triplog

One of the last attractions on the Gibb River Road (heading west to east) is El Questro station. It’s a very commercial ‘bush experience’ - there’s a restaurant, a bar, manicured grounds, very high-end accomodation (along with the camping), tour groups galore, horse-back tours, helicopter flights, the works. But in spite of all this (and the expense), the landscape and natural attractions are magic. Zebede Springs, a cascading series of hot pools fed by a thermal spring, under a stunning orange sandstone wall and surrounded by palms and ferns, was alone worth the price of admission. And the other gorges are pretty spectacular too.

The morning we left Mitchell Plateau, we had issues with the awning, so Jane did some insane rally driving down the Mitchell Falls road - we caught up with Matt and Bec down at the King Edward River campsite where we’d left the trailer, had a quick swim and continued north to the coast at Kalumburu - the very top of WA.

We picked up the permits from town (only just made it in time) and headed out to Honeymoon Bay. The campground there was a major disappointment - only a few nice beach spots (all taken) and the rest of the property looked like a tip - rusting machinery lying around etc. Don’t get me wrong the coastline was nice, but pretty mangrove-y and included a resident four metre salty. We set up camp on a freshly bulldozed bit of ground between the two beach areas - boulders and holes and tree roots everywhere. A bonus of this was we got to use the rocks to make the best camp fireplace ever - any more time there and I would have had the thing including a woodfire pizza oven

We ended up spending a few days here anyway, lazing around, going for walks around the peninsula and fishing - no luck off the beach, I think a boat is needed up here. Food was awesome as usual (we have high standards!), Bec made the best curry ever (!), I did a sambal, and Jane made an incredible camp oven apple crumble.

Camped almost next to us down on the beach were a young couple named Marcus and Yasmine, who were touring around Oz on a catamaran (that’s their cat in the photo above) with two dogs. Pretty hardcore - there’s a lot of remote coastline across the top of Australia, and these guys were extremely self-sufficient, to the point of hunting wild pig and goat with a bow. Nuts but inspiring… and using wind-power to get around is a lot cheaper than diesel.

We left Honeymoon Bay early on 03.08.2008 and had a look at the McGowans Island campsite on the way through - we definitely made the wrong call here. McGowans looked like a complete oasis - campsites nestled amongst little stands of pandanas, clean facilities, no rusting junk lying around and a beautiful bay, rocky shores and beaches.

After Honeymoon Bay and a brief free camp on the Gibb River itself, we pretty much did the last part of the Gibb River Road in one stretch, culminating in the Pentecost River crossing. It’s a pretty spectacular (and wide!) river crossing, but we got it at a time when the water level was pretty low and not running too fast. Crocs frequent this area, so walking the crossing to get a good 4WD photo is not a good idea - Jane’s photos above were taken from the safety of the troopy.

A travel day -  we did some miles and refueled at Mt Barnett roadhouse ($2.429 per litre!), then stayed at a free camp at Barnett Gorge. Had a camp-oven roast lamb for dinner (and soooo much gravy), complete with roaring fire… finally got rid of the bag of jarrah firewood we’d carried since Carnarvon. Yay!

Met a couple from the camp next to us - bloke called Stuey stumbled over for a chat, introducing himself by adding some logs to our ebbing fire. Turns out he and his other half Coral have been doing a round-oz trip like us, starting a month earlier in December 2006 (we left in January 2007) - they’ve been pretty much a month or so ahead of us ever since, even spending time at Cloudy Bay on Bruny Island in Tasmania; and while we spent a year in Margies, they spent pretty much the same time in Perth, resuming their travels just recently - we must have just missed crossing paths at Kalbarri and the Bluff.

Ok, here’s some of the choice shots from our time at the Bluff (all photos taken by Jane, just to give credit where it’s due). First up the surf…

The first shot above is an unknown charger on a big day of swell, the second one is Gray doing the kneelo boogaloo out at Turtles and the last one is yours truly either about to get slotted or hurt at the Bluff (small wave on the big Thursday of swell - triple overhead on the bigger sets). My last wave of that session (I was out for over 4 hours) was easily the biggest (unmade) barrel of my life. Unfortunately, not caught on camera. It went something like this:
(set looms, starts paddling) “… wow, this is gonna be big”
(takes drop) “woah, get the nose down, get the nose down”
(bottom turns) “easy does it, easy does it, keep the rail gripping”
(looks at wave lining up) “wow, that’s a massive expanse of vertical water ahead of me - get high, get up high, remember to take the high line”
(sets line, wave barrels) [SILENCE] “ohmygod this is huge. there’s room for 2 of me in here. how quiet is it all of a sudden, look at that massive tunnel of water. ohmygod.”
(pumps for speed) “wow. there’s the exit. it’s huge. i could drive a car through that. i can’t believe i’m gonna make this. i’m actually gonna mak…”
[ANNIHILATION]

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The people - we had some incredible company up here. First Gray came up, then Wes and Jess. Awesome spending time with you guys.

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And the natural environment is just awe-inspiring.

Ok, I’m finally getting around to it… some pics from the trip to the Bluff. We spent 2 weeks camped at Red Bluff, which is about 120km from Carnarvon in the north-west of WA. It’s a fairly well-known spot, and is right next door (well, about 20km of dirt track) from another famous surf spot, Gnaraloo (pronounced Nah-loo).

This post is massive, and there’s heaps of pics, so you’ll have to click the ‘more’ link below … go on, you know you should …

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