Last night we both froze and needed an extra blanket and I was wearing my winter pyjamas. In the morning, we discovered that the windows had been left wide open from the afternoon before, which explains why it was so cold. A taste of what weather we have been missing out on I guess. We had a slow morning and Matt enjoyed his smashed avo, mushies eggs and toast for a hot breakfast. We packed up and headed back down the road to fill up on water at the Mt Barnett Roadhouse, before we headed back onto the Gibb River Road.
Our first stop was not too far down the road, at Galvan Gorge. As luck would have it, two 4WD tour busses were there as we pulled up. None of us were very quick to get out of the bus. When we did I was approached by an old fella who said to me “you guys have turned up in the only things worth taking a photo of on this tour so far” what a sad sorry man. To quote buzz Light year , “ you are a strange little man, you have my pity” A half a kilometre walk into the gorge and we were greeted by the sight of another beautiful waterfall, red rock faces and a green waters in the rock pool. There were a few Indigenous rock paintings as well. A lone boab tree sat at the top of the waterfall. For those who were keen to enjoy the water, which wasn’t as cold as yesterday’s apparently, there was a rope swing too. Matt and I were happy to enjoy watching it all, rather than get into the water.
From there we headed back onto the Gibb River Road. Going along this road, there have been a few things we have noticed, the different colour dirts have meant different types of rides on the road. Red dirt, which stains the nearby grasses, shrubs and trees red, is usually quite rocky, with a few lighter patches often being clay. Grey dirt is usually very corrugated with firm corrugations and gravel. Light colours is usually sandy. The cows are pretty good at ignoring the vehicles passing by, though we do slow in case they do decide to move onto the road. We haven’t seen any Roos along the Gibb River Road. As we drove along, a few rocky escarpments appeared for us to enjoy along the way. We knew from comments from others that the road wasn’t suitable for us to go and visit Adcock Gorge, so we gave it a miss and headed onto Iminitji. We then decided wouldn’t stay here but rather headed down the road to Bell Gorge. This was the worst road we have driven on. Very chewed up in places with some bypasses around some dug out parts. There were a few creek crossings and one I noticed contained a croc, which I told Matt about after we had safely got to the other side. This road led to a National Park, and despite paying all the fees to go there, that money isn’t going to maintaining the roads. There were a few more sections that really were dug out and still wet and boggy, one section looked like a 4WD club had made an obstacle course with deep ruts and holes that we had to crawl in and over, but the clipper handled it with ease, and a bit of clunking.
The campground was lovely, and we were able to park up and had access to hot showers and flushing toilets. The guys went over all the suspension of the buses after the terrible road, but otherwise another relaxing day. When we pulled in, the friendly guy farmer Greg that had been enjoying the fires after dinner at Manning Gorge was there, and he said we must be following him, he came and joined us again, with his partner after dinner, though tonight we didn’t have a campfire. We will do the Bell Gorge walk tomorrow.
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