Day 43

Kununurra - El Questro

"somewhere over the rainbow......."

El Questro - wow. I can see why Baz Luhrman wanted to film here! This whole place is just amazing ! There is a million acres here and we won't even get to see a tenth of it but......wow.....

We got up at 530 this morning for the drive in. Back on the Gibb River Road and I've got to tell you it's nothing! I was expecting heavy going 4wd but the majority of it to Questro was bitumen!

We turned off the main road onto the Gibb and drove straight to Emma Gorge. It was a great walk up to the waterfall - about 3k round trip. We walked past Turquoise Pool with beautiful clear water and traversed over boulders and river rocks till we got tinge falls. Such a beautiful outlook. There is a main waterfall and a rain like fall on the other side. There is even a thermal spring out flow on the right of the falls.

From Emma Gorge we drive to Zebedee Springs. Awesome - just like Mataranka only there are lots of little holes to go play in! We spent abou an hour and a half clambering over rocks from one spring hole to the next . The springs close at 12 - exclusively for tour groups so we got out just before being kicked out! We'll be back though!!

We then drive to El Questro Station - through Moonshine Creek (a breeze) and then through the Pentecost River - we raised the Disco but still 2wd for the 40m drive in the river. Only about half way up the wheels so no worries. We checked into our Bungalow accommodation and then decided to drive to El Questro Gorge.

The Gorge at El Questro is the hardest walk we've done to date - and we've done plenty bad you know . The drive into the gorge was tough enough! Back through the Pentecost River and then a turn onto a dirt track. A small creek crossing and then the deepest crossing we've done to date. Itvwiukd have been at least 50m in length and I needed to use low range and therock crawl setting for this one - it was deep! We're talking bow wave from the bonnet - but the Disco just lapped it up without a problem. Corinne videoed our return trip!

Some bigger sand ruts to drive and we found the car park and got ready for the walk. It was a 3 k round trip but full of our own 4wd walking - either through the water crossings or negotiating boulders or damasked rocks in the river . We only walked to the half way mark - but found a great little waterfall section with a pool to swim in. Any further on and you were wet anyway as you couldn't go on without swimming.

The scenery on our walk ranged from river beds to 300m high gorge walls to rainforest with palms and ferns it changed so often.

After our swim we trugged back to the car and the Disco's swim out ( Cayla loved it!) and headed back for a rest at the station . We watched Cayla swim in the river - no crocs this end- and then had a nice Barramundi dinner in the restaurant - very posh!!

Tomorrow we will do Amelia Gorge, Zebedee again and then drive out to neighboring Home Valley Station before heading back to Kununurra.