PIE back time!

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Day 162 - Derby

We said we wouldn’t do this, but we’ve changed our minds. Today we’re going for a little drive up the Gibb River Road!

The lure is Bell Gorge, apparently it’s one of the Kimberley region’s finest gorges with a picturesque waterfall and deep cooling waters safe for swimming. That sounds like a good thing to do on a hot spring day so we wait for the fuel station to open then with full tanks we set off on the 233 km journey out there.

We’ve mentioned the Gibb River Road before as it’s a bit notorious and has a reputation for being unforgiving as far as vehicles are concerned. We’ve met plenty of people during our trip that have done it though, there was the family we met in Katherine gorge who towed their caravan along it and broke the back window of their 4WD, blew two tyres and wrecked the car battery by the end of it, we also met a couple of backpackers who drove it in their 2WD car and we’ve met heaps that have towed camper trailers over it. Most of them have a story to tell and it’s usually about the damage to their vehicle rather than the spectacular scenery!

This end of the road is in far better nick than the Wyndham / Kununurra end, the first 100 ks is bitumen and after that we find a very decent gravel road with small elements of corrugations but we don’t even notice them. The scenery starts to come real good at about 180 ks in, the view across the range is just awesome although the photo won’t do it justice so you’ll have to take our word for it! We start to understand why this road is seen as one of the best outback routes to tackle. It’s not just about the outback driving or the remoteness of it, it’s the scenery, it’s breathtaking. The cattle are also breathtaking but for different reasons! They watch you coming from the side of the road and then just at the point of almost no return they lolop out in front of us!

We get to a section of the road which is a lot rougher so we slow down and drive accordingly but I begin to notice a ‘new’ rattle coming from the car. Darryl hears it too so at the next parking bay we pull over to have a look. A quick tug on the bull bar reveals the problem and we see that the weld has broken between the chassis and the bar so now we’ve only got the opposite side holding it in place. It looks like PIE is getting her own back on us after all these rough roads!

We’re so close to the gorge that it’s pointless turning around and heading back to the campsite but we need to make sure the bull bar is secure for the rest of the journey. Darryl gets out the trusty ratchet strap and fixes it up to the only accessible bracket - the air filter! It seems pretty stable so we carry on and keep our fingers crossed the road doesn’t get any rougher! We’ve seen a couple of roadtrains out here this morning and another speeds by while we’re parked up, they’re so huge.

When we came off the Gibb River Road and onto the track down to the gorge it does get a bit more uneven but taking it steady keeps the bar in place and we arrive there with plenty of time for a swim.

The walk to the gorge is rockier than the road but it’s so worth it when we get there, it’s beautiful. A family have taken down floating tubes for the kids to mess about with and the lad and Dad jump into the gorge water from the rocks near the waterfall. They’ve been here loads of times before apparently and know that it’s deep enough and safe to do! Crazy people!

We spot some water monitors lazing around in the sun and even a Pied Heron comes down to try his luck at fishing! The water is great and we enjoy our swim but all the while we’re thinking how we go about getting the car fixed because we are supposed to be driving to Broome tomorrow! Oh well, nothing we can do about it now so we swim and enjoy the gorge for a while longer. Arguably this isn’t really a day trip, you should really spend a night camping out here but at least we made the effort to come and have a look!

Before we left we give the ratchet strap a tuck to make sure it’s still holding everything on and then we start the homeward journey. Once we’re through the gate at the perimeter of the campground we’re heading for the Gibb River Road once.more and wondering if we’re going to be another casualty of it!

Dar negotiates it beautifully and we’re soon whizzing along on the good sections of the gravel road. It doesn’t take us long to get back, maybe just over 2 and a half hours but we’re back in time to ask Ian (the owner of the caravan park) if he can recommend a welder to us. He knows just the chap, he’s mobile and his name is Paul. After a quick telephone call the arrangements are made for Paul to be here at 6am tomorrow - should be interesting entertainment for the rest of the camp!

Not long after Belinda, Nige and the kids arrive back from their day out at Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek. They’ve had a great day in the hired 4WD but they too have found a problem with their own car. Friends had told them about a track up near Kununurra leading to a waterhole so they went out to have a look. It was a bit of a rough track and unfortunately they hit the sump of their car on a rock and it seems to have cracked it so they’re losing oil. One of the local mechanics has quoted them $1200 to fix it which has us all a bit stunned so we suggest speaking to Paul and getting him to look at it when he’s here in the morning.

In the meantime we get ready for a bit of an excursion in the hired 4WD out on to the mud flats! Very exciting! We can drive out there from our campsite as there’s a gap in the fence! With Nige at the wheel we all pile in the Landcruiser equipped with cameras, tripods and nibbles! .

There’s lots of yahooing from us all in the car and we’re soon zooming around. Nige gets a bit curious as to have soft the ground is underfoot so drives into the wetter area and then wishes he hadn’t! Actually that’s not true, despite us sinking deeper into the mud we were all loving the action! Back on more solid ground we laughed at the amount of mud on the tyres of the cruiser, nice and thick! The sun was starting to set so we headed off to find the Dinner Tree - a huge boab apparently perfect for sunset viewing. They weren’t kidding either, it was a stunner and you’ve never seen 6 people leave a cruiser so quickly! Belinda said it was like someone had pressed the eject button!

It was just beautiful and we all had a good hug of the boab plus Darryl managed to find a huge fruit for us to try out a carving on. Ok, maybe not us but somebody who can draw!

Just before we left a small Frogmouth Owl flew into the trees above our heads, that’s our first one in the wild!

Another day in this beautiful country and it turned out to be just fine all round in the end. We cooked up leftovers from yesterdays big stew pot and then settled in to blog writing and looking through some of the photographs from the last few days.

We always have a read of Kangaroojack’s blog to see how they’re doing and in the latest we find they’ve had a close encounter with an injured blue winged kookaburra. There was nothing they could do for this beautiful bird except try to tempt it with some water but they are on the journey to Cape York so would have been miles away from anywhere. With no sign of any sort of animal rescue service so they had to leave it where they’d found it and let Mother Nature take it’s course. We caught up with them on Skype a bit later but the connection was very dodgy so there was a bit of a delay - always amusing!

We were all a bit done in at this end too so shuffled off to bed ready for moving day tomorrow!

Blimey, we’ll be in Broome tomorrow. That’s amazing!

Dar and Sar

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