Thursday 8th July - King Edward River to El Questro

Stone the crows.  I wish somebody would have done yesterday morning as we were woken by their shriek calls to one another at the Mitchell Falls campsite.  Today’s dawn chorus was much more pleasant with gentle warbling and a few tweets, although it was Anne deciding that we should get up that properly raised me from my slumber.  Speaking of being rudely awoken, we were visited by a kangaroo in the night, although he did little more than hop noisily through the undergrowth after stopping for a quick look.

We headed back to the King Edward river crossing in order to start our rinse cycle.

We’d loaded our blue barrel with dirty clothes, water and detergent yesterday, and let the rough and bumpy drive out to Point Warrender act as the wash cycle.  A change of water and the barrel was back on the roof for the drive to El Questro which nicely rinsed out the clothes.  I thought the final result was pretty good, but Anne says that it wouldn’t pass the “Daz doorstep challenge” as her socks are still red (from the dust, in case you were wondering).

We were mainly driving today, first braving the corrugations back to Drysdale Station where we rewarded ourselves with a “Kimberley burger”; home produced beef, fried egg, pineapple, beetroot, lettuce, cheese and tomato all precariously balanced in a bap.  Delicious.  They weren’t quite so generous with their diesel, limiting each vehicle to 30 litres, but, with the fuel remaining in our tanks, it was enough to carry us to El Questro (the fuel truck was due in later today so we could have waited for more if necessary). SPOT

Once back on the Gibb River Road there isn’t much to see until you reach the lookout over the Pentecost River towards the Cockburn Ranges in the east.  It is stunning, especially in the late afternoon light.

We’re showered and properly clean for the first time in a long while, but it came at a price.  El Questro is a 400,000 ha working cattle station with a lucrative sideline as a wilderness park for tourists.

We each had to pay for a seven day permit to enter (AU$35 for two), and the camping is $34 a night.  I think we’ll be wild camping tomorrow and driving back in to complete the list of 4WD tracks, gorges and hot springs.  We also won’t be trying out the barramundi fishing by helicopter, or the champagne cruise down Chamberlain Gorge. SPOT