Emma Gorge and Kununurra

Ripple rock on walk to Emma Gorge

Emma Gorge waterfall and pool

Ta da! the annex is back!

The view from our tent at Kununurra Campground

view over Kununurra

Reattaching the tent pole tubes that got shaken off on the Gibb River Road

We got away from Home Valley Station nice and early and headed straight for Emma Gorge – our last section of the Gibb River Road. The road there takes you alongside the Cockburn Range which is just beautiful, lovely scenery, and what I was hoping for from the Gibb River Road (pity it only came at the end!). Emma Gorge, although it’s part of the same conglomerate that owns El Questro, is a fantastic gorge. A relatively energetic walk in over boulders along what’s a creek at the moment, and then at the end you get right into the gorge, ending in a dead end with amazing 75m walls which a waterfall comes over, into a pool where you can swim. On one side of the pool there’s a thermal spring coming through a crack in the rock, so the kids hung out there while we had a dip in the pool (which was pretty chilly but still lovely after that walk in the sun). There were lots of people there (lots of people everywhere on the GRRd!) and it was a nice way to end our trip along the road. After a sandwich lunch we headed straight for Kununurra on the tarmac (so smooth and silent!). We had originally planned to just go straight down towards Purnululu but after our poles getting bent, we needed to head for a town to try and replace them. We happened to meet the Ralhs in Coles (as you do) stocking up like we were, as they had been to Wyndham in the meantime. They talked us into staying with them at a free camp just 12k out of town which was fun for adults and kids alike. We weren’t quite as lucky as we would have liked in terms of annex tent poles, Nick went to every store in town (not such a big town) that might sell something like them, asked for ideas, and ended up coming up with a solution – we need 3 different types of poles for the annex, standard poles with a pointy end (long and short), long poles with a hook on one end and a flat other end with a hole to support the roof and connect the tent frame and the straight poles, and finally short poles with flat ends with holes to cross between the tall standing poles. Anyway to cut a long story short he bought some standard poles and used pliers to bend the pointy ends of some into hooks, then banged the other end flat with a hammer, and drilled holes in the ends that needed them. The Ralhs had found out that a rodeo was coming into to Kununurra this weekend so they talked us into staying Saturday night as well, which wasn’t that hard because we needed the day to create these new tent poles, and more importantly, needed to borrow a drill to do it. So we all came in to a caravan park at 9.30am and the kind owners lent us their cordless drill and Nick worked away, and by lunchtime we had our annex up again! I was very impressed, and even more so when he then got to work to fix the pole tube back onto the tool box of the trailer so we’re all repaired up and ready to go. I got another load of washing done, replied to emails, paid bills etc and we decided to go to the rodeo in the evening, which had been recommended by someone else staying at the campsite. We even relaxed at the tents for a pre-rodeo drink, only to get out there at 6.30pm, sit down on the grass to watch and hear the announcer say ‘and this will be our last event for today, we’d like to thank you all for coming, please stay to hear local band xyz’. We weren’t very impressed since the people on the gate had told us that the rodeo action would go until 8.30pm, but they were nice enough to give us our money back. It was a bit disappointing because we haven’t been to one before and were looking forward to it, but hopefully we’ll find another one along the way.

El Questro

Crossing the Pentecost River in the morning

El Questro gorge

rock art?

crossing back over the Pentecost in the evening

A much more pleasant day today. We had breakfast with the Ralhs while they packed up, got our tyre repaired (this station even has a workshop that opens at 7am) and then drove off to El Questro station for the day. This involved crossing the Pentecost river which was pretty amazing – it’s not deep but just loooong and you bounce around on the rocks quite a bit. The Ralhs kept going as they were heading on to Wyndham today, and we turned into El Questro to have a look around. I think it used to be a cattle station (it’s 1 million square kilometres) but now has been turned into a real commercial enterprise – it’s now owned by the same company which owns Heron Island, Lizard Island and Kings Canyon. The rumour around is that the company feels like they paid too much for it so is now trying to rake in as much cash as they can to get their money back within 2 years. This explains why there’s a fee just for visiting the station - $18 per adult which seems a bit of a rip off. I had no problem paying the day visit fee on the Dampier Peninsula of $10 per car, but $36 for us seems a bit much. Anyway there’s quite a few nice gorges there, we ducked into Zebedee Hot Springs for a look, but weren’t in time for a dip as they close it at 12pm to make way for tour buses (!). We walked the El Questro gorge though which was beautiful. The track winds its way through the actual gorge alongside the river crossing it back and forth on rocks, and at one point you have to strip down and wade through the water holding your shoes and bag over your head to climb up a big rock, in order to keep going, which we did of course! It was beautifully cool in the water and crystal clear. We didn’t make it all the way to the end because it was starting to get late, but we also saw what they’re claiming as some rock art (we’re not quite sure but will give them the benefit of the doubt as we haven’t seen any yet and would like to). Crossed the Pentecost River again in the fading light and back for dinner.  

Disaster Day

What a <expletive deleted> day we’ve had, two days really. Yesterday evening we discovered that we couldn’t free camp in the section we  wanted to, so had to pay to stay at Ellenbrae station. It was quite a nice station, but only had one toilet and shower for everyone. This would have been fine except that they were kind of in the same room with only a shower curtain in between them, and one outer door, so if someone was in the shower and had shut the outer door you just had to wait. The downer upon arriving was the discovery that our water tank had emptied AGAIN, the rocks of the <expletive deleted> Gibb River Road had cracked the pipe connecter AGAIN. Luckily Nick now has spares, and we have 2 jerry cans of emergency water in the car – which we filled up in Hamilton and haven’t had to use yet! So we have been drinking Ballyglunin bore water today in the Kimberley.

Today we set off again to get our first (and hopefully only) flat tyre of the trip. We’ve been criticising the Tyre Dog Tyre Pressure Monitors that we bought because the caps on the trailer keep getting cracked, I suppose by rocks, so those ones aren’t working, but luckily the flat came on a tyre that still has a working tyre dog on it (we’re down to 3 now) so we found out straight away by the monitor beeping inside the car. This means that we got it early enough that the tyre isn’t completely trashed and we can now attempt to plug it (maybe tomorrow). It took us a while to change it but it all went pretty smoothly, and we had a nice sandwich by a waterhole, made it to an amazing lookout and luckily I got phone reception and jane called for a chat, which meant that we hung around long enough for some Victorians to drive up and ask if we were missing any tent poles, as they’d seen a whole lot strung out along the road from the way we’d come. It turns out that one of our pole tube caps had come off, probably this morning, and so we had to then slowly drive 40k backwards (on the corrugations, the rocks etc etc), looking out for poles and picking them up as we went. We almost found them all and gave up after that distance, as we had enough to get by with spares. Whether they will actually be usable because some are pretty bent is another story. I couldn’t believe that one of them, probably the hardest to replace being so short, was actually still in the tube! The good news is that we’ve caught up with the Ralhs and have met up tonight, which has helped to cheer me up – they very kindly shared their dinner with us as we arrived so late, even though they’re on their last dregs of their food boxes. Also hearing other people’s stories at this camp ground, Home Valley Station, has put ours in perspective – it seems like pretty much everyone has got a flat on the way here, one family got two, with only one spare tyre, so they had to beg passersby for either their spare or a lift into Home Valley (as it was getting dark) to beg for one from here. I can see why people tend to stay at this station for a few days to recover – it’s got a flash pool, bar area with music playing, nice showers, cheap washing machines etc etc etc. Tomorrow is another day….

Conor’s more forgiving journal entry for today reads:

Today we are going to leave Ellenbrae Station, so off we went, packing up the tent as usual, then we left the campsite (we were the last ones because everyone had left), and drove drove drobve until we stopped on the side of the road! Me and Daniel had no idea what was up until we got out of the car and had a look then we realised we had a flat tyre!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After we spent a while fixing it, we were off again! Then we went to this place that had a stream near it and had lunch, then we drove off. We ended up on this lookout that let us see for hundreds of miles all around! Then this person walked up to us and said ‘I think you have lost some tent poles’ so we went round to see and so we had! There was our tube with no poles! No lid! Nothing in it!!! We had to drive back metre after metre to get them all!!! Today just is not our day!!!

Bell Creek and Manning Gorges

Bell Creek Gorge

Manning Gorge campground boab trees

Carrying things across Manning river

Manning Gorge

Yesterday was a driving day – it takes longer on the Gibb River Road – although it’s perhaps not as bad as we expected. There are some sections that are corrugated but others that are paved, so it’s a funny mixture. Still, driving for a while on corrugations your arms get quite tired from gripping onto the wheel while it’s vibrating and you’re constantly on the alert for pot holes or big rocks etc. We stopped at Bell Creek Gorge for lunch and a walk down to the gorge and a swim, which was nice and refreshing after a hot day’s driving. Everywhere just seems hot, dry and dusty so the gorges are a great relief, even if pretty soon afterwards you feel hot, dry and dusty again. We stopped to fill up at Imintji Community and Nick had a brief talk to the guy who runs the servo – he’s from Campbelltown, and he and his wife and teenage daughter have been there for 8 months running the store and servo – he earns $300/day to be really in the middle of nowhere, must be here trying to pay off his house or something. He didn’t say how long he’s staying. Then we came on to Manning Gorge – got here at 5.05pm and the roadhouse where you have to register had shut, with the woman inside studiously ignoring us smiling through the window trying to get her attention. I remembered this morning that it was a Sunday night though, so I guess she just wanted to get home. There was nothing for it but to ignore all the unfriendly ‘no pay, no stay’ and ‘don’t enter without a permit’ signs and drive down to the campsite and go back this morning to pay. It’s a nice big campsite with lots of trees and is right next to the Manning River where you can swim. We spent the morning catching up on journals, playing with lego and just recovering from the driving day, then in the afternoon we did the walk down to the gorge – a bit longer than we realised at an hour, but a nice walk anyway, and a really nice gorge when we got there. Someone some time ago started a tradition of a shortcut across the river to the beginning of the gorge walk (rather than going around), so now there’s white Styrofoam boxes on each side of the river, and you strip down to your swimmers, put everything in the Styrofoam box and swim it across the river, before getting dressed again, then when you come back from the walk you do it all in reverse. The kids thought it was great fun, and now there are also some inner tubes and noodles to use as well – a lot of people just hang around the river close to the campsite swimming and probably don’t even bother with the walk. It took the full afternoon anyway, by the time we walked each way, hung around at the gorge and swam the river both ways, and we’re all exhausted! Tomorrow it’s more of the Gibb River Road, probably a free camp on the way to El Questro which is too far to make in one day.

Derby and Windjana Gorge

Prison Boab tree

Set for Jandamarra play

Windjana Gorge

Yesterday was a bit of a driving day. We were a bit slow leaving Broome, and made it to Derby for a late lunch after stopping briefly to see the huge old Prison Boab tree (which is estimated to be 1000 years old!). We didn’t find anything there much to hang around for, and wanted to press on to get to Windjana Gorge for the night. We were a bit stuck when we got to the turnoff from the Gibb River Road for Windjana Gorge, to see a sign saying that it’s closed to the public for the next week, as there’s a theatre production, Jandamarra, being put on at the actual gorge. It was in Broome last week when we were there (a sell out apparently) and we didn’t pay attention to the fact that it was going to the gorge next. The sign said that unless you had tickets to the play, you couldn’t even camp at the gorge. We saw the sign at 5pm and it’s a long way from nowhere, so it left us a bit stuck. We drove down the road anyway thinking we would just had to camp on the roadside, went back and forth a bit but saw other people doing it, so we ended up plonking down in the carpark at the old Lillimoloola Station ruins. There was a lovely sunset reflected in the walls of the gorge behind us, and we already had one of nick’s thermal cooker dinners ready and waiting for us so it was actually a pretty easy night – thank you again Bron for suggesting we get our own loo as it makes it so much easier to be self-sufficient!

We thought we’d be up and out of there before any tourists came to have a look this morning, unaware that some people would come at 7.30am! it wasn’t a problem anyway, since we were packed up soon afterwards and came to Windjana Gorge down the road to see it for the day (which you were allowed to do). It’s a lovely walk through the gorge where we saw 9 freshwater crocodiles, our first in the wild, doing nothing more than sitting and pretending to be logs. We also saw lots of archer fish at the edges of the river pools, which apparently hang around at the edges or underneath overhanging branches waiting for insects to fly over, and when they’re close enough the fish shoots out a jet of water to knock out the insect, then gobbles it up. The Lennard River flows through the gorge during the Wet, and it obviously goes quite high up the sides then by the looks of it, but now it’s reduced to large sandy river bed parts and some nice cool looking pools, which you’re not supposed to swim in because of the crocs. As we were driving out after lunch Nick decided to ask if there were tickets left for the show and how much they were, and lo and behold we ended up staying to see it. They were selling them at the door and kids were free so it seemed too good an opportunity to miss, this being one of the places mentioned in the story. Jandamarra was a Bunuba man born at the end of the 19^th century in the Kimberley, when Europeans were just moving in here, and when they started taking over huge tracts of land for stations. He was moved with his mum to one of the stations where he grew up and became an expert stockman, marksman and stationhand, and spoke good English. When he was 14 and time for him to go through initiation he decided not to go back to working on the station, and instead stayed in the mountains with those of his people who were killing the station sheep, trying to get the Europeans off their land. At this time I think he was also banished from his own tribe because he wasn’t so good at following indigenous law either. He was caught by the police but offered the chance to work with the police as a tracker near Derby, which he did for a couple of years, becoming good friends with Bill Richardson who he worked with, and before being brought back here to help catch the sheep spearers. He helped catch a lot of his own people and was taking them in chains to jail when they basically talked him out of it in their own language, and he ended up killing Bill Richardson in order to set them free. Once word of this got out he was a marked man, and he and his gang went into hiding, ambushing cattle drovers and killing lots of animals and I think people, and stealing weapons – he had worked out early that in order to fight the Europeans they needed guns, not spears. There was a big battle in Windjana Gorge (where we’re staying) and word goes that he stood on the top of the gorge yelling down at the Europeans making fun of them not being able to catch him. Even though he was shot he escaped into the caves, and walked all the way to Tunnel Creek where he hid for months, getting better. The police even tracked him down there and waited outside the entrance for ages, not realising that it was a tunnel and Jandamarra just walked out the other side, and did another raid on a station for weapons. By this time the police really felt like he was making fun of them and got serious, enlisting a ‘magic man’ tracker from the Pilbara, there were more battles when Jandamarra was wounded again and escaped, dripping blood, and tried more raids to free the aboriginies that the police had chained up, but eventually they tracked him down near Tunnel Creek and shot him dead. It was a great production, interesting story of an indigenous man being stuck between two cultures even way back then, the cast a mixture of NIDA and WADA graduates and a few local people who were talent spotted, and the backdrop of the actual gorge where it all happened couldn’t have been better. A lot of it was in the Bunuba language, with some in jokes for the local people which weren’t translated, but most was translated onto a big screen in subtitles, and the rest spoken in English. The kids even enjoyed it, I was very impressed that they sat through two 1 hour halves, going quite late, asking lots of questions as they went but there were lots of kids around so it didn’t really matter.