The first casualty
We lost the Frenchies in Derby when they went looking for somewhere to fix their tyre so we headed along the Gibb River Road by ourselves and spent our first night in ‘The Kimberley’ camping by a little creek where we met 5 young backpackers who were also doing the Gibb River Road. We ended up having a few beers and some goon with our new mates and travelling with them the following day to see Tunnel Creek, which is pretty much a creek that flows through a tunnel in the bottom of a hill for a couple of hundred metres… pretty cool place! While at Tunnel Creek our new mates also inherited Skeat’s bad luck and got a flattie.
Our first camp along the Gibb River Road
Some new mates
Tunnel Creek
Tunnel Creek
Tunnel Creek
From Tunnel Creek we left our new mates and headed for Windjana Gorge, which they had done the day before and planned to meet up with them that night and camp together. However it seemed that Skeat’s passed on bad luck had other ideas as it turns out the steering on their car broke as they were leaving Tunnel Creek and they had to make the long and slow drive back to Derby to get it fixed.
Anyway we headed to Windjana Gorge and saw our first crocodile (only a freshwater croc) and experienced our first Kimberley gorge and it was pretty amazing.
Windjana Gorge
Windjana Gorge
Our first croc... I think it was pretty intimidated by Skeat
Bats in Windjana Gorge
We ended up catching up with the Frenchies at Windjana Gorge so we camped with them that night and explored the Lennard River Gorge and Bell Gorge together. Both amazing gorges where you can have a good swim and jump from the cliffs.
First river crossing... the Frenchies failed!
Trekking!
Lennard River Gorge
Bell Gorge
Jumping from the cliffs got a bit extreme though when we decided to jump off the cliffs at Bell Gorge. These cliffs were about 15m high and seemed like good fun... but what we didn’t realise was that hitting water after falling 15m would leave your body hurting for a couple of days. Skeat though is pretty lucky he wasn’t sore for a lot longer after he decided he would do a back flip from this cliff. I don’t really think Skeat thought about the consequences of stuffing this back flip up but about halfway down I’m pretty sure he regretted doing it as spun out of control towards the water… luckily he managed to do a half dive and didn’t get hurt.
Bell Gorge cliff jump
Skeat on the way down from his attempted backflip
Over the next couple of days we travelled solo and checked out Adcock Gorge, Galvans Gorge and Manning Gorge, which were all beautiful but one turned out to be our favourite for the whole Kimberley. That gorge was Galvans Gorge… it wasn’t particularly spectacular or anything but it was just a fun place. It had a deep pool at the bottom of a waterfall which you could sit under it in several spots, cliffs which you could jump off into the pool and a rope to swing on… the best!
Adcock Gorge
Galvans Gorge... amazing!
Galvans Gorge
Kimberley roads
One we had done these gorges we then started the long and uncomfortable drive north along over 200km of corrugated and rocky road to Mitchell Falls. It was on this drive we came to realize that Skeat is still very much unlucky. About 2km from Mitchell Falls (so after over 200km of driving on these dodgy roads) Skeat’s bull bar decided to have it bolts rattle loose from the constant corrugations and was going to drop and pop one of Skeat’s tyres.
The road to Mitchell Falls
The road to Mitchell Falls
Not good...
The damage
We got some weird looks with the new addition to white car
The new look Navara... Dakar Blue!
The drive north was somewhat worth it in the end as we saw some beautiful and spectacular waterfalls (the biggest and highest of ‘The Kimberley’). These waterfalls were Mitchell Falls, Little Mertens Falls and Big Mertens Falls.
Little Mertens Falls
Big Mertens Falls
Mitchell Falls
Mitchell Falls
After safely returning from Mitchell Falls we continued east along the Gibb River Road until we came to the El Questro Wilderness Park which has some amazing spots which we checked out over a couple of days. We also had a random and very drunk night at the bar at El Questro… amazing Sunday session!
El Questro
El Questro Gorge
Emma Gorge... amazingly clear water!
Zebedee Springs - El Questro
From here we checked out Wyndham and Kununurra but not much has really happened here… Wyndham is in contention for the biggest dive we have visited.
Sunset at Wyndham
Surprisingly after a couple of quiet weeks on the blog updates you are probably going to get another one soon so stay tuned...
...and some randoms.
Dead Horse Creek
Too much!
Car Vs Cow
Doing the housework
The team
Hi boyz,
ReplyDeleteWhat a great adventure this is! I have enjoyed reading about your exploits and admiring the photos. If I didn't know the one of Skeat mid-fall over Bells Gorge was real, i would have sworn it was photoshopped. Has there been any advance on the stingray score?
I look forward to the next installment... stay safe. Gaynor.