El Questro

A lazy pack up, a tyre rotation at a local workshop (best $30 I've spent) and a stock up of supplies and we were on our way. Finally we have arrived at the Gibb River Road, for us the catalyst of this trip, 600+ km's of dirt road, numerous water holes, breathtaking scenery, bush camps, fishing and camp fires. Unfortunately for us our first mishap was not 50 meters past the road conditions sign. Whilst airing down, one of the pins came clean out of the center of the tyre valve meaning that I couldn't stop the air esacping at a rate of knots when I attempted to remove the tyre deflator. We decided to jack the car up to protect the tyre and rim and then possibly put the spare on to drive back to Kununarra to have it repaired. I recalled that the tyre plug kit I purchased had some other accessories in there that I though I'd never use, upon checking we found a few parts that may resemble the missing piece and a tool to install them...success, valve fixed, tyre pumped up, car dropped, van back on and away in fifteen minutes we were on our way....however it took 45mins to arrive at that last 15 mins.

The road was obviously corrugated yet it was comfortable traveling at around 60kph which was an acceptable speed on the dirt with vans in tow. The first river crossing was fairly small yet being Pete's first time and not being aware of the walking pace rules he decided to take the aqua plane approach instead as seen in Jeep commercials. Upon entering the station we had to cross the Pentecost river with the vans which was pretty cool, and at a much more comfortable pace for Pete.

We opted for a private campsite down the river away from the homestead which had a long drop yet a drive for showers. The camp itself was right next to the river and quite secluded. Being off power we cooked all of our meals on the camp fire with the grill or camp ovens, which was great fun. Our three dinners were satay lamb shanks and rice, curried snags and potatoes and steak and potatoes.

After noticing a school of mullet swimming around upstream I decided it was time to try out the cast net I had purchased a few days earlier. It had been giving me the eye for the past few days "c'mon try me, you know you want to, but you also know that I will beat you, like many before you, hahaha". So I found a spot of grass upstream near the mullet and started the process. The first few casts saw the net land in a heap and I thought that maybe I would be able to knock out a few of the mullet with it rather than trap them. After a bit of thought and attempting to mimick what the guide had done in the Ord a few casts started to open up a bit. After 20 mins the net was not landing in a perfect circle, it was landing in an inconsistent irregular shape of no name that did however cover an acceptable amount of surface area. Time to try my luck in the drink. I managed to successfully spook the mullet with a few haphazard casts and started to throw at some spangles instead. The school came past again and as luck would have it I flicked out a ripper cast which snagged almost a dozen 5 to 8 inch mullet, time to fish. Only had about 30mins till dark so I popped one of the livies out at camp, within five minutes I was hooked onto a size barra, unfortunately it spat the hook at the surface, have to buy bigger hooks tomorrow....I had no idea I would be using 8inch bait. Popped a fresh bait back out but got nothing before dark, I had to quit as I don't like the idea of trudging around a croc river under torch light.

To put a dampener on Zoe's day she unfortunately has been ill with action at both ends and has had to hang around camp whilst the others have been off swimming etc.

Pete and I hired a boat the next morning and toured around Chamberlin Gorge.

We met up with the others as Zebedeen Thermal Springs which was amazing, cascading waters into pools, no camera was taken though. We left there at midday as it is only open 7 till 12 to reduce the amount of "human pressure", yet all it does is cram the same amount of people into a smaller window to allow for the private tour groups that get taken in there after midday...at a price. This El Questro station makes a considerable sum of money off the tourist. Then we ventured onto El Questro gorge which was an interesting drive in on rock, sand and water.

The gorge itself was an amazing walk with Zoe leading the way on the way with a lot of rock hopping, the reward was a swim at the end. It was good to see that she was on the improve, yet we would find out in days to come that this was not quite the case.

 

Kununarra

Our last two days driving - Nitmiluk to Timber Creek, then onto Kununurra.

We arrived at Kununarra later than expected and much later than the swarm of grey nomads that set up camp before lunch most days. As a result there were no powered sites remaining and we had to camp in the non powered overflow section for the night and move up to the powered grid tomorrow. Well the overflow section was by far the best area, grassed section right on the water, we let them know that we would stay put there thank you, please drive thru. The kids had a great time running around not having to worry about sharp rocks or dust.

The next day was a bit of a rest day for us as we prepped the van etc for the Gibb River Road expedition whilst the kids swam at the pool and made a tee-pee from the clothesline, they all played really well...we found out later that Codi had been playing the iPod in the tee-pee the entire time the other two were constructing it. Pete, Kath and co, drove up to Parry's Lagoon to do some birding. Brielle lost one of her front teeth today.

I had organized a fish on the Ord for the day whilst everyone else did the local attractions and swam at the park. As luck would have it we had Barra for dinner. I was only able to bring one eater home which was a 57cm specimen which I didn't even catch. I caught three in total - a 40cm, an 85cm and an 88cm, the bag limits are one per angler between 50 and 80cm, fortunately one of the others on the boat had caught a couple in the keeper bracket. They were all caught on live bait as the water is too cool for them to be aggressively smashing lures apparently. We also saw a heap of crocs, up to 6meters was the biggest, and they were fat too. Also saw plenty of brolgas, a few jabirus and some sea eagles.

Brielle lost another tooth tonight that was obviously being supported by the one she lost yesterday. She is all cashed up now from two visits by the tooth fairy and really looks like a collingwood supporter.

 

Timber Creek

We arrived at Timber Creek for an overnighter before heading into Kununara the next day. We found a great bush camp at a marked lookout called Policemans Point which has great views over the Victoria River via a bit of dirt road.

The kids constructed the fire pit whilst the adults set up camp. Zoe and Codi played in the dirt and got as dirty as possible, that would be right, just as we are no where near a shower or swimming hole that is safe to swim in.

 

I went for a quick fish whilst Pete went for a bird and then we set in for the evening with a fire. Ves and I forgot about the quarantine border crossing the next day and had just stocked up on fruit and veg which had to be jettisoned at the crossing. We cooked up a few batches of scalloped potatoes in the Weber and camp oven and ate fruit and carrots all night and the next morning (fortunately we were staying at a caravan park the next few days...close to facilities)

Shamallows before bed.

We even had a few fly by's from the RAFF

After a few more carrots and apples we stopped off at Gregory's Tree for a quick look. Appart from the nostalgia one of the dates carved into the tree by early explorers/settlers shared the same date as the triplets brithdays (all their brithdays!) albeit 150 odd years apart. The boabs in the area are pretty cool...for a tree that is! Although these ones are pretty old and gnarly, hundreds of years old. A quick stop for lunch at Cockatoo Lagoon for salad sanga's and onto Kununara.