Monday 25th August 2014 – El Questro to Home Valley Station – fine sunny warm, windy

Last night, there was live entertainment again, but it did finish earlier, plus we had our own live entertainment with the noisiest bird call. Everyone could not believe how loud they were.  The Blue Winged Kookaburra - (there are two types of kookaburra)  They don’t laugh like the ones we have at home, but I never thought about their call.  I just assumed that they didn’t make much sound at all.   You do hear a couple of chuckles though. They are certainly louder than the laughing kookaburra.  I have seen the Blue Winged Kookaburra a couple of times, but never heard the call.

We got up early and headed down to Zebedee Thermal Springs, and arrived at 6.30am and the gate was open.  The same car (the walk ins from the day before) was in the car park.  We met up with the guy, who was there taking photos, his family didn’t want to walk in again, so they missed out.  The three of us had the pools for a good hour to ourselves before anyone else came. We left at 8am to go back and pack up the trailer.

It was a short drive over to Home Valley Station.  We crossed the Pentecost River again.  You also cross the Pentecost River for access to El Questro.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The water crossing at Pentecost River and the view back along the Gibb River Road

 

 

 

 

 

 

the view up stream and down stream of the river. 

We bypassed the camp ground at the resort (they have live entertainment as well) and took the River Camp option with the Salt Water Croc’s.  The camp is divided into two sections, one with generators which have to be turned off at 8pm and the other for non generator.  We drove in and there were quite a few people (and no shade) in the non generator side and no-one in the other side.  We have camped by ourselves under a very shady tree and late in came three other campers. We are high and well away from the water’s edge, so should not expect to see any reptilian visitors in camp.  The river banks are muddy and we hope to see our first croc basking.

Camp views                         Camp set up

We are only a couple of kilometres from the river crossing which is rocky and sandy, but here it is muddy.  It looks tidal.

 

There are plenty cute Double Bar Finches – good chance of a photo.  The tree we are camped under is a Bauhinia which is in flower.

  

 

 

 

 

 

The tiny red flower of the Bauhinia, then a small seed pod begins,

     Some of these pods are 10cm long and 5cm wide.  They turn to a burnt  sienna/ red colour and from a distance it looks like the tree has a mass of red flowers.  This must be to attract the birds to the tree and then to the tiny little flowers.

 

 

 

 

 A camp visitor today – Rufus Whistler – a female, she is not as brightly coloured as the male.  very tiny bird – with a great call.  A skink who was on the bough, made a very hasty retreat, although I don’t think he was on this birds menu of small insects.

 

 

 

 

  

We were told that there is a whip cracking demonstration at the resort tonight at 8pm. This afternoon, a young bloke came down in a ute and spent a few hours practicing.  So we think we have seen a preview to tonight’s entertainment.  He just had on board shorts, and when practicing he didn’t hit his bare chest, but caught his bare foot. 

Saturday 23rd August 2014 – El Questro – fine, sunny, clear skies

 

We left Kununurra and headed towards the Gibb River Road.  Our first port of call is El Questro.  A little expensive for the unpowered camping, but it has some good 4wd tracks that we decided we shouldn’t miss.

We drove in and parked the camper trailer to reserve a camp site and headed off to Branko Lookout and Explosion Gorge and Sandwich Hole.

 

By the time we got to the Chamberlain River crossing we were glad that we had decided to stay a El Questro

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the river crossing your can see the resort on the rock overhang.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Close up of the resort         Downstream view from Branko Lookout

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can see the resort in the distance on the right            View of Explosion Gorge

Above Upstream view from Branko Gorge  -     Below  full view of Explosion Gorge

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sandwich Hole – amazing array of colours in the rocks

Green, Pink, Purple, Caramel all with a nice sparkly sheen.

 

 

 

 

 

Our camp site at El Questro

The weather is so nice we haven’t needed the annex. 

 

 

 

Bird of the day – had no idea what this was. At first I thought from a distance it looked like some sort of sea bird… Although it does look black it isn’t – some sort of brown colour.

It is a Radjah Shelduck – it is out of it’s optimum habitat which is the NT but can be found outside this area but it is uncommon/rare.

 

We had a walk through the camping area and there is a new very very large bus towing a very large enclosed trailer to take a small 4wd and quad bike – it is the luxury on the road fit out all colour match and next to us a couple in a ute with a swag and esky and two of the tiniest beach chairs I have seen.  One extreme to the other…….

Sunday 24th August 2014 – El Questro – ELQ fine sunny clear skies

As beautiful as El Questro is, it is not peaceful. We had live music till late (probably because it was Saturday) and to start today, a large flock of Corella came in at pre-dawn. The 6am plane has just taken off very low, very noisy over the campsite.  Ah yes, the camp site is at the end of the runway. I don’t remember requesting a early wake up call at reception.

 

This morning we headed off early for a dip at Zebedee Spring in the thermal pools. We expected it to be crowded because the camp ground was full.  We got there at 6.40am and passed the ranger on the track.  He had opened the gates which officially open at 7am.  Someone else had parked outside the gates and did a long walk in, so we were second there. This was the positive side to having been woken early.  The pools are crystal clear 28c – 30c – just lovely.  Clean warm water with pink sand on the bottom.  I want one of these in our yard :)

 

 

 

 

We then drove down to Jackaroo’s waterhole for a cup of coffee.  The waterhole was deep and clear.  It looked really good for a swim, but it isn’t listed  as safe swimming.  There were a couple of picnic tables on the high bank above the waterhole in the shade.  It was one of the nicest spots for morning tea or lunch on the drives.

 

 

 

Next was El Questro Gorge, which requires going through a couple of deep water crossings.

 

There were plenty of wasp nests on the gorge walls.  They were very around dinner plate size.

 

We also saw plenty of these butterflies which would go and rest on the gorge walls as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were lots of small fish in the clear pools which accounts for the Azure Kingfisher that I saw on the track. Our next stop was Moonshine Gorge, but we didn’t do the long walk in.

Nearing lunch time, we decided to take the steep track up to Saddleback Ridge.  It is very popular at sunset, but is a steep and narrow track, so our lunch time visit would avoid the traffic jam.

 

 That’s the track zig zagging up one part of the climb.

 

 

 

 

 

On top of the first saddle       At the lookout showing the road back                              to the first saddle.

Back to camp for some R & R.

 

 

 

 

Friday 22nd August 2014 – fine sunny and windy – 13c-31c

Today was a slow down day.  We decided to see the sights of Kununurra district.

We visited Valentine Spring, which wasn’t worth a photo.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Rock Falls      Middle Spring

We then drove onto Middle Spring, pictured above and then found a short cut to Black Rock Falls.

The drive then took us to the famous Ivanhoe crossing.  A feature of many 4wd stories.  I was looking forward to driving across the causeway, but it was blocked off.

Glen walked across the causeway, I can’t say that I thought that was a good idea.

A white bellied Sea Eagle came overhead and was attacked by a Whistling Kite

 

 

 

 

 

The crossing was very scenic and there were plenty of small fish in the river.

We were surprised but how much flat alluvial land there was.

 

 

 

 

 

Mango and Paw Paw growing in the irrigated soil.

We saw  mangoes, paw paw & sandalwood trees growing.  We were surprised to learn that the sandalwood trees need host trees to grow and commercially, they use different species of host trees during the growing time before harvesting.  We also saw sunflowers growing. 

The Bougainvillea grows so much bigger and the flowers are so more  intense in their true growing zone.  Even though there is a lot of water, gardening is not popular, probably because it is so hot all the time.

                 

 

 

We visited Kimberley Stonecraft and the Sandalwood Factory.  We managed to have a nice chat with Tristan  and then caught up and had drinks with Jonnie & Irene.  Just as they were leaving Hansel & Gretel arrived back from El Questro, so the Bungle Bungle Camping Team are all together again.

It’s friday night and the backpacker team seem to be winding up celebrating the end of the week’s work, so we’re glad that we are off tomorrow.  We found out that they are all out picking water melons. 

We are now off down the Gibb River Road to Home Valley Station (4hrs) maybe  then Mornington Wildness Conservancy (4hrs) and Winjana  Gorge NP  (2.5 hrs) and Tunnel Creek then onto Derby.