After our 5th night swagging this trip (I know, who’s counting? – I am 🙂 ), we packed up and started our retreat back towards Drysdale Station. The intent was to head towards King Edward campground and explore the river and a couple of aboriginal art sites before camping for the night with our reduced kit. We were more efficient than expected and the lure of our luxurious caravans only 100km of corrugations away was enough to convince me to…
Today was another day that I have been looking forward to all trip and it did not disappoint! We were off early to beat the heat of the day for the 4.5km hike. Bob talked me into packing my full camera kit and tripod for the walk today (I have been surviving with the latest iphone for all hikes up until now). We found more aboriginal art (Bradshaw stick figures), explored the Merten Creek and cooled off in it when we got hot until…
A few days ago I didn’t think we’d be making the trip to Mitchell Falls after the Gibb was closed for a week. The road up here is notoriously the worst road in the Kimberley and causes grief for many vehicles. Not only did it open, but it has been graded! So it is far from the worst road we have travelled on this trip. The corrugations are still terrible and I’m not volunteering to go on a gravel road when we get home…
On the move again today. Although the distances we are travelling aren’t huge, the pace is relatively slow. We were on the road by 9 and arrived at Drysdale Station 160km up the road in time for a late lunch. There isn’t too much evidence of the wet from a couple of weeks ago now. Dust everywhere! We did a partial set up as the vans are going into storage tomorrow and headed out on the bikes to check the…
Off to Barnett River again this morning. I got given control of the car and it was a fun 45km one hour drive. Along the way we saw the resident cows beside the road and the equipment used to smooth the road in to Mt Elizabeth – I have to say it doesn’t appear to have been used for a while based on the state of the road in. After a 1 hour hike into the gorge we arrived and had the…
This morning was a relaxed start. We were on our way to the gorge by 945. The story we got was it was a 10km drive that takes about 1 ¼ hours. We possibly should have read into that how extreme the track was going to be. We had calculated that the average speed would be less than 10km/hr, but oh my goodness! We all piled in the Scott’s car for the trip (thank goodness, as I reckon Bob would have abandoned our car…
Today was moving day again. Karen and Kieran headed out for one last kayak at sunrise on the waterhole while we slept 🙂 . We topped up our water tanks at the roadhouse on the way out – the line up for water was far worse than for fuel! Then it was down to the river to see how far it had dropped in a couple of days and head across. We were disappointed to see that the flood marker was still sitting…
Gorges and falls…repeat. Karen kayaked for sunrise this morning. I was too obsessed with finishing my tapestry that I bought in Broome. We were off and hiking (or should I say swimming) by 9. The start of the walk to Manning Falls requires a 50m swim across a waterhole. With dry bags in tow we embraced it – let me say the water temp isn’t like Bitter Springs. I don’t do cold water EVER at home, but things are requiring me to reassess here….
Last night we saw some video of vehicles crossing the Barnett River yesterday at 800mm depth. Even though the road is open it concerned us a lot. We started relooking at alternate plan F which involves going as far the Barnett River and then backtracking 1500km and hitting the road from the other end. This would involve an extra 1000km getting back to Kununurra and effectively driving the Gibb twice. Not ideal, but it’s where we find ourselves… Regardless of that, we were…
Easy morning today. Karen & Kieran explored/exercised while we had a lazy breakfast and researched the gorges we will see in the next couple of days and the ever changing road and river conditions reports. We headed out on a drive late morning to check out the local community store and to see if there were any attractions nearby we could day trip to. After a takeaway lunch and the hottest coffee ever, we headed to a Boab attraction on…