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.