Derby

It seems like forever since the last post and it seems like forever since we had power and communications with the outside world.
After Kununurra we headed out along the Gibb River Road to El Questro.  The Gibb River Road is sealed to ElQ so it did not present any problems for us.  We had booked a private site which turned out to be fabulous.  We were about 5 km from the ElQ station and about 500 m from our nearest neighbour.  A large, treed site right on the Pentecost River.  Bliss.  The down side of ElQ is the cost.  $20 per person park fee for 5 days, $25 pp per night camp fee - that's a lot for no power or water but the seclusion makes up for it.
Our first adventure in ElQ was to the Zebedee Springs.  They can be reached via a short walk from the car park.  The springs tumble down the red cliffs in stages, forming little rock pools,  The springs are under the shade of Pandanus trees and are a very popular cooling off spot for visitors to ElQ,  We moved on down the road to our first gorge - Amalia Gorge.  It is quite a long walk into the gorge along a dry creek bed.  Dry creek bed, equal river stones of all shapes and sizes, some small some verging on boulder size.  We got in as far as we could but ended up not completing the walk as the final bit entailed swinging out over a deep pool of water whilst trying to stand on a ledge about 20 cm wide and hoisting ourselves up about 2 m without toe holds.  With thousands of $$$ in camera gear on our persons we decided it was not worth the risk.  It was very hot too, about 35.
Late in the afternoon we did an ElQ tour in a safari style vehicle to Explosion Gorge and later to Brancos Lookout to watch the sunset over the Pentecost River.  The trip to Explosion took a bone jarring hour which ended in a great river cruise down through the Chamberlain Gorge.  It is called Explosion Gorge because the developer of ElQ, a young Pom, back in the 1990's decided that it might be fun to chuck explosives into the river to see how many fish he could catch!! Drinkies at Brancos was great too.
Next day we did the Emma Gorge walk, which is probably ElQ's most famous gorge.  Thank heaven we did it early in the morning - it was so hot.  Again a long walk in along a dry river bed, river stones, boulders etc.  But at the end it was just glorious.  High, red cliff walls formed a semi circle, over the top flowed a waterfall into a large pool.  So pretty and so worth the walk.
Next day we left ElQ to really begin the trek along the infamous Gibb River Road.  After a few hours we pulled into a rest area and oh lordy, a flat tyre.  #$%$%$$#@ So it was a long tea break!  Off we went, our destination being Mt Barnett.  We pulled into the servo and lo and behold another flat tyre.  This was not a comfortable feeling.  Two spare tyres, both flat, the trailer tyre wont fit the car and the nearest tyres service place is 80 K's down the road.  We arranged for the local community school bus to take out tyres into the tyre service place the next morning - but they forgot!!!  So with fingers crossed and lots of prayers said we took off down the road to get the tyre fixed.  We made it, the tyre got fixed and we felt so much better.  To celebrate we headed further off down the road to Bell Gorge.  Such a pretty place, a lovely waterfall that cascades down over several rock ledges and lots of pools of water which were filled with lots of people enjoying the sunshine.
Next day we packed up and headed back to the tyre service to fix the other flat tyre - unfortunately the road had done so much damage to it we had to buy a second hand replacement.  So now we had 2 spares and another 400 km of dirt road to negotiate,
We arrived in Windjana Gorge late in the morning (still with 2 spares).  After setting up camp we headed up the road to Tunnel Creek.  We were so fortunate, lots of cars and buses in the car park but we had the place to ourselves.  The walk through the tunnel is great, mainly a sandy shore to walk along with the occasional walk into the knee high water.  It is a funny feeling knowing there a crocs in there and eels, but we had no probs.
Next day we did the Windjana Gorge walk.  It is about 7 km return, this time along a sandy river bed, which is probably harder than walking on river stones. Again it was so hot, even at 8 am, we rationed out water as we were determined to get to the end.  Which we did.
So now we are in Derby on the WA coast. It means civilisation, power, communications!!  Tonight we are going to the local pub to celebrate surviving the 600 + km Gibb River Road.
Tomorrow we take off for Cape Leveque for 3 nights, then we come back to Broome for 3 nights then sadly we have to start heading south.
So, until Broome...