Emma Gorge {Gibb River Road}

Time to start our last gorge walk on the Gibb River Road.  We managed to head over reasonably early so seemed to miss the crowds {although passed heaps of silly people walking up in the middle of the day as we made our decent}.  I started with this idea in my head that it would be a reasonably easy walk as this seemed to be the one that most of the ‘oldie’ tours came too.  

Boy was I wrong!

We climbed up & up, and then up some more just for good measure.  Climbing rocks, crossing the water and climbing some more.  Made for even more of a workout with a wee child on my back and Kyla attached to my hand.

When we finally made it to the top, it was more than worth it.  The Gorge was breathe taking, with the ferns above and water flowing off the wall in all different locations.  The boys took a swim but it was far to cold for me to consider more than a cooling splash of water on my face and a quick dip of my very warm/sore feet.

All too soon it was time to start the walk back down and that meant a bribe of ice-cream for the smalls when we made it back to the bottom {I was extremely lucky here as I never checked before we left if they actually sold them}.

At the bottom, ice-cream inhaled and legs rested it was time to hit the road and head into Kunnunarra.

El Questro Station {Gibb River Road}

We crossed the great Pentecost River on our way to El Questro.  Kind of hard to imagine that the big space can be filled with water given what we saw was a shallow ‘trickle’.

I thought that we had seen the worst of the roads but the road into El Questro was by far the worst section of road on the entire trip.  Pretty bad given the exorbitant prices charged to stay at the place.

J & I found a nice spot which plenty of space for everyone, set up and then just relaxing without own company.  It was actually really nice. 

After everyone arrived and a swim was in order, although sadly the 'swimming spot' was deemed a little less swim friendly, so some buckets of water around the camp it was.  It was around then that we decided to head up to the bar for happy hour.  

  

Well worth it for a nice cold drink with great company.  {even better when there was a cute baby on the table next to us to entertain the children}.  It was a beautiful sunset and nice to see all of the bats and flying foxes start to head out at dust.

Friday saw us head off to explore ZeeBeeDee Springs and one of the gorges {which was yet to be decided}.  I am glad that we took of fairly early as it meant that we got some time at the springs before it got too busy.

The springs are a natural hot spring and it was crazy how some of the water flowing into them from the spring was as warm as a shower while some parts at the side cooled before it made it into the pool and where chilly. We spent a good few hours lolling around in the warm water, turning into prunes before it started to get busy and we decided it was time to head off.

We ended up picking El Questro Gorge and after a very wet drive into the gorge walk, the walk itself kept your interested in your surroundings from the moment you started.  It was lovely to be able to see something so incredible come to life the further you walked into it.  We actually followed the water flowing out of the gorge all the way to the first pool.

Given it was so shaded it really wasn’t a place for swimming but children being children couldn’t be stopped so in they got, with all of the fish that called the pool home.  The gorge walk actually went a lot further past this point and the men tried it but sadly failed as it was by far the most difficult of the walks we had done {with rock jumping, swimming and the like involved}. I was just happy to sit and experience the lovely ferns growing up the sides of the cliff face, the water dribbling down it and listening to everything around us.

 The walkout certainly took longer but it was just as exciting looking at the environment change as we walked.

Again we headed to happy hour before heading home for a lovely roast dinner.

Hard to believe that really this was the last stop on our trip along the Gibb and even more hard to believe that should be do it again it will all look totally different to this time.

I lie we are stopping at Emma Gorge tomorrow to do that walk before heading back to the ‘real world’, well Kunnunarra at least!