Gibb River Road - the Kimberley - Shake it to the Corrugations

Darwin

Midnight arrival with taxi trip to Coconut Grove. Driver proves a bit hard of understanding and himself hard to understand. My remark of humorous intent that the suitcase ain't heavy, he's my brother, elicited the response that it’s a suitcase. OK, that one fell flat.

Morning pick-up of 4WD Campervan went well enough – amazed that we were provided with a personal emergency beacon. Chatty French employee mentioned that a couple had had a flat tyre and activated the beacon to unleash a full emergency response with helicopter and police activity for which they were charged 75,000 dollars. The camper is a bit frayed at the edges for its 200,000 kms, however as ever it takes a few days to work out its foibles.

Katherine

Baobabs appear in mobs along the road, some emblazoned with irritating graffiti from Colleen and others keen to leave their mark on history. Some baobabs are historical now with initials carved by long-dead explorers - we tracked down one later in the blog.

On the road between Katherine and Kununurra a kite, surprised whilst feeding on roadkill, keeps jinking and weaving to flee the windscreen until it bumps into us and drops to the ground. A glance in the mirror shows it has woozily regained its feet and is off again quickly to resume its soaring flight.

Locals also have fun dressing up roadside termite mounds in fancy dress.

Kununurra

Overnight at campsite opposite Mirima National Park (Hidden Valley). Our pitch has two ferocious dogs as neighbours - each time we walked past there was a lunge from the beasties.

At the end of the day, we take a walk in enchanted Mirima valley with red rock glowing in the sunset and bee-eaters flitting from tree to sky then back again to crack insects on the branches.

Next day, we visit  Conservation and Parks Offices to buy a parks pass – amused by sign above bin at entrance which said ‘put live cane toads here’. Later I read that 2 out of 3 amphibians handed in are not cane toads.

Our quest for cooking metho discovers it is available by request only from behind the counter in Coles. Age-old story of drinking issues with the locals. No grog sold outside hotels on Sundays - and then no takeaway. Grog not sold before 12 noon on weekdays and Saturdays; and only then 6 bottles of wine per individual per day.

El Questro

The drive in on the corrugated road is fun with dipping floodways and crossings of tumbling creeks and the Pentecost river.

Stayed at Parrot private campsite on the Pentecost River. Paradise with palms rustling in the wind and birds calling all around. Wallaroo appears beside us, sniffs, and takes off. A flock of corellas spends most of the day foraging beside us in the clearing with barely a squawk. Small dove tracks meander along the track. Casings of cicadas dot the bark of smooth trunks and fissured branches.

We make a visit to Zebedee Springs, reached via a short path through Livingstona palms which lead to a series of thermal pools – the popularity of the place attracts a crowd of bathers.

The road past Parrot leads to the jetty where we board the Wandjina boat for a cruise up the Chamberlain Gorge.

The sides of the gorge glow red and show the level of the 2011 Wet season floods, named as one in a thousand years, which took away the gorge trees and reworked the river bed, moving hundreds of tons of boulders.

We stop at Ollie’s Pool and notice shoals of fish, very large and small, rushing to meet us. Our guide, Ollie, has trained 7-Spot Archer Fish to shoot jets of water at us in anticipation of a marron pellet. Right on cue, I am hit by jets of water.

Ollie knows his fish, and has trained giant barramundi, named Barry, Larry, Gary, and Little Jonny, to take baitfish from the hand. Fishing is forbidden in the gorge. Also present are large catfish and sooty grunters. Ollie says he can stick his thumb in the water and the barra will latch on, sucking on his thumb, so he can haul it out of the water. Fizzy wine and orange is served with fruit and all have fun getting jetted by the fish.

As part of the tour talk, the guide takes us through the history. Recent owners included a 25 year old Englishman who bought ELQ for 1 million dollars in 1991 and started to turn it into an eco tourist destination. He spent another several million, but when he was about to sell again, hurricane Ita swept in and caused massive damage that took millions off the sales price. As of 2014, the American Delaware Coproration owns the homestead and surrounds, whilst the million acre pastoral lease is with Salerno until it comes due again for tender in 2015 from the WA government.

Mid afternoon, we follow a track towards Explosion Gorge, however due to a fire we can see burning there, the track is closed at the river crossing. The Durack Boab stands before the crossing.

Our next track is 4WD only, includes a fun river crossing, and a very steep ascent to a ridge to Pigeon Lookout where we watch the sun dropping whilst the smoke from fires drifts across the ranges.

 

Darkness falls by 6pm, so we head to ELQ café for a bottle of white outside. A happy atmosphere of fun all around: Beside us, a cheery fellow flips burgers on the Barbie, whilst the scent of woodsmoke wafts from the fire out front.

We head to the restaurant where the scene is more subdued, and tuck into steak. A mob of cattle wanders across the floodlit bank of the river underneath our dining balcony.

In the morning, we take a lovely sidetrip to El Questro Gorge via long river crossings. The Gorge has the magical feel of clear streams, pandanus palms and ferns hanging off the cliff edges. Everyone manages the boulder hopping with a variety of footwear, even flipflops.

In the evening, enjoy the campfire with Chris Matthews singing Country and Western as he strums and sips his glass of wine. He plays local songs about the dust and The Wet. At 27, he has spent the last 9 years in East Kimberley. We catch him at the bar before the Trivia Quiz. He says when he was 7 years old, a senior viticulturist at Lewins Down by Margaret River said: “Now you’re of an age to start drinking anyway, we‘d better teach you all about wine”. So, ever since, wherever Chris goes, he appreciates the local wine.

Afterwards the trip back to the campsite is enlivened by meeting a couple of cows wandering through camp.
Our neighbour in camp is a huge rig with trailer for the car and double quadbike – plus washing machine.

Another campsite neighbour recounts seeing a bogged and abandoned Britz car in the middle of nowhere with a piece of paper on the windscreen: 'Gone to get some help'.

Out on the Internet, Taffy of Mt Hart fame, has a lovely anecdote about spending a day and night unbogging a friend's massive UniMog. No sooner had he dug out the vehicle, than a couple of Italians arrive and start shouting about blocking the road. Taffy sizes them up and suggests they take the same route round the obstacle that had blocked his friends...so the Italians can spend a day and night digging themselves out!

Early morning, we take a Robinson helicopter flight - the area is classified as remote - so we have water bottles and biscuits underneath the seats. Given we have no doors, the pilot's safety briefing states the emergency exits are obvious.

We fly around the exclusive homestead not to disturb people in their open-air bath. $2,000 a night, minimum 3 mights.

To pick up a Robinson R44 second hand, costs $300,000. Out beyond the homestead, we fly over a fire started manually to take away the danger from the homestead and to get rid of the undergrowth.

The origin of the name Explosion Gorge derives from a fisherman who landed his helicopter on a sandbar and fished with dynamite. He got the catfish but missed the barramundi which stayed at the bottom.

In the wilder sections of the land, they don’t bother to go after the cattle. The terrain is too rocky, too rough. Beasts left there become scrub cattle. ELQ has a pastoral lease, so need to have large section of the land sublet to run cattle.

Drysdale Station

As we pull up to the Drysdale river crossing – a beautiful setting with a deep channel flanked by weeping trees - a busload of elderly ladies turns up in a 4WD bus which does a spray driveby to keep them shutter happy and jolly.

Deep red dust; long stretches of feisty corrugation as we go the first 100 km to the King Edward River crossing and campsites. The track to Mitchell Falls is not maintained whilst we pass through, certainly deeply corrugated in parts.

By the side of the road we spot a large flock of whistling kites  and a kestrel spiralling above two cattle carcasses, bones protruding; the smell of rotting flesh pervading the air. 

As we climb onto the plateau through groves of livingstona palms freshly burnt on either side of the road, smoke rises, red dust descends, and the occasional dingo crosses our path.

 

The vehicle holds up well – our Pachamama libation gets us to the Mitchell Plateau campsite with only the loss of the van's logo on the radiator grille.
*** continued in next Blog Section - Son of Corrugation - More Kimberley Adventures ***