blase around here when it comes to crocodiles.

If you ask the locals you always get the exact same reply.
"No salties round here, plenty of Freshies, they won't hurt ya as long as ya keep out of their way. Sometimes we do find a stray salty here and there. Couple'a tourists came across one the other day down there by the crossing, haven't seen him since though. Probably taken off. You can tell the difference anyhow"  

 Tell the difference? I don't want to put myself in the position where I have to 'tell the difference'.
Ever.
And keep out of their way? How do you keep out of the way of a crocodile?
You don't go near the bloody water, that's how.
Do you see what I'm saying?

So we watched this guy swim and not get attacked, he obviously knew how to keep out of their way, or he wasn't German, or he could tell the difference,
We took in the wonder of the world turning orange, heated up tinned beef stew for dinner and went to bed around 7pm vowing to never eat tinned beef stew ever again.

We had got into the habit of going to bed very early and watching a movie on the computer. The whole car setup was almost perfect. We were still getting some dust in the bed area but we solved that by purchasing a cheap set of sheets and covering the bed with them. The bed itself was comfortable. So comfortable we looked forward to climbing in there and hunkering down for the night. Mart was amused that I hunkered, he didn't hunker, he just went to bed.

We woke in the morning to discover another perfect day. Do they have any other sort of weather here? We had a bit of travelling to do today, around 250 klms which doesn't sound too much but this is the Gibb River Road and the going can be slow. We were aiming for My Barnett Roadhouse which is roughly the half way point , there is not a whole lot to see on the way unless you are staying at one of the many homestead camping areas. They have gorges on these properties but you need to be a guest to access them.
If only we had more time.

We were packed up and on the road by 7am (early to bed...... early to rise)

 

 

One of the many river crossing on the Gibb River Road. Because it's late in the dry season none of the crossing were very deep

By 8.30 we were pulled over on the side of the road with our first flat tyre. Not to worry, Mart came prepared with not just one, but two complete puncture repair kits. Just one teensy little problem. The air compressor stopped working. It stopped working so well that it actually deflated the tyre instead of inflating.
Yeah ........ ok ............ what to do.
Well, there's not much you can do.
It's not like you can grab your mobile phone and call RACV, no reception.
You can't start walking to the nearest house and ask for help, that could be miles and miles away.
All you can do is sit and wait until a car comes along at a slow enough speed to be able to see us through the bulldust and then hope they are concerned enough to stop.
I found it surprising that several people did go by without stopping. What ever happened to helping your fellow man?

Did I ever tell you about the time when we were in Kakadu heading up to a place called Jim Jim Falls? That was remote. It was so remote the remoteness was remote. (whatever that means) Well, we chanced upon a family whose car had broken down and the wife was on a satellite phone to the RAVC demanding that they respond to their breakdown call. This is why they paid premium service ! We tried explaining that even if they did respond it would take them 3 days to get here. Mart fixed their car which they didn't seem too happy about, I think they would have preferred to wait 3 days and get their money's worth from the RACV. We ran into them again later in the day on a small boat cruise and they pretended that they didn't know us. I wished that Martin hadn't fixed their car too.
I thought that was a fun story.

Anyhows........... some good people did stop and lend their air compressor and after a 2 hour delay we were on the road again by 10.30am.

Dust kicked up by a passing car. Because there was no wind the bulldust just sat for a long distance. Luckily there weren't too many car that passed.

At 12.45pm Mart uttered something that went a little like this "Oh gosh, oh gee. darn it, we have another silly old puncture. Now aren't we the unlucky ones?"
And sure enough, here we were again, stopped by the side of the road hoping someone would chance by.
A lovely German couple who obviously hadn't been swimming did chance by and lent us their compressor.
Then another couple towing a caravan stopped to see if everything was ok. "we are fine now" Martin explains "However did you know you have a puncture?" The gentleman, Bob, did the whole "oh gosh, oh gee" routine and explained he had just had that tyre fixed.
Well in the end Martin and Bob fixed both tyres, pumped them up and we were on the road once again after another 2 hour delay.
We made it to Barnett Roadhouse only to be told that they had sold their last air compressor but not to worry, we couldn't possibly get another puncture right?

We spent the night at Manning Gorge Camp Area which was our aim however we didn't get to see the actual gorge because we had spent the day goshing and geeing all over the Gibb River Road. It is one of the best gorges we were told but took several hours walking and climbing to get there. Mart was extremely disappointed, I was secretly pleased and whispered a thanks to the tyres.

Our camp site a Manning Gorge. We were there a while before setting up because the hot showers were only available between 4.30 pm and 6pm.
 

We had pork chops for dinner and decided we were definitely right in vowing to never eat tinned beef stew again. And we had a shower.

By the way, did I tell you that Bob, the punctured tyre guy, was a contestant on The Biggest Loser? I don't know how long ago it was but he lost 87 kilos and has not put it back on. He told us it had changed his life and there was no way he could have ever tackled the Gibb River Road with the size he was. Good onya Bob.
I thought that was a nice story.

So a new day dawns and guess what? It's sunny again. Really, wouldn't life be boring if all you had to look forward to were cloudless sunny skies everyday? We were back on the road again by 7.30am.
First stop Galvin's Gorge. Even had a waterfall. And you could swim there though Mart decided not to. Maybe because there was no crowd to cheer him to victory? The walk was lovely and the gorge was pretty. We were pleased as punch.

Galvin's Gorge

 

Imintji Store. The roadhouses along the GRR are mostly situated on cattle stations (ranches). The Imintji Store is situated on Aboriginal Land right in the middle of an Aboriginal community.

We lunched at Iminji Store which is owned by the local Aboriginal Community then headed off to Windjanna which Martin's sister had recommended to us. Oh she was so right to recommend this place. We settled the car in the camping area as this was going to be our home for tonight and headed off towards the gorge.
In all the walks, in all the world, this has to be the best walk I have ever walked. This walk was so great I forgot that I was walking. I'll show you.

The walk to the gorge

First glimpse of Winjana Gorge

One of the residents at the Gorge. There were perhaps 30 in the area

And then to top off the best walk we've ever walked when we turned around to walk back the magical orange hour had begun and made everything so beautiful it was like we were seeing it for the first time.
In case you didn't get my drift ......... this was probably my most favourite place in the Kimberlys.

But all good things have to come to an end and when we returned to our car/camp a guy in the next camp called out to us something that we really didn't want to hear "hey mate, do you know you have a puncture?"
At least there were plenty of people around to lend us a compressor.



Gibb River Road

Today is the day we hit the Gibb River Road but first a little boring background information.
The road was created as a cattle and supply route yonks ago, it is 660 klms (410 miles) long and although it is a major tourist route now it remains at least 90% a dirt and gravel road. It stretches from Kununurra in the east to Derby in the west and is the only access to many of the wonderous sights that can be seen only in the Kimberlys.

It is remote.

It's situated in Australia's far north which means it only has two seasons The Wet and The Dry. During the wet (summer for us in the normal world) The road is pretty much impassable because of flodding besides it's so hot and humid no one wants to be there anyway. So in the dry it becomes a super highway connecting east to west and one of the most travelled dirt roads in Australia.



Before entering the Gibb River Rd we took a pleasant drive to Wyndham that left us wondering why we took a pleasant drive to Wyndham. It did have a spectacular lookout so it wasn't a complete waste of time, and it did have a giant crocodile (made of fibreglass of course) in the main street but other than that if you blinked you missed the township altogether.
We blinked.


lookout in Wyndham. It was hard to get a clear picture because everything was blue and it all blended in together



So after blinking we turned around and headed back to the Gibb River turnoff.



Exciting! This is it! This is what we travelled 5000 klms to see, the famous Gibb River Road, the bone crunching, car destroying gravel track........ and discovered a sealed road. That's ok, that's ok I'm sure they haven't sealed the WHOLE thing.




First glimpse of Gibb River Road

33 klms down a sealed road we approached the turnoff for our 1st destination, El Questro. Most of the land in this area is actually cattle stations. Most of the cattle stations are owned by Aborignals these days but there are still some owned by white man and El Questro is one of them. The place is enormous with many beautiful gorges to explore and the roads aren't sealed so we finally have corrugations and bulldust and the steady pelt of stones hitting the underside of the car. This is what we came for.

By the time we reached the booking office/caravan park/hotel/restaurant we had to seriously consider where we were spending the night. There is no free camping on ElQuestro so $105 later we had secured a private camp site and were bush-bashing our way to it. A pretty site on the banks of the Pentecost River. Money well spent. We watched the sun go down at Pigeon Hole lookout, and spent the longest time, watching by torchlight, a crocodile stalking a water bird. I was barracking for the bird, Martin wanted the croc to win.

The croc never attacked the bird but sandflies attacked me.



Our private camp site

The morning was glorious, blue skies, sun shining and we ate breakfast studying a kangaroo trying desperately to drink from the river while being ever aware that a croc could pounce on him any moment. You can learn a lot by watching an animal's movements. The roo, just like the bird last night, never stayed in any one place for too long, always keeping one step ahead of the crocs. I decide that I will take on this new found knowledge and keep one step ahead of the sandflies.
Sandflies (midgies, noseeums) are smarter than crocs though they aren't as easy to outsmart.

Roo watching out for us

And watching out for Crocs

Today we are going to explore El Questro.
We headed for Chamberlain Gorge, 30 minutes up the road. We were excitied, our 1st gorge on the Gibb River, but you need a boat to actually see the full gorge, and you need to hire the boat from the office about 30 minutes away but don't bother because they are booked out for today.
What?
Why weren't we told this when we were at the office yesterday?
Oh brother .......

So we stood on the small jetty watching people drive off in their little hired boats telling ourselves that we didn't want to see this gorge anyway, even though, from what we could see, it looked very picturesque.

We've got plenty of other things to do.

Chamberlain Gorge ------ as much as we could see of it

Chamberlain Gorge - The other side of the jetty

We headed to Explosion Gorge. Didn't get to see that one either.
We had to cross a mainly dry river bed that was covered completely with large, jagged rocks/bolders, it was slow going and the car was creaking and complaining and I, not Martin, made an executive decision that I didn't want to kill our car just to look at water and a wall of rock .

The road to Explosion Gorge



My driver was not completely onboard with my thinking but I guess he couldn't handle the complaining any longer because he turned around and we headed for our next destination, Jackaroo Waterhole. It was nice and we had lunch there but it wasn't really what we had come to see. 



Jackaroo Waterhole

Our final stop in El Questro was Moonshine Gorge. Just like in the picture books .... crystal clear water, sun-bleached rocks, palms and high, impressive rockwalls.

Moonshine Gorge

Mart took a quick dip in a great looking waterhole. It was a quick dip not because time was against us (which it was) and not because it wasn't hot enough to swim (which it was) but because the water was freezing! Had we read the signboards before heading off we would have read that the water is so cold hyperthermia sets in quickly.
Mart dove into the water, surfaced, turned and started swimming back at lightening speed. I thought he was getting into the Olympic spirit and trying to break the world record for the 100 mts.
I started cheering him on.
I was waving the aussie flag and chanting Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oui, Oui Oui. A crowd gathered and they cheered too.
We sang Land Downunder.

It was a moment, you should have been there.



A quick dip

Luckily only Mart went in because if it had been me I would have shivered and sooked for days. I don't have his 'man of steel' constitution. JG (Jude's giraffe) didn't swim either which is lucky because we all know how bad it is to travel with a giraffe who has a cold.

It was time to leave El Questro, not because there was nothing else to see, in fact we could have spent days there, but because we are on a timetable and the Gibb River Road was calling us.

One of the several river crossing in El Questro

And another one

And then it happened.

It struck on the track out of El Questro without warning. Many an innocent traveller before us have had their cars attacked by this, indeed some may have lost their lives and now we too have become victims of ............ The Killer Rock of the Kimberlys.
You never know when it will strike, it's attack swift and effective. Kicked up by a passing car this killer rock slammed into the bonnet (hood) of our car. Then slowly but with great grace and force, pounded into the windscreen before executing a perfect triple spin with half pike and crashed into the roof of the car. 
And then it was gone.

For a very, very short time I was left speechless.
Where it struck the car was right where my face would have been if I had my face pressed up against the windscreen, which I didn't, luckily.

Really.............. how lucky was that?

I spent and am still spending, a large amount of time reflecting on my near death expeirence. Now I may be inclined to exaggerate a little as to the size of this rock but let me tell you, when I watched, in slow motion, that bolder hurdle towards me I thought that Uluru had come to visit.
It was that big.
After a day or two I had downsized it to one of the Olgas.
Now my thinking is leaning towards one of the Devil's Marbles. I refuse to go any smaller than that.
One good thing about this whole traumatic event was for a small amount of time my bites weren't itchy.

Windscreen damage. This was my view for the next 4 weeks

So as we limped out of El Questro back to the GRR (Gibb River Road) we were at least pleased that the road was now sealed.
For about another 20 meters.
But that's ok, this is what we travelled 10,000 Klms to do.

We were finally on the Gibb River Road.

Our car on the Gibb River Road