The end of the Gibb River Road

This photo shows the cost of fuel on the Gibb River Road. There are only two places along its 680kms to buy fuel. The other place charged $2.05 a litre! You have no choice. Anne paid $4.80 for a can of baked beans! I was able to buy post cards, but there was nowhere to post them. I had to bring them to Derby at the end of the road. It is located on the coast by King George Sound and is known for its huge tides. They can be up to 11 metres, so there are a lot of mangroves and mudflats and with that comes sandflies! The old jetty is still used to load live cattle for Australian and Asian markets. We got there to see the sun go down, but didn't linger too long.

We are now back in 'civilisation' in Broome.

El Questro and Manning Gorge

El Questro is a privately owned working cattle station and Wilderness Park. It has some of Australia's most expensive accommodation, but also a camp ground, for travellers like us. As its towards the end of the dry season, the waterholes and gorges are a bit low, but the swimming hole at El Questro Gorge, where Alan and Rick are swimming on the left, was small, but crystal clear. It was a 2 km walk up to this spot, and the adventurous could clamber over that big rock behind them, and go further up to bigger pools, but we were happy to stop at this one. There was a family of reasonably sized fish who would liked to hand around you in the water, which I found a bit disconcerting. We all agreed that this place was the nicest swimming hole, with Buley's waterhole at Litchfield a close second. There were lots of places to walk or drive to at El Questro. We stayed there for three very hot nights - one morning we hired a tinny and cruised up Chamberlain Gorge - the largest at El Questro. Anne caught a reasonable sized catfish, which we threw back.

The photo on the right is our car and camper trailer at the Manning Gorge campground. You can see we are camped under a very large Boab tree. There was a large sandy pool nearby which was good for swimming, although there were freshwater crocodiles there. We thought this was the nicest place we camped on the whole of the Gibb River Road.

The Gibb River Road

The Gibb River Road is an unsealed road that runs nearly 680kms from near Kununurra to Derby in Western Australia. It is only open from May to October in the dry season, and many of the river crossings have no bridges; you just drive straight through!

The photo on the left is taken from the Victoria River crossing. We camped on the banks of the river here and it was a very pretty sandstone escarpment. There was water in the river, but also crocodiles, so we did not swim!

The next crossing was the Pentacost River near El Questro. This was a wide shallow crossing in three sections, with the Pentacost Range as a backdrop. Everyone who travels the Gibb River Road takes a photo here! That's Rick and Anne's hire vehicle crossing. The sky is so blue and cloudless.

Photos of places we've been since Darwin

Of course you will recognise the two photos as being the Bungle Bungle formations in Purnululu National Park. This really is a fantastic place and the photos do not show just how beautiful it is. No swimming there, unfortunately. The water holes there are all but dried up. We had to make do with cold showers!

This photo on the right shows Alan swimming in Buley Waterhole at Litchfield National Park. This was a beautiful spot and one of the nicest plces we have swum in the North. Actually Litchfield was full of beautiful swimming places and there was heaps of water flowing everywhere there. It was also very hot and steamy, so the opportunity to swim was very welcome.

The Kimberlies

Its hard to describe the last two weeks in the Kimberlies in just a few words. Its so isolated out here - its hard for us city-slickers to live with no telephones, no internet, no newspapers and even no ABC radio! I could buy postcards, but not post them.

We started from Kununurra and drove to Purnululu National Park - or the Bungle Bungles - what an amazing place! All I can say is you have to see it for yourself! All the photographs and TV documentaries pale to insignificance when you are there, surrounded by the beautiful formations.

We went to El Questro, Ellenbrae, Manning Gorge, Bell Gorge, Mount Hart and Windjana gorge along the Gibb River Road. The weather was unrelentingly hot, but after Ellenbrae, it did cool down at night.

we are currently in Derby and will move to Broome tomorrow, where I may be able to upload some photos.

Western Australia

I guess we will be in Western Australia for a while, but its still a novelty at the moment. Firstly we had to put our clocks back one and a half hours making sunrise about 5.30AM. When its 40 degrees by 9.00 as it was today, that's not kind! By 8.00pm you are ready for bed!

We are staying in Kununurra and today we did a day trip to Wyndham, on the coast 100kms north west. We went the scenic way along a 4 WD road and came back along the bitumen. It is very pretty country; lots of boab trees and dramatic escarpments and flowing rivers. At Wyndham, 5 rivers flow into the ocean, and there is a convenient hill called the Bastion, which makes a wonderful loookout. From the top, over about 180 degrees, you can clearly see the mouths of all 5 rivers. It is a very unusual place. We were told to go to the Wyndham Town Hotel for a barra burger for lunch. It was the type of place I never would have gone into if it hadn't been recommended, as it was very run down and seedy looking, but the owner was a delightful lady who made us most welcome. Alan had the barra burger and raved about it so much that the lady ( Sue) offered to sell him a fillet so he could make himself another one! He took it, and had barramundi for dinner too!

More photos of Kakadu

Alan gave me a scenic flight above Kakadu as a birthday present. It was absolutely amazing and this photo shows where the wetlands mee the 'outliers' in the escarpment. You can see the South Alligator River which looks a lovely blue colour. When you are actually standing beside it, it is a muddy brown with these crocodile shapes cruising by! The wetlands are incredibly green, even from the ground. The second photo is the wetlands at Yellow Water, where we did the sunset cruise. As well as lots of very large crocodiles, we saw lots of birds, wild horses and fish.

some photos from the Top End

We are in Darwin and I am at Global Gossip with all the other (younger) travellers. This first photo is of the pool at Gunlom Falls in Kakadu National Park. I think if you look really carefully you can see Alan over by the falls. We camped here for two very hot days, so it was lovely to have the swimming hole to cool off in.

The next photo is of Jim Jim Falls Canyon. The dark spot on the rock is where the falls would be in the wet. We swam in that pool too.