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Published: August 16th 2006
Manning Gorge
St Andrew's Cross spiderThe next leg of the trip north was in a more serious 4WD truck and once over the Fitzroy River and on to the Gibb River Road, you could see it was going to be needed. A new trip and a new group of people in the main - the majority eventually being referred to as Team France.
The sealed road ends at the unfortunately named, Derby and then it was on to Tunnel Creek and Windjana Gorge. It was for many the first sighting of crocs - a good photo opportunity with the freshies, not to be repeated with the salties further north. The Kimberley is apparently the size of Germany, but with a population of only 30,000. However at this time of the year, there were also plenty of the grey nomads on the move in their 4WD campers so it wasn't all wilderness.
There was plenty more gorge walking and exploring on this trip - Bell Gorge, Mannining Gorge etc. The road itself was in parts no more than a 4WD track, punctuated by serious corrugations and creeks ready to flood in the wet. We bushcamped in our swags wherever took our leader's fancy - no
Bungle Bungles
Picanniny Gorge showers, no toilets - just a few cows for company.
We reached "civilization" at El Questro - a fancy campsite with a bar no less - it was a popular decision to stay two nights here, before moving on to the highlight of the trip Bungle Bungles. The 400m high beehive domes are indeed a spectacular sight and two days were spent exploring Echidna and Mini Palms Chasms and Cathedral and Picanniny Gorges.
The final leg of the journey was Kununurra and Lake Argyle - the largest man made lake in Australia and sadly, home to some evil mosquitoes who hovvered around like helicopter gunships all night. We then took the easy option of a flight to Darwin, thus avoiding another 850km drive.
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