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