Vikings in Australia - Víkingar í Ástralíu

5^th & 6^th September

After the usual breakfast and packing, we drove out of Kalumburu. I had put in a few GPS co-ordinates for rock art along the road, but when we finally got near the place it was too far to walk and would have taken us half a day to find and look at. So in the end we continued onwards back to Drysdale to take some fuel. On the way back to Drysdale, we didn’t see the campervan or the Landcruiser that had broken down on the way up to Mitchell Falls, so obviously they had been fixed!.

After Drysdale we joined the Gibb River road again. There we went out to a rubbish dumping point to get rid of our rubbish from the car. We couldn't believe how many beer cans where there.. All fourX beers, more or less! Don't these people eat anything else??

We were planning to do some free camping along the way, near Ellenbrae station, but all the free camping had signs threatening legal action if anyone camped. So in the end we went the 5km leg to Ellenbrae and paid for camping one night. The lady at the home station was very nice and showed us her baby Kangaroo and calf that were being reared at the homestead. Then we went back up the road into the camp area and camped our tent. This time around we only put up the main tent, no annexes. The camping ground is quite nice with an amenities block with rock walls and other earthy type material, although the roof was still corrugated iron, possibly due to the heavy rains! The amenities had one flushing toilet, with a shower and a tub. All co-located and heated with a donkey heater (Wood fire). i.e. one toilet in the campground. Fortunately, this was off season and only four other campers, so there were no queues, although we did worry when a couple pulled in and camped with four kids later in the day!

We packed up the following morning and as we were doing that the lady with the four kids came over to give Sibba a “trashy” womans magazine. She had bought it and didn’t want to throw it out. Sibba, of course accepted it!!.

As it turned out, one of the woman's girlfriend was working in Iceland, i.e. in Reykjavik. She is a private tutor and works for the boss of Rio Tinto. This woman was getting lots of pictures and interesting stories from her girlfriend in Reykjavik, so we had a brief chat. Then they had to go as they had a quite a constrained schedule. They had been travelling for some time and her husband needed to get to Darwin by a certain time to take up a contract. They were on their way to El Questro, like us, but were planning to get there early and see what they could see and then leave the same day, without camping.

We took a brief walk to the waterhole, whereby one can swim near the camp, just to see. This late in the season it wasn’t all that deep and or inviting!!. We then headed back to camp and headed out and back to the Gibb River Road.

Between Ellenbrae and El Questro is another station, called Home Valley. We decided to skip it and head straight for El Questro. Home Valley has gone up market and they don’t have any self-drive facilities. One has to pay for accommodation and then pay for guides to take you to any of their gorges or water holes. Thus one has to book every attraction and can’t chop and change as one likes.

As we came towards Home Valley station turn off, the road comes to a lookout across the Pentacost river and the Cockburn ranges. It’s a magnificent view to see. The Cockburn ranges are just stunning. It’s like someone designed the escarpments, they are so linear. The view was good, but not as good as it could be, as it was quite misty and a lot of dust in the air. As we stopped at the lookout, we realised our mobile phone dropped into coverage. So we called Linda to let her know where we were and all was fine. This was just as well, because as we descended from the look out the mobile coverage dropped out and wasn’t seen again!

Once we got down from the lookout, the biggest river crossing on the whole Gibb River Road was ahead, i.e the Pentacost river. This is the largest river that cuts across the road and therefore the biggest obstacle to keeping the road open. This late in the season, it was easy to cross, so we did it twice to capture some photos. Then, we went onwards until we came to the turn of to El Questro Wilderness park. This is a privately owned operation and has some of the most scenic attractions in the Kimberleys. We drove the 16km to the camp site and town shop to check us in. We could pick our camp site near the central facilities as there weren’t that many campers around. At the car park we also bumped into the four kid family we had encountered at Ellenbrae. They were only about half an hour ahead of us and were planning to see one or two of the attractions before leaving.

We set up camp and took it easy. We decided to go to the restaurant and have dinner in the evening, so we went there to book. Then, I went to check on tours. I booked a boat tour to the Chamberlaine Gorge on the Saturday afternoon. We planned to see the Zedebee springs the following morning, Amelia Gorge and then head out to Emma Gorge. Thus an action packed Friday was planned. Later in the day, one of the El Questro rangers came around and after some discussions, advised us to go straight to Emma Gorge in the morning to avoid being there during the hottest time of the day. Of course we changed our plans.

As we sat and sipped our late afternoon cuppa of tea, suddenly the family four turned up again. They had changed their plans and were now going to stay overnight. They ended up camping next to us, which was fine. We told them we were going for dinner, but we would be back after that and perhaps we could have a drink together. That was fine, so we headed to the restaurant around 6:30 and took Kylie with us as usual. She was pretty excited as she usually gets a few drinks on these occasions! The dinner we had was pretty good and went down well. We then headed back to camp and the couple came to join us for a night cap. They told us that they had recently bought their 100 series Landcruiser and had been travelling for a few weeks. It was a second hand car, but had an aftermarket turbo installed. As they were about 100km south of Broome, the cruiser engine simply packed it in. It pretty much self-destructed in a way that the engine block cracked. They think it was the aftermarket turbo that wasn’t installed and/or tuned professionally. They had no option but to have it towed to Broome and then fit another engine. So we can be quite happy with our car adventures, as they have been quite benign!