Gorgeous gorges, wondrous waterfalls, green ants and dickey knees!!

Written – Saturday 23 August 2014.

Week one along the Gibb River Road has come to an end.  I said to Doug over our late afternoon wine today, that we’ve done so much, but travelled so short a distance that’s it’s hard to believe a week has gone by.

 

We left Derby early last Saturday, and the town was quiet as we headed out to start the Gibb River Road – one of Australia’s iconic touring destinations, still with a bit of adventure mixed in with it.

Our travelling distances for the duration of the Gibb will be shorter than we’re used to, but with lots packed in.  We travelled the 150 or so kilometres to Windjana Gorge, arrived at the campsite and quickly set up the camper.  It was going to be a big day.

After a cuppa, we headed off on the walk into the gorge.  It had been almost two weeks since we’d donned a pair of boots, so it was a bit strange to have them on again after slopping around in thongs, but the walk into Windjana required it.  Along the way, we spotted a friendly tree snake who slithered across our path.  He was still there, worrying passing French tourists when we returned 2 hours later.

 

Windjana Gorge the most accessible gorge of the Kimberley, being only a short distance from Derby, and most of that on sealed road.  Because of this, we were expecting throngs of campers, however, the campground wasn’t as busy as we were expecting, and neither was the gorge.  Although there were a few tourists around, not many of them chose to do the longer walk to the end of the gorge.  We enjoyed the views of the towering cliffs that surrounded us as we clambered up and down river banks, and scrambled over trees.  Part of the attraction of Windjana is the freshwater crocodiles.  Hundreds of them sun themselves on the banks of the river each day and seem oblivious to the hoardes of tourists that try and get close enough to take their photo.  Freshies are harmless creatures who will leave you alone of you leave them alone, so that’s exactly what we did.

 

We returned to camp and grabbed a quick lunch, and then headed off the 30km or so, down the road to Tunnel Creek.  Tunnel Creek is part of the same Devonian reef that forms Windjana Gorge (and further on Geikie Gorge), but at Tunnel Creek, the river has cut a tunnel through the range, and you are able to walk the 800m or so through it, wading through thigh-high water in the complete darkness, with only your torch to find your way.  It was a fantastic experience – we set off armed with head-lamps and torches, with cameras held high and with no small amount of uncertainty.

 

We were thankful that about half way along the tunnel, sometime thousands of years ago, the roof of the tunnel had caved in and sunlight came streaming in and lit up a beautiful chamber.  We were lucky to find that the sun, at that particular time, came in at the right angle, and lit up the surrounding rock faces beautifully.  We then stepped back into the darkness to make our way to the end of the tunnel, emerging into the most gorgeous little valley, where the river trickled, the trees offered dappled shade and our eyes adjusted back to the daylight.  We sat here, all alone and just soaked in the beauty.

 

Back into the darkness, as we had to re-trace our steps back to the beginning.  We met an English family on the way back who were struggling in the darkness with only one small torch between three of them.  It was hard to negotiate the deeper parts of the water when you can’t see where the rocks are, and the mood wasn’t good.  Thankfully there was only about 100m to go, but it was probably the hardest, with slippery rocks to climb over.  Poor mum managed to slip and fall just as she was leaving the cave, and land back in the water, ensuring that everyone around knew she had a very wet backside!  While Doug and her husband tried to get her up and on her way again (hopefully without any injuries) her son thought it was hilarious and didn’t offer much sympathy.  I wouldn’t like to be him when they got back in the car!!!

The next day we packed up camp and moved on to Bell Gorge.  That’s the thing about this part of the Kimberly, everywhere you look there are gorges, and waterfalls (although not so many waterfalls at this time of year).  Bell Gorge is renowned as being the most beautiful of all the Kimberley gorges, but I don’t agree – there are just too many to choose from.  At this stage we were still excited about what was to come.  We arrived at the Silent Grove campground and set up the camper, and couldn’t quite accept that we’d got the right place.  From what we’d heard, Silent Grove was meant to be a pretty busy campsite, given the popularity of Bell Gorge, but there was only one other campsite set up.  No one else!!!

 

We spent that afternoon exploring Bell Gorge and swimming in the beautiful pool at the top of the falls.  The climb down into the gorge was lovely, and when we came out into this oasis at the top of the falls, it took our breath away.  We could have climbed down to the pool at the bottom of the falls, but there was already a few people down there, and to be honest (and taking dickey knees into account), we were happy to have the lovely pools at the top all to ourselves.

 

After leaving Bell Gorge we moved on and took the rough 90km side road to Mornington Wilderness Sanctuary.  Mornington is run by the Australian Wilderness Conservancy (AWC), an organisation which buys up strategic properties Australia-wide with an aim to restore the habitat for all living creatures within its boundaries.   With this in mind, it is run more as a sanctuary that devotes a small part of its work to tourism.  Numbers are limited (only 25 vehicles permitted at one time) and there are strict regulations as to what you can and can’t do whilst on Mornington.  We spent three glorious days here, exploring the gorges, taking the walking trails and swimming in the waterholes. 

 

The highlight of our stay was our canoe hire.  We had a two man canoe to explore Dimond Gorge on the Fitzroy River, and, like Bell Gorge, we had it all to ourselves.  We had a wonderful day paddling the length of the gorge, stopping on a sandy beach for lunch and a swim and then paddling back in the afternoon.  We explored the caves and rocky inlets along the way, and looked for crocs, but unfortunately didn’t spot any.

 

The 180km round trip to Mornington was worth the corrugated roads, and we loved out time there.  After that we moved not very far further down the Gibb to take the turnoff to Charnley River Station.  This is another property managed by the AWC, although only recently taken over.  It used to be a working cattle station, but now they are in the process of de-stocking it, and returning the habitat to what it was previously.  Charnley is approximately 330,000ha, and the campground is managed by a lovely couple (Lorrie and Chicko) who made us feel very welcome.  We camped under the shade of a wonderful old tree and spent two days exploring the property.  The first day we spent up at Donkey Pools, as series of waterholes, the third still had water we could swim in and the rocky outcrops overlooking the pools had some Aboriginal art if you looked closely enough.

 

After a night in the campground (a huge area in which we were only one of three campers), we spent a big day exploring the rest of the property open to the public.  We travelled up to Grevillea Gorge in the morning, and found it mainly dry at this late stage in the dry season.  We were told of more Aboriginal art if you climbed down far enough into the gorge, but Lorrie advised that people with dickey knees of hips should maybe give it a miss.  With this in mind, I sat on a rock in the shade while Doug continued down the dry river bed.  After a while he came back, defeated.  He said it would involve a climb down a sheer rock face, and since he had the keys to the car in his back pocket, he thought he should come back….. just in case.  I said “if Pete Copeland had been here, he would have been off down there in a shot”.  Doug said, “If Pete had been here, I would have gone with him!!!”  You could have joined me on the rock in the shade, Gill!

 

Because it was late in the season and quiet, Lorrie and Chicko offered us another night at Charnley free-of-charge, and we had every intention of taking them up on their offer and having a rest day the next day.  But when we got up on the Saturday morning, we discovered our camper was directly in the line of the path of a hoard of green ants travelling from one tree to another.  Green ants are a wonder to behold……….from a distance.  They travel huge distances in a line, and carry food and plant material back to their nest.  They also drop on you from above, or climb up your leg and bite!!! 

We did the “ant dance” for a good hour, trying to brush them off the camper, the towels, the shoes and ourselves before deciding the pack up.  We had originally thought we could move the camper to another part of the campground, away from the ants, but if we had to pack it up to move, we might as well move on.

So we regretfully packed up and said goodbye to Lorrie and Chicko and headed off back to the Gibb to continue our journey east.

 

Back on track we headed for Mt Barnett Roadhouse, which is the gateway to Manning Gorge.  Mt Barnett is one of the few places along the Gibb River Road that you can get fuel and supplies so we stopped to restock on a few things.  I had to keep reminding myself of where we were, and the remoteness of trying to get supplies out here, because the prices they were charging were unbelievable.  After more than a week since leaving Derby, we were glad to be able to get some fruit and vegies, but they came at a cost.  I guess everything does up here.

After gathering supplies, we travelled down to the campsite outside Manning Gorge and set up the camper.  The plan was to hike into the gorge in the afternoon, spend some time there and hike back out in time for tea!!  Manning Gorge is another of the “must-sees” along the Gibb River Road, so we expected the campsite to the busy.  Again, and thanks to travelling later in the season, it was pretty quiet.

The track into the gorge is about 3km each way, and to commence you have to cross the Manning River.  Thankfully now, they have a dingy on an endless rope that you can travel across on, rather than having to swim across. 

 

Now when they say that a track is 3km each way that didn’t seem to be an issue, but if I’d known that 3km (each way) would be pretty much climbing up and down rock faces, I may have thought twice about whether it was a good idea.  But no such warning exists at the start of the track – just “a reasonable level of fitness is required”!!!

Once again, dickey knees gave me a bit of a hard time, but there was no point in giving up.  After over an hour of scrambling up and down rocks (with a lot of help from my lovely husband) we made it the gorge – and lo and behold, again we had it to ourselves!  The scrambling had been worth it.   We sat and had lunch, and enjoyed the wonderful clear water of the river before I faced the scramble out again.  This was by far the hardest walk I’ve had to do, and by the time we got back to the dinghy to cross the river back to camp, my dickey knees were shaking!

 

I think the thing that we’ve been so surprised at after our first days on the Gibb is how quiet it is.  We fully expected most places we went to be over-run with other tourists, but it hasn’t been.  Sometimes there’s been a few other campers, but a lot of the time, we’ve been on our own – something we weren’t expecting at all, but something we’ve absolutely relished.  It’s not everyone can say that they’ve paddled Dimond Gorge all to themselves, or skinny-dipped at Dillie Gorge cause there was no-one there.  Later in the dry season means that some of the rivers, falls and waterholes are drying up, but not all….and if it means there’s less tourists, then we’re happy.

 

Let’s see what we find next!