Friday 5th September – Windjana National Park – Hot, Clear Skies

This morning we left Silent Grove to drive to Windjana National Park for two nights.

We are almost at the end of the Gibb River Road (about 140 kms to Derby)  and it has been full of surprises – all good.  We have really enjoyed our trip down the Gibb River Road. There is a lot of dirt and dust and corrugations but with that comes the good sections and the fantastic scenery. In the dry season every day is a clear blue sky and it’s warm, why wouldn’t you holiday here. The road has been a mixed lot, but nothing to complain about.  We had beautiful smooth road today.   Yes, the Kimberley is the last frontier, it’s not hard to see why tourists flock here and keep coming back.  It seems to be the No 1 spot for the Perth residents as well.

This is a photo of the quail at Silent Grove, late yesterday evening.  I have got very good at recognizing the grass shuffle noise of the quail.  This group was also numbering 6 -  This new skill will be handy if we run short of supplies :)  They are great disguising themselves as rocks.  You would probably need all 6 for one meal though.  If they get an inkling that you a near, they go for cover or flight.  They would be very hard to catch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Loved the scenery

Where ever it is twisty or hilly, they provide bitumen.

 

 

 

 

 

Lennard Gorge

We called into Lennard Gorge and did the walk.  It was well into the morning and quite hot.  The track was listed as Class 4, but it was much more difficult than the Class 5 track we did yesterday.  It consisted of a walk along the dry creek bed, up a hill, and down a hill to the gorge lookout.  It was very difficult to see the gorge as it was very high and narrow.  All in all, the gorge was disappointing, but we did see two new birds to tick off, our first snake – a glimpse, a tree snake (Windjana Ranger confirmed it), (I thought Whip Snake, both are non venomous) certainly nothing venomous, it certainly bolted.

 

 

A big surprise -

We never thought that we would see a land crab at the dry creek bed in the Kimberley’s.  We were chatting to a couple on the track, when the girl spotted them.  When speaking with the ranger at Windjana on Saturday, we asked him about them and he didn’t know that there were any there. I think he thought we were mistaken,  until we showed him the photos.  He is going to call in and have a look and take some more photos, when he goes to Silent Grove next week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was just hard to see anything but a deep rock crack, this was because it was so very deep.

We have started naming places, that don’t have place names on our maps.

We named this Elephant Rock – too much time in the heat, I feel.

 

 

 

 

 

Glen named this Queen Mary Gap, as we got closer to the gap in the Napier Range, all we could see was this profile of a Victorian lady. Even the eyes and eyebrows.

 

 

 

 

This Whistling Kite has the Windjana camp ground as his little patch.