Crossing the Australian Outback 2011: Day 46

It is amazing, up to now, after 44 days on the road, we still have not encountered any rain save the downpour on the way out of Sydney.

We left the amazing geologies of the Bungle Bungles early on a 37 Deg morning, waved bye to the Rangers as they were waiting for their morning coffee. It took us a good two hours just to get back to the Great Northern Hwy, passing the same bush fires, retracing our way towards Wyndham again. But this time, we turned west onto the famed Gibb River Rd 52 Km shy of Wyndham.

There are plenty of history associated with Gibb River Rd, here is a version of it on

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibb_River_Road. It has been one of the signature tourist road for 4x4ers for many decades, however, it pays one to pay attention to the Road Condition signs at either end of the road, getting trapped in it, may mean a long unwanted delay.

This time, the road is fully OPEN, end to end, as well as the side road to the north, leading to Mitchel Falls and Kalumbaru.

Our first stop was at the El Questro Station, not far from the eastern end. El Questro Station is a private ranch, developed into a wilderness resort offering outback camping for different needs, from isolated bush camp sites to 5 Star air conditioned tents. It is quite expensive, but, considering that they offer many natural attractions with National Park standards, in terms of environmental and safety requirements, one can understand. But a 4x4 is an absolute must to visit some of their attractions. We've done a number of walks along some beautiful and isolated gorges, swimming in waterholes that are pristine and refreshing, some are more strenuous than others, but the rewards invariably more than compensate for the efforts.

The most interesting are the natural hot springs meandering down a number of creeks with many natural rock pools, some surrounded by trees inside a forest....although a cooler climate would be better! The beauty of Australian outback attractions are, they are natural. Even man-made structures, where needed for safety reasons, blend in perfectly.

The majestic Cockburn ranges are never out of our sight as we drove westwards, until we crossed the 300 meter wide crossing of the Pentacost River. The Pentacost Crossing was the first ever water crossing that I have even driven , it is still as thrilling as it was 8 years ago, to take one's car over the bed rocks of a 300 m wide river infested with crocodiles. This time, I have to cross it three times to take some action videos for my Alzheimer days!

By the time we arrived at the junction of Kalumbaru rd., leading to Mitchel Falls and Kalumbaru in the extreme north, it was nearly twilight, and there is one more, this time, an unknown river crossing. We saw an Aborigines family, just crossed onto the other side, in an ordinary sedan, so it must be OK. This was the last car we saw that evening, until we were about to leave our roadside camp somewhere down the road, the next morning. To be honest, we feel so safe in travelling in the outback in Australia, we did not think twice about pulling onto a side clearing and set up tent.

Public Phone in a fridge !!

After decamping the next morning, we fuelled up later at the Drysdale Station further down the road, and enquired about the road condition further north.

There had been tales about the road condition being so bad to Mitchell Falls, that its known to destroy shock absorbers etc. But it was almost a non-event to get to Mitchel Falls camping ground, another 188 Km later, albeit, some annoying corrugations.

As soon as we set up camp, we booked ourselves for the next helicopter flight into the majestic Mitchell Falls, there seems to be a small queue, we waited an hour whilst having lunch.

At this time of the year, Mitchell Falls is no longer as mighty was it would after the wet season, but nonetheless, a beautiful waterfalls from the air. After exploring around, instead of taking the flight back, we opted to wade/swim across a small rushing creek, and walk our way back, it was a 2 hour walk over some picturesque terrains. To hiked up instead of the helicopter, would have taken 3 hours uphill, in the heat, although there would be plenty of waterholes along the way, to cool ourselves down, but it would have meant staying for another day. The helicopters fly back to Drysdale Station during the night.

Hiking right next to Mitchel Falls

We continued the next day to explore into the unknown world of Aboriginal settlement, Kalumbaru. And to see for ourselves, the legendary Honeymoon Beach and Pago Mission Ruin, each has a story to tell, all are associated with the early Benedictine Monks setting up their first mission in this part of the Kimberleys over 100 years ago.

Kalumbaru is 270Km from Gibb River rd, and another 440 Km to the nearest town Derby, one of the most remote settlements in outback Australia. Kablumbaru rd itself, is very rocky and hard going, full of short and steep dips wherever there is a creek crossing. The roads to Pago Mission is as rough as any other 4x4 tracks can dish up in the worst sense of the word, it is not for the faint hearted. Nevertheless, it boasts an airport, school with library and a playground and a Police station, but we can see quite a lot of man made damages to these buildings, probably due to mishandling or sabotaging by kids. On the way, we have seen quite a number of tourists towing motorboats with their fishing gears in full display.

As is the case for entering Aborigines settlements, no alcohol is allowed, not a worry for us.

There is a Catholic mission which still basically running the place, with government subsidies, and reading between the lines, there is quite a bit of politics between them and the government. The housings seems quite adequate on driving through. The only supermarket there sold apples for $4 each, and the Catholic mission sold Petrol at $3.40 / l, about 3 times the price in Sydney. Fortunately, our needs are small.

On the way out that night, we spent another relaxing night on a clearing besides the main road.

Back to Gibb Rd the next day, and continued towards Derby, there were a number of Gorges and waterholes to either swim through or some lonely peace. We were lucky, most of the way, ahead of a group of tourists, when they arrived after some strenuous walks, we would be finishing our swim, and ready to go. Most of the time, have the whole place to our self.

We passed through the private Mount House Station ( along 51 Km length of the road ),

with its large herd of cattle, the Leopold Ranges and its famous Queen Victoria Head, nothing changed much over the last 8 years, as far as I can recall. The same epic scenery kept unfolding as we meander along Gibb River rd. One last stopover was to visit Winjana Gorge again, to check on the bird lives there, and the non-threatening freshwater crocs were still floating along in the creek.

And finally, we reached the end of Gibb River during the late afternoon, 6 days after we left Bungle Bungles, 1938 Km later. We entered Derby, passing the good old Prison Boab Tree, which has a hollow body, fat enough to house 8-9 prisoners, the days when Polices used to round up Aborigines for one odd reasons or another.

The next segment of our trip would explore the Western Kimberleys, including the very topical James Price Point, a site in the middle of a raging controversy about development and preservation of pristine land and cultural significant sites.

You are invited to view David's photo album: 20110930 Gibb River Road