Vikings in Australia - Víkingar í Ástralíu

9^th of September

We packed up all our things and headed out from El Questro. We wanted to do the El Questro gorge walk on the way out. The turn off to the El Questro gorge is a short drive from the resort. The track to the visitor park crosses a creek, like many of them do, but this time around it was a very long river crossing and probably the deepest we have come across. Nothing challenging per se, just exciting!

Most people only do the first half of the El Questro Gorge walk, which is a 2.4km return walk. To walk to the end is a 6.4km return walk. We walked to the half way point through a very scenic stream with high gorge cliffs on either side. The gorge is pretty narrow, but with lots of vegetation growing. Lots of trees and palms, plus green climbers on the rock face at times. Very beautiful place to walk through. At the half way point we discovered as to why most people turn back. Two huge boulders block the path, plus the creek flows on the right hand side and it’s pretty deep there so it’s not easy to pass it. To pass, one has to wade into the creek up to ones waist and then shimmy your way between the cliff face and the huge rock on the left side up and over the rock. Sibba decided to stay at the half way point and take a swim in the pool there. I was determined to go to the very end and see the small waterfall and pool. Thus I had to take off my walking shoes and put all my stuff into the back pack and then wade in and shimmy up and over the rocks. It wasn’t that difficult, especially if you are tall as I am!

Once past the two boulders, I put on my walking shoes again and headed up the gorge. Most of the way is not that difficult, but in a couple of place one has to climb a bit again, but this time without having to wade through the water as well!.

As I got to the end of the walk there was an inviting pool, which I decided to take a dip in. As soon as I dipped in, this lizard jumped out. Obviously not happy to share its pool with humans! While I cooled down, it sat on the bank and watched me with evil eyes! As soon as I got out, I managed to grab some photos before it jumped in again! I then proceeded and went to the waterfall at the beginning of the gorge. Below it was another inviting pool, which I of course dipped into. Then I headed back again to where Sibba waited patiently for me to return.

Then we headed back to the visitor car park and drove out of El Questro for the last time! We headed for a small village called Wyndham. We wanted to stay there over night and have a look around the following day. When we arrived at the only campsite in town, they just had a sign that advised that they were not in attendance. Visitors should simply pick a spot and settle the following day when they were back. As we had intended to hire a cabin, not camp for one night we left the place and headed for the nearest pub/hotel. There they had these motel rooms, so we took one of those.

After settling in, we went for a walk to the jetty that extends into the sea. This is used for re-creational fishing and small craft moorings. Further up the bay was a big jetty and station that seemed to be used for exporting some material. We found out later that it’s a terminal for exporting iron ore!. That explained the road trains that were driving past on a regular basis!

We then headed back to the pub and had some beer and wine. After 6pm we ordered our dinner, roast lamb special. It was quite nice and then we headed to our motel room. There I pulled out my laptop and used Skype to call my sister, which lives in Denmark. It was her birthday, so I managed to speak with her and my mother that is staying with my sisters family.