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.