The Gibb River Road has been conquered!! We saw some beautiful country, encountered some wildlife and emerged at the other end quite dusty but relatively un-scathed.

Our journey began at Kununurra, where we departed early and drove along the highway toward Wyndham before taking the turn-off for the famed Gibb River Road. A short stop for the obligitory photo of vehicle and the road sign, adjust the tyre pressures for the rocky road and we were ready to go. When we were planning this trip, the Gibb River Road was one track I wanted to travel. I had read a lot about it in magazines and on the internet, and I had been careful to set up our car and camper trailer so they would be capable of surviving what I had read was a remote and very rough outback track. It is written that the Gibb River Road is almost legendary as an outback trek, promising a challenging drive with rough roads, sharp rocks and numerous creek crossings. Combined with stunning scenery make it a "must do" for many four wheel drive enthusiasts. So, there we were, at the beginning of the Gibb River Road, staring down the dirt road littered with fist sized rocks, ready to start our journey, and we see a cloud of dust created by a vehicle heading in our direction. Someone has just completed the track and I was interested to speak to the driver for some infomation on the road conditions, so we waited for the vehicle to approach. The vehicle rounded the corner, drew closer, and it passed us without slowing down... as it passed I couldn't help noticing that is was a Mitsubishi Outlander... not a well prepared, rugged 4WD, but a stock-standard Outlander... right.... Oh, well... maybe they are just VERY adventurous, or they didn't get far before turning around... Once the dust had cleared, we were off. The dirt road was not too bad, a few decent rocks sitting here and there, but relatively smooth. Then, a few k's up the road, we hit bitumen... WTF! The bitumen lasted for kilometres, and after seeing the Outlander I was beginning to believe the GRR had been tamed and no-one had let on about it. Oh, well... the scenery was spectacular. We had red, rocky escarpments alongside the road, with the early morning sunlight lighting them up, there were Boab trees and open expanses of outback landscape, then we hit the dirt again, with corrugations and red dust, and the picture was complete! Awesome! My fears were allayed, the Gibb River Road has not been tamed! Well, not too much anyhow. A few kilometres further on we came to the turn off for the El Questro wilderness park. We had no intentions of going to El Questro because, beautiful as everyone says it is, it is quite expensive to even camp there. There is plenty of country out here to be explored for free or at a reasonable price. We turned off toward El Questro to visit Amalia Gorge. The road toward El Questro was actually worse than the Gibb, which was surprising considering El Questro advertise everywhere and are attracting more and more upper class customers, so one would think they would take better care of their road, or maybe the corrugations are left in place to provide their customers with a "genuine outback experience". We parked at Amalia Gorge and took a short walk in to the first rock pool. It is a nice gorge with a waterfall flowing into a pool, surrounded by palms. We found a Mertens Water Monitor sunbaking on the rocks beside the pool, he didn't seem worried by people and we could get within a few metres of him before he even stirred. Back to the Pajero, out of El Questro's road and back onto the Gibb River Road for another 30 or so kilometres and we came to the Penticost River crossing. As it was early afternoon by this time we decided to stop for some lunch in a small area just before the river. We had a view out over the river toward the Pentecost Range and could see vehicles crossing the river. We decided that it would do for a campsite and so we set up the camper. We noted that there seemed to be a lot of traffic on the GRR, a lot more than one would expect for a road that is regarded as being a "remote travel" destination. Just before dark, another couple pulled in and camped for the night. We had a quiet night and had a good sleep before getting up at sunrise to watch the dawn break out over the landscape, just beautiful. After a lazy breakfast sitting in the morning sun, we agreed that we would stay for the day, read a book and watch the world go by along the Gibb River Road, and we started counting vehicles that were crossing the Pentecost River. No, we really did not have anything more important to do!! :) The crossing is not deep, but it is very rocky. The bottom of the crossing is basically a layer of boulders about the size of footballs. This makes for some entertaining viewing when some clowns charge at the water, and also when a group of motorcyclists crossed the river. One guy dropped his bike in the river, someone waded out to help him, and then there were two guys struggling to pick up a BMW in knee deep water that is potentially home to Esturine Crocodiles. Happily, it all ended successfully for the bike rider and his mate. Our tally at the end of the day was 119 four wheel drives, 6 trucks (including road trains), 7 motorbikes and 2 tour buses. So, the Gibb River Road is hardly "remote travel"....

Early the next day we crossed the Pentecost for ourselves, then stopped shortly after for some photos of the ranges, before rattling along the road for a few hours. Once past the Pentecost Ranges, the scenery flattens out and actually becomes a bit mundane. Here it is very similar to the Savannah Gulf country of Queensland and Northern Territory that we travelled through on the Savannah Way. There are mountains in the distance, but the majority of the track from here on was flat. At least there were continuous corrugations and razor-edged rocks to keep us occupied! Around mid afternoon we came across another campsite at the Hann River. It was a nice little camp, tucked away on the banks of the small Pandanus Palm-lined river. After setting up, Kathy opened the kitchen pantry drawer to make a cuppa, and she found the lid missing from the coffee jar. It was laying next to the jar, everything was undamaged, but it seems as if the corrugations during the day have actually un-screwed the lid from the coffee jar. How peculiar! We had the place to ourselves for the whole night, apart from a noisy bull that was bellowing nearby just after dusk. Kathy was a bit nervous about him being close to our camp, as there are some bulls out there that are so far from the stations that they belong to, that they are almost wild animals. I suppose it is possible for a bull to be born, grow and mature and barely set sight on a human. So she was concerned he may be offended by us being camped there and take action, but he was just bellowing away into the wind to let us know he was there. He shut up after a while and we had another quiet night. The next day we crossed the Hann River, a short but bullbar deep crossing, and shortly after we turned off toward Mt Elizabeth Station. We had heard it was a nice place to stay and went to investigate. Upon speaking with the woman at the station, who did nothing to sell the place to us, we couldn't find reason to spend the money asked to camp there when we can see what we had been seeing for free, so we drove back to the Gibb and continued on. We took a turn off to visit the Barnett River Gorge and found ourselves winding along a slow, rough track that was only a couple of wheel tracks through the grass. It kept going and going, and we wondered where we were to end up. There wasn't a sign to be seen, and we finished up in a small parking area, again without a sign to be seen. There was another couple there who stated that we needed to walk along the dry riverbed and look for the "markers" that would lead us to the gorge. We had driven this far into the middle-of-bloody-nowhere, so we figured why not leave the car and walk even further into it.... We walked and searched, and turned around and searched, and eventually we found the markers, which were piles of stones laid out by god-knows-who and leading to god-knows-what... Anyway, we trekked on and eventually found the gorge. We came out onto a ledge high above the Barnett River, which had cut a gorge through the rocks. Nice view after the search for it, but not something I'd rush back to. We were back on the Gibb a short time later, and stopped at Mt Barnett roadhouse for a lunch break and to top up with fuel, with diesel at $2.05 per litre. Then it was back to listening to the Pajero's suspension, dashboard and doors communicate with each other in an alien rattle-sounding language as we glided over the corrugations and tyre-gouging rocks. We stopped at Galvins Gorge for a look. It is another river-flows-over-rocks-in-a-waterfall-into-a-palm-lined-pool type gorge. Don't get me wrong, thay are all beautiful places, but there are quite a lot of gorges all across the top-end of Australia that are almost carbon copies of each other, Galvins Gorge is another example of those gorges. Attempting to not sound like a spoilt brat... after a few thousand kilometres of similar gorges, one becomes very familiar with the average gorge, and it takes something different or special to really make an impact. I guess the term "gorged out" is as good as any explanation... From Galvins Gorge we continued about 75 km along the Gibb and turned off toward the King Leopold Ranges National Park. Here we spent the night at the Silent Grove campground, intending to have an early start and see Bell Gorge on the way out. As for Silent Grove, it was far from silent. We shared the not-so-large campground with more people than we cared to count, squeezed in between a toilet and another camper, kids crying, people snoring, generators running..... We accepted defeat and slept with ear plugs in so we would get a good sleep. We were on the road by 6:30am and drove the 10 km to Bell Gorge. We were the first there and made the short walk to the gorge just as the sun was rising. Now, what I was saying before about carbon-copied gorges... well, Bell Gorge breaks the mould. It is fantastic! We walked out from the track onto the edges of the riverbed. The river is running through the middle of the wide gorge, with rock walls either side and a huge rocky hill at one end. The best part is walking out to the edge of the gorge where the river flows down a five tiered waterfall into the pool about 30 metres below. It is a beautiful gorge and we were very pleasantly surprised. It just goes to show that you need to continue looking, and you will eventually come across something that stands out from the rest. Awesome spot!! We were greeted by a line of people on our walk back to the car, we arrived back at the Pajero by 8:00 and found the carpark full. Early is best in these parts, it seems. Todays travel was short, we drove back to the GRR and then turned off for Windjana Gorge National Park.

Once the camper was set up, we went for a walk into Windjana Gorge, which was only a few hundred metres from the campground. The walking track takes you along the river bank, right up against the sandstone walls that are carved out in intricate patterns by the wind and water over time. There is the odd overhang and cave to explore, then the track finishes at the sandy riverbed. From here we walked out onto the sand and alongside the much reduced river. Windjana Gorge is known to be one of the premiere locations in Australia for viewing Freshwater Crocodiles in their natural environment. The freshies are a shy animal, and others we have seen in the wild have slipped away at the first sight of us, but apparently here at Windjana they are more tollerant of people. It didn't take long before we spotted a small croc floating in the water only a few metres from the sandy shore. Then, a bit further along we came across three crocs laying in the mud on the bank of the river, only 5 metres from where people were standing and looking at them. We approached and found the group was a tour-bus group, and the guide was explaining to them about the Freshies that were in front of them. The guide went on to say about how the Salties (Esturine or Saltwater crocodiles) venture into Windjana Gorge in the wet season, but the gorge is home to the Freshies, that the Freshwater crocs are harmless to humans, and that the Salties don't bother hanging around dyring the dry season. After a few minutes of looking at the crocs in front of us, Kathy points to the bigger one and says to me, "Isn't that one a Saltie?". I hadn't taken much notice, presuming they were all Freshies, as is commonly told, but after closer inspection I completely agreed with her. The bigger croc was definately a Saltie. You can tell by the thicker neck, the eyes are more set into the head, whereas the Freshie's are on top of the head, the Salties head and jaws are more of a triangle shape when viewed from the front, the Freshwater crocs have a very long, pointed jaw line. We had a quiet chuckle, wondering how many of the tour group would still be standing 5 metres from a 2 metre croc if they knew it was a Saltwater Crocodile. The croc was too busy sleeping in the sun to bother anyone, but it was amusing at least.

Early the next morning we left the camper at Windjana and drove a further 25 km to Tunnel Creek. We were there all of two minutes when a tour bus arrived, b*****!! We let them go first and meandered our way into the tunnel after them. Tunnel Creek is basically what it is. A creek runs underground and has created a large tunnel shaped cave that you can walk through. In places we were in bum-deep water as we walked through the tunnel. The roof of the tunnel is amazing, huge stalictites hang down from the ceiling tens of metres above you in places. In other places the roof is so low you can touch it. I can not describe it in enough detail to do it justice. It is completely natural, no hand rails or board walks, just a tunnel with a creek running through it that you can explore at your own pace. Also, you need a very good torch because it is completely dark in some places. We found a small cave off to one side and went in, it was beautiful, the walls were sparkling with a crystal-like surface, and it was completely quiet. We turned off our torch and I have never experienced such a complete darkness. It was a fantastic experience to visit Tunnel Creek, one of the best things we have seen on our trip so far! The photos of Tunnel Creek are of a bit poor quality as we took our small camera (which does not do so well in low light) because I did not want to risk dropping the SLR in the water, but they are good enough to get a general idea of the place. Another night was spent at Windjana, we hit the road early again and turned back onto the Gibb River Road for the final stretch.

A few kilometres up the Gibb from the Windjana road we hit the bitumen. We figured that as we only had about 50 km to go, that was the end of the dirt. I adjusted the tyre pressures back to suit the black-top and we enjoyed the smooth, quiet ride for a while. Not too far up the road we came across a snake in the middle of the road. As I swerved around it I saw it was a Black Headed Python. I hit the skids hard and pulled the Pajero to a grinding halt. I had never seen a wild Black Headed Python before, so I was out and walking up the road in an instant. Kathy was close behind me and already had the video camera running. I had heard that Black Headed Pythons are a placid animal, and I was about to find out. As you will see on the video, he was a bit agitated and hissing a lot, but I managed to have a good look at him and didn't get bitten once!! I was stoked! What luck to come across him on the road, and what a great experience to be holding a wild Black Headed Python on the Gibb River Road!! The bitumen lasted for 20 km before returning to good quality dirt for a few km, then back to bitumen and the end of the famed Gibb River Road. We made it!! Awesome stuff!! The drive into Broome was uneventful and we parked ourselves in a caravan park.

The Gibb River Road trip was great, although at times the dust, rocks and corrugations start to get on your nerves a bit. All in all it was a great experince and we are glad we did it. I am very happy that I spent the time and money setting up the Pajero as I did, because although the tyres have some good cuts in them and a few chunks taken out here and there, we had no problems with flat tyres or broken components of any kind. One thing we have learnt is that when people talk of outback roads such as the Gibb, they often say that the red dust gets in everywhere. This is partially true, for in actual fact, the red dirt and dust gets in F##KING EVERYWHERE!!! We have dust inside the kitchen drawers, dust in the car, when we shut the car doors we have a cloud of red dust billow out from around the seals, dust in the clothes draw of the camper, dust in the fridge, red dust every-freaken-where!!! Oh well, it'll clean off... maybe...

We are in Broome as I write this. We had an issue with the starter motor on the Pajero which I attempted to fix, but it really does need a new starter, so we are waiting for one to arrive in a couple of days. We have driven along cable beach and sat to watch the sunset a couple of times. We attempted to camp out at Quandong Point but the weather has turned very windy and we nearly got blown away from the top of the sand dunes (now we have red sand on top of the red dust...), and so, we are back in Broome, awaiting a new starter. Hopefully we can be on our way by the end of the week and begin our journey down the West Australian coast.

'till next time....