The Gibb River Rd - Windjana Gorge to Mt Elizabeth station
From Tunnel Ck we drove north-west to Windjana Gorge, and from there we started our Gibb River Road journey. Looking at tourist information it would appear that travel along this stock route mainly involves floating around in a series of beautiful rocky waterholes and waterfalls. However, in between these delightful oases one has to endure many hours of driving along dusty, heavily corrugated roads.
We also visited other billabongs and did some short walks near the campsite.
Windjana Gorge itself lived up to expectations, with towering limestone cliffs, and several freshwater crocs sunbathing on the riverbank.
It was interesting to see a nautilus fossil in the cliff face.
I found this map helpful to try and piece together the jigsaw puzzle of ancient reefs that we had crossed on several occasions.
From Windjana Gorge we headed north-east to Silent Grove campsite and Bell Gorge, passing a team of graders, so the road was slightly better for a short distance- about 10km!
At Bell Gorge it was a short walk to a beautiful swimming hole under a waterfall - the first of many that we visited along the Gibb.
Back on the road the next day, we stopped for coffee at Imintje before turning south towards Mornington Wilderness Sanctuary. It's a 1.5 hour drive off the main road, so it was good to stay there a few nights to make the detour worthwhile.
On our first morning we hired a couple of canoes to explore Dimond Gorge.
After a delicious meal at the restaurant we listened to a talk on the conservation work done in the Kimberley by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, which runs Mornington. This work includes a program of aerial control burning using helicopters. It sounded impressive, but later in our trip we would see rock art sites which had been damaged by fire, so wondered whether this is the best method.
The following day we rockhopped up Sir John Gorge, and had a great swim, followed by a visit to a bird hide - no we didn't see any Gouldian finches, but we did see a breathtaking chase by a hawk of a little plover. Luckily the plover survived.
If we'd been on a tour bus we would have been up at 5am, and on the road by 6. However, with a leisurely start and packing up camp, we didn't leave until nearly 10am. Back on the Gibb, we stopped for a lunchtime swim at the very pretty Galvan's Gorge.
We had hoped to also visit Manning Gorge, but since it involves quite a long walk and it was getting late in the day we weren't able to. Instead, we called in at Barnett Gorge. Although only a short distance from the road, the track in was quite rough, so took us 1/2 an hour to drive in to the carpark, and another 1/2 hour walk to the Gorge. We found this beautiful peaceful spot and would have loved to stay longer, but had booked a campsite and dinner at Mt Elizabeth station, so on we went, arriving just on dusk.
