A must do on the Gibb River Road is Ellenbrae Station for fresh scones
with jam and cream. A little green oasis
with a shockingly rough 5km driveway.
But the scones were well worth it!
By far the busiest we have seen the Gibb River Road so far,
fortunately most people are going in the opposite direction to us. It astounds us how fast so many people drive,
not slowing down to pass, taking up the whole road and coming around corners on
the wrong side. The road is variable,
one minute it seems to be ok and then you have full on corrugations, dips,
rocks. Each time we have to slow down it
takes ‘Ota’ quite a bit to pick up speed again.
Oh to have a turbo!
On reaching Drysdale Station we chose to camp down at the Bush Camp at
Miners Pool ($10 a night), a beautiful shady camp with very few other campers
and a lovely sandy beach beside the Drysdale river with a rope swing. No sightings of any freshwater crocs,
although the boys did have a whip snake swim past them in the river pool. Lovely cool mornings here, very smoky though
from all the burning off.
We are eating well mostly, although our enthusiasm for cooking does
wane in the unrelenting heat. Almond and
buckwheat pancakes for breakfast (from my prepared supplies) and a sensational roast
in the camp oven.
Ash spent a lot of time checking over the car and camper while at
Drysdale, checking nuts and bolts, topping up this and that. He discovered that the 7 point plug for the
camper lights is no longer working and also found a leak in the power steering
fluid reservoir, it appears we need a new reservoir, so headed back to the
Homestead and bought more fluid.
Unfortunately they didn’t have the right sized plug. We have been told by many that the road into
Mitchell Plateau is the worst of any.
Most people take 2-3 hours to do the 76km from King Edward. A lot of people leave their camper trailers at
the King Edward River Camp (2 hours from Drysdale) and then just take the car
and tents in. But as we do not have
tents we will be taking the camper with us.
Friday morning we made an early getaway and reached the Mitchell River
National Park turnoff by 8.30am. Ash had
assured us all that the King Edward river crossing would be very impressive and
deep. Not so!
20km down the incredibly rough road we stopped for one of our regular
tyre and car checks (Ash – ‘you never can be too careful’) and to our dismay
discovered we had blown the right rear shock absorber in the Toyota. Oh no!
From all the horror stories we had heard we thought if something was
going to go wrong it would be with the camper, not the trusty ‘Ota’. We then travelled the rest of the 76km of
bone jarringly horrendous windy road full of corrugations, ruts, rocks and dips
at 20km/hour. Five hours later we
arrived hot and exhausted at Mitchell River NP.
Oh what to do now! Well firstly
eat and then find a nice cool river pool to swim in.
Next morning Ash found the incredibly helpful Ranger who allowed us to
use his phone to organise new shocks to be flown in on the mail run aeroplane from
Kununurra on Monday. We are yet to find
out how much that will cost us. I could
think of worse places to spend an extra day or so. Ash spent the morning reading the Toyota
Workshop Manual and now feels he is a confident bush mechanic.
To take our mind off things we took a helicopter flight to the top of
the Mitchell Falls. Six minutes of
flying for a mere $540 but well worth it.
We then spent the next 5 hours slowly meandering from pool to waterfall
to pool to aboriginal rock art for the 4.3km back to camp. The heat was stifling but the water was so
refreshing, definitely our favourite hike so far. Saw a couple of Merten’s Water Monitors
(lizards), lots of fish and a Monjon (sort of a cross between a small rock
wallaby and a possum). Apparently the
flow over the falls is already at the July/August levels because of the poor
wet season and the same goes for the temperatures. Averaging 36 degrees during the day, with
80-90% humidity and only cooling down to the high teens at night.
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| Look no doors |
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| Mitchell Falls |
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| Rainbow BeeEaters |
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| Little Merten's Falls |
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| Monjon |
Spent the next couple of days just lazing about and swimming waiting
for our car parts. After driving the
16km out to the airport to collect our shocks, the Ranger gave Ash full use of
his workshop and we are now back in business with lovely new rear shockers.
An early (6.30am) start, just in case of disaster, back to King Edward
pool for a swim before heading back to Drysdale Station to catch up on washing
and a much needed shower after 7 days without one and a couple of cold beers
for Ash! Only mishap was the left wing
mirror falling out – wonderful stuff duct tape!
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| Frill Neck Lizard |
Cadell and Coen befriended a Cattle Egret at Drysdale Station which
followed them around gobbling up the grasshoppers they disturbed in the grass.
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| A Boy and his Bird |
