Elizabeth Station to Drysdale River Station, Gibb River Rd, Kimberley WA

Tuesday 5th June 2018
Well we did it again. The aim was to set out early so we could visit Wunnamurra Gorge and then make it to Drysdale Station tonight. This was an epic fail, almost.

There was a couple at the campsite with a great setup so I had a chat. What I thought would take 10mins took over an hour. That hour was to prove very painful later tonight.

Anyway, we headed off to the gorge at about 9.30am, 1.5 hours later than we hoped to leave. Oh well! What’s new! The drive to the gorge was only 10km but took over an hour, it was very rocky and tricky at times. We parked the car 1km from the walk start due to a couple of tricky spots that weren’t worth puncturing our tyres over. We then walked to the gorge. Another spectacular gorge and swimming hole. We explored further afield as there was some aboriginal art on the rocks about 500m fro the gorge. Then we came back and had some lunch and then had a swim. It was very beautiful and lovely in the water. The falls were still working nicely.

We left the gorge at about 1.30pm, I thought we would be on our way to Drysdale by lunchtime but oh well, not to be. The walk back to the car took about 30mins and thence had another hours drive back to Mt Elizabeth Station. The track was a little slower on the way back so we weren’t ready to leave the station until 3.30pm.

Decision time again. To go or not to go. We are very inconsistent. Yesterday we were passing the turn off to Mt Elizabeth Station at 3pm and decided it was too late to go to Drysdale then so went the 30mins in to Mt Elizabeth Station. Today it is 3.30pm and we are at Mt Elizabeth Station with a 30min drive to the main road and we decide to go just to get us a day ahead. Probably a bad decision but off we go. We were hoping to make it to Drysdale River Station by dark but not to be. At 5.30pm we crossed the Gibb River and passed a freebie camp without any facilities but we decided not to stop. In hindsight we should have stopped as we got stuck behind to cars which slowed us down a bit and we didn’t make it to our camp until 6pm when it was well and truly dark. So we should have had a rest afternoon and saved the drive for tomorrow. Oh well! We will be 160km closer to tomorrow night’s destination.

As I sit here writing my blog I can here the dingoes howling in the background. This has happened quite frequently on the Gibb River Road.

Well this is another busy campsite, how busy we are not quite sure as we arrived in the dark. Hopefully we didn’t park in a thoroughfare as it is quite tricky to work this out in the dark.

Tomorrow’s drive is to Mitchell Plateau and hopefully Mitchell Falls. A 190km drive that can take up to 5 hours depending on the road condition. Wish us luck!!

: The Peacock. Our fine feathered friends at the camp this morning were just wandering around feeding in the grass.

: Mt Elizabeth Station – Our camp was not very busy. A large paddock with a few facilities (showers, toilets and a washing machine) and only about 6 other campers. We both had a great nights sleep.

: Red tailed black cockatoos we disturbed as we drove to Wunnamurra Gorge on Mt Elizabeth Station.

: The track was looked like a graveyard. There were rocks everywhere including all over the track. Some harder to negotiate than others.

: As we walked to the gorge there were some pretty little flowers.

: Wunnamurra Gorge – Very beautiful. Even had a couple of ladders to help you get down to the pool. DB would much rather find his own way down.

: Wunnamurra Gorge had a lovely waterfall with plenty of water at this stage.

: Some aboriginal art on the rock face of Wunnamurra Gorge..

: ..also some wanjinas which are the aborigines god. There are some interesting stories to explain about the wanjinas.

: The art was very detailed and took over an extensive area. See the little eggs on the bottom left corner as well.

: Walking back to the waterfall we walked through lots of pandanus trees.

: Time for some swimming training. A couple of laps after lunch. We haven’t done any laps since Karratha and I am losing swim fitness fast. Actually I think it i already gone. Back to square one again. Oh No!

: Some beautiful paperbark trees on our way back to the car.

: This was an ant’s nest on the trail back to the car. It looks like some ants had collected lots of seeds and put them at the entrance of the ant hole waiting for the worker ants to take them inside. Who knows if this is what was happening. But they have definitely been collected for something.