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The remaining time in Broome was great...had a few good meals at restaurants, spent some time at Cable Beach including a glorious sunset and went through a few museums dealing with Broome's pearling past. On Saturday morning we were up early to start the next leg of our tour to Darwin. This leg consisted of 8 nights of camping along an extremely isolated rugged dirt road: the Gibb River Road. We drove a few hours the first day to get out of the metropolis of Broome and made our first stop at Tunnel Creek National Park where we hiked through and along a creek that runs about a kilometer through a cave. The cave was used back in the day by an aboriginal outlaw to elude police for years (until his own gang eventually turned him in). Then on to Windjana Gorge for our first night's camp. We took a dusk/sunset hike into the gorge and saw a bunch of freshwater crocs and once it got dark you could shine your light over the river and see a bunch of glowing red croc eyes staring back at you. The gorge was a nice spot with huge rock walls towering into the sky on either side...pretty cool.
Up with the sun the next morning to continue along the Gibb River road. We had quite a number of river crossings today although none more than about two or so feet in depth. The major stop was to Bell's Gorge where we took a little hike to a waterfall with a swimming hole below. Had a nice refreshing swim (it was very hot out but the water was very "fresh" as they say). On for the night to Manning Gorge where we camped next to a huge Boab tree (an awesome type of tree found primarily in Madagascar as well as this part of Oz and a few other parts of Africa). I'll mention that camp life on this trip was awesome...delicious food and we were able to have campfires. Everyone sleeps in swags under the stars which is fantastic...I'm going to look into buying my own swag to take back to the US.
Up a bit before the sun today to get an early start on our hike through the Manning Gorge to Manning Falls. It starts with swimming across the Manning River to get to the trail...they had styrofoam boxes you could put your pack in to push across and keep dry (I left my big camera behind...didn't want to risk it!) Manning Falls was lovely, had a great swim and then warmed back up in the sun before hiking back out to the campground. Back on the road continuing east (I use the term road somewhat loosely. Its mostly red dirt, sometimes mixed with sand, there are constant stream/river crossings and there are basically no services...we've passed two very lonely roadhouses in about 500km and have passed maybe 7 or 8 cars per day on average). Quick stop at Galvan's Gorge for another swim under a waterfall...quite picturesque! Then found a nice spot to bush camp off the road near a creek. Had a great fire and some good food as always!
Tuesday was our last big driving day on the Gibb River Road. We drove through beautiful country where a large part of the movie "Australia" was filmed and had our biggest river crossing...the Pentecost River was probably 300 or 400 meters across. Our major stop for the day was Emma Gorge which was a smallish hike into a gorge with a beautiful waterfall and pool to swim in. (swimming beneath beautiful waterfalls doesn't get tiring!) The water was freezing which was pretty nice on a hot day. Afterwards we went to our stop for the night which was on a huge million acre cattle station. We had a makeshift baseball game in our campsite with a tennis ball, a shovel as the bat and chairs as bases. As the only American I tried to teach everyone the rules which went okay but we ignored some of the more "complex" ones (tagging up on a fly ball was wayyy too complicated so we ignored that one). The campground on the station had a bar which had a band playing that night so after dinner we spent the evening having some beers and dancing to some great Aussie bush music under the stars. It was a pretty great scene!
The next morning we started off by going to the Zebedee Hot Springs in the morning which was gorgeous. The day ended up being one of mechanical issues...we had to make a small detour into town to get a flat tire fixed and then we drove on to Purnululu National Park which is more commonly known as the Bungle Bungles. The road in is quite rough, the 50kms takes 3 hours on average. About halfway through the clutch on our truck gave out. So we camped off the road in what was really a gorgeous spot.
We woke up to a great sunrise and unfortunately the clutch didn't fix itself overnight but Luke, our awesome guide, somehow figured out how to shift without it, basically just muscling it into gear. First stop was to two little hikes: Piccaninny Gorge and Cathedral Gorge. The main feature is the huge "beehive" dome rock formations...these are sandstone that have been carved by wind and water over the years. Before lunch I did a helicopter flight over the Bungles which was awesome...really cool to get an aerial perspective on the park. In the afternoon we did another hike into Echidna Chasm which was incredible! It was this really narrow gorge cut through the rock...my photos don't do it justice unfortunately. Back to camp for dinner but not fire unfortunately because of a fire ban in the park. Big fan of the Bungle Bungles!
The following day was a long day of driving back up to Kununurra. A few of us had a nice run around the Lily Creek Lagoon at sunset...really pretty colors! The next morning we went to Lake Argyle which is the largest man made lake in Australia and had a boat ride around. We saw crocs (there are evidently 25,000 in the lake! yikes!), rock wallabies, lots of huge fish and some birds. In the afternoon we crossed over from Western Australia into the Northern Territory...the NT only instituted speed limits like 3 years ago and they're way higher than anywhere else in Australia. I also unfortunately found out that its the only place in Australia where you can still smoke in bars...gross. Had a nice sunset hike in Gregory National Park and then on to camp along the Victoria River for the night.
Our last day of the trip we woke up well before the sun which was painful. We stopped in Katharine National Park at Edith Falls for the usual: hike in to a waterfall with a swimming hole below. As the drive continued north to Darwin you could notice the increased humidity. In Darwin we all met up at the Mindel markets which they have twice per week along the beach with all sorts of food, art, music and fireworks. Then we went out to celebrate our last night and the end of the trip!
A link to a few more photos:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/
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