Honeymoon Bay to Derby

We made it back to Drysdale Station comfortably and treated ourselves to an overpriced meal for the evening there. Next morning we moved on to the rather crowded Manning Gorge camp ground and settled in for the night. We saved the walk to Manning Gorge for the next morning.

Swimming our gear across the Manning River at the start of the walk to Manning Falls 

This was an interesting walk as it started with a swim across the Manning river which was pretty icy.  There are a few polystyrene boxes on the bank that we used the float our backpacks and camera and shoes safely to the other side. After we got saddled up on the other side there was a 2 km walk to the beautiful waterfall and pool (the pool was freezing but very refreshing after the walk). On the other side of the pool the kids found a nice bit of smooth rock which, once wet, made a great slippery slide into the pool while Daz and I soaked up some rays. Eventually we had to leave and it was back to the car and onto Charley River Station, stopping at the Mt Barnett Shop where we were able to buy a couple of tomatoes! (Sadly none of the shops on the Gibb sell beer and we were getting frightfully low by this point necessitating the decision for beer rationing!)

Nat rock hopping into Manning Falls

Beautiful Manning Falls

Jess and Matilda at Manning Falls

We stayed 3 nights at Charnley with the first day being a rest day and the second day an adventure day to Gravillia Falls,  Dillie Gorge and the Donkey Pools. With good facilities, friendly caretakers and some great scenery the  other endearing thing about Charnley was that it wasn't as busy as the rest of the Gibb (maybe because it's  about 45 km off the Gibb).

Dilly Gorge and Charnley Station

Ladder leading into Gravillia Falls

Gravillia Falls

The Donkey Pools

In general as the tourist season picks up we've noticed the road and the camp sites getting more crowded (annoyingly so). On the main part of the Gibb its becoming prudent to get to camp by about midday if you want a spot with shade! So it was nice again to get off the main drag. As it seems like the key to getting away from the masses is to get off the main part of the Gibb (like we did at Honeymoon Bay and Charnley), we started checking it the map a bit harder for some more 'off the beaten road' tracks. One that took out interest was the road to Bachsten Camp and Walcott  Inlet. One track began at Charnley  but upon asking the caretakers they told us that it was shut. So if we want to do it we'd have to backtrack about 50 km along the Gibb to Elizabeth Station....initially we decide 'nah....forget it ...not enough supplies'.

Next stop was Silent Grove so we could visit Bell Gorge. Well I don't know what moron named the place "Silent Grove" but as it is packed to rafters with campers it is not even close to being silent, and as there is very little shade there I don't think it would qualify as a grove either. As you can probably pick up we were both getting a bit ticked off with the Gibb River Superhighway (or maybe it's just that we'd run out of beer!) and we decided that if we were going get some adventure we'd have to go out of our way to make it happen.

Sooooo.....new plan! Tomorrow we'd do the Bell Gorge walk with the rest of the tourists, then the next day we'd leave the camper and run in to Derby to grab supplies (especially beer) and the day after we'd head back to Elizabeth Station and then head for Bachsten Camp and maybe Walcott  Inlet to do some fishing. A few phone calls on the sat phone and Elizabeth Station had confirmed that the road was open. They said it would take us all day to do the 150 odd km to Bachsten Camp and a further full day to get to Walcott Inlet (that's a further 70 km) and that fishing off the bank is very good (must watch out for Salties of course).... OK now that sounds like an adventure!

 So we did the Bell Gorge walk - this is another set of spectacular falls and we stayed for a few hours at the bottom and had a swim and a sun bake.

Rock hole below Bell Falls

Bell Falls

Above Bell Gorge

Once we got back to camp and did the washing. Next day we headed into Derby and topped up on supplies and then we doubled back to not-so-Silent grove - ready (hopefully) for an adventure!!

"Queen Victoria's Head" on the Gibb River Road between Silent Grove and Derby

Kalumburu & Honeymoon Bay

Corrugations on the road from Mitchell Falls

The road from Mitchell falls to Honeymoon Bay is more like a farm track and it took all day to cover the 200 odd km. There's lots of little creek crossings as well as the significant Carson River crossing. You've also got to get 2 permits to pass through Kalumburu. We were able to arrange the first permit with the help of our trusty sat phone, and the second permit we picked up upon arrival at Kalumburu (with only 15 mins before closing time!)

We drove about another 20 minutes to Honeymoon Bay and we arrived just as the sun was setting. I really don't  have the words for Honeymoon Bay. It is by far my favorite place on the trip to date. The facilities are really basic - you can can forget your 5 star ensuite, but if you're williing to help keep the fire pig running you can get a hot shower and there are 2 flushing toilets. Toilet paper, power, lights in the amenities and fresh water there is not....so you need to be pretty self sufficient.

 What makes this place great is the blue ocean, white sand, oysters on the rocks, mud crabs, good fishing, isolation and some bloody nice people.

Honeymoon Bay

Honeymoon Bay

Black Lip Oysters off the rocks

It's  funny how places that are harder to get to seem to filter out the comfort-addicted grey nomads and you find yourself among people who have more interesting things to talk about than the size of their Air Con units. One such couple we met at Honeymoon were Ken and Shirley who usually spend 3 months or so each year at Honeymoon Bay with their boat. On the first morning there was Ken cleaning a decent haul of  Saddle Tail Snapper (STS) and we went over to have a chat. We hit it off immediately with a common love of travel and fishing and Ken and Shrley were kind enough to take is for a fishing trip next morning.

 Oh boy that was Soooo much fun! In the space of 2 hours we'd all pulled in a few STS's each including Jess on her trusty hand line. Then  the sharks moved in and we were getting snapped off left-right-and-centre as well as hauling in severed fish heads! It was Jessie with her 150lb handreel that was able to best the sharks (with a bit of muscle from Nat to assist) and she landed 2 sharks before releasing them. But really the ones who were hooked was us - on Honeymoon Bay!

Daz and Ken get the boat ready to go fishing as the sun rises

Jess pulls in a decent Saddle Tail Snapper - Wooooo Hoooo

Shirley's STS gets chomped off on the way to the boat

Nat lands a black tipped reef shark on Jess's hand line.

A 15 min walk down the beach at low tide brings you to some rocks. You gotta tread carefully and keep an eye out for crocs and muddies but with a hammer and screw driver you can get a dozen black lipped oysters to go with you grilled STS for dinner.  When I die I want heaven to be Honeymoon Bay!

Kalumburu is an interesting place too. It's a dry aboriginal community based around a mission. In WW2 the airstrip was used by the Aussies & US to launch bombing runs  over Japanese forces to the north until the Japanese bombed the airfield and the town. Near the airstrip there is wreckage of some Mitchell bombers, and mission has set up a museum in the town which has some very surprising treasures including aboriginal artifacts and art, ancient Egyption and Roman items as well as local relics from WW2. 

Wreckage of WW2 Mitchell Bombers

Supplies come into Kalumburu via barge and depending on when the barge comes in you may or may not get much from the community store. In our case there wasn't much but it didn't matter anyway. You can get good water from the mission and there is fuel avalable also if you can afford it at $3.70 per litre!

After 3 nights at Honeymoon Bay it was time to say farewell to Ken and Shirley. With a mental note to plan a trip back here in 2014 we hit the road once more, heading south for Drysdale Station.

Mitchell Falls

Heading west along the Gibb we stopped at Ellenbrae Station for some lunch. Back on the Gibb, which was at last becoming a bit rougher, we came across a couple who asked for some help as their suspension as their shock mounts had disintegrated. It took maybe half an hour to canablise his mud flaps and turn them into temporary shock mounts before he was back on the road again.

Of course no good deed goes unpunished and while helping this couple Daz had unloaded a couple of supply boxes to get to his tools. In is wisdom he stacked the boxes 2 high on the side of the road. This was fine until the top box fell off. This happened to be alcohol box (well one of them anyway) and we lost 3 cans of beer and a bottle of Kaluah.....bugger! For his irresponsible behavior the kangaoo court (ie Nat) sentenced Daz to 2 nights without drinking however this was generally accepted as un-enforceable so the sentence was suspended.

 Continuing west we were starting to finally hit some decent corrugation patches on the road....some of them were making the patrol drift sideways and some were big enough to slow you down to a crawl. This was more like the Gibb River Road we'd read so much about -  hooray! We turned right to head up the Kalumburu Road towards Mitchell Falls. The road wasn't terrible but it did get worse as we continued on to Drysdale Station. We camped that night at the Miners Pool with the Summers family and made plans for them to drop off their box trailer at Drysdale (it was in need of some minor repairs which the welders at Drysdale could do, and rumor was the the rest of the way to Mitchell Falls was rough and slow and not kind to run-of-the-mill box trailers).


 So the next, morning with the Summers Family sporting tents on their roof rack it was time to hit the road again. The road definately got worse as we headed north - we were now without doubt in the 'rattle zone'. This means that this is where stuff starts to fail....like beer cans exploding in the fridge, trailer shackles rattling loose, the Anderson Plug rattling out of the truck, the door open light turning on and off, and the EGT gauge wigging out intermittantly. It's the sort of place where you get out and check your gear every 50 km or so, and if you hear a new rattle you stop to check it out in case something serious is failing. That said you could get a commodore up the road if you were prepared to go sloooow. 


Turning left onto the Mitchel Falls Road, the road turned into more of a track lined nearly the whole way with palm trees. While the track wasn't terrible, you still had to get down to a crawl for parts of it. It took about 2 1/2 hours to travel the 80 km to the Mitchell Falls camp ground. The camp grounds were good and we were soon set up complete with camp shower set up (after chewing dust all day that shower was worth is weight in gold). 

Chopper flight to Mitchell Falls

 Next morning while the Summers family bush walked to Mitchell falls we got our washing done (hand washing in the fish box) and then hopped on a chopper and flew to the top of Mitchell falls celebrity style! If you come to Mitchell Falls I definately recommend you save up for the chopper ride as it's the only way you can get a look at all the layers of the falls. They dropped us off at the top of the falls where we met the Summers and started back down the 4 km return walk taking photos the whole way. 

Jess is the co-pilot

Matilda give the thumbs up on her first Chopper flight

Mitchell Falls from the air

Mitchell Falls on the right (3 tiers) an Big Mertons on the left

Chopper landing at Mitchell Falls

Big Mertons falls. A few days after our visit a lady fell to her death over here :-(

The falls are amazing around this place and there's plenty of places to stop and have a swim on the way back. One such place is Little Mertens falls. You follow the track under an over hanging rock with aboriginal rock art and next thing you know you're behind the waterfall! You can swim in the plunge pool or stand in the falls and get pummeled by the water from above. Nat did both! We had lunch under the falls and then made it back to camp. Happily both Jess and Matilda can walk 4km and even managed it without too much whinging! 

Cave under Little Mertons Falls

Nat finally get a shower with decent water pressure.

Jess in particular is really becommimg a bush tucker girl. She's been catching the ants with the bright green bottoms and eating the green tails off them! Later in the arvo we doubled back to the nearby creek with the Lilo and had a ball swimming around the little rapids. 

Kids are turning into pretty good rock-hoppers

Next morning we said goodbye to the Summers family as they were heading back to the Gibb (they need to get home a month before us so can't dawdle!) and we did another bush walk and went swimming in the creek. On a whim we decided to head north the next day through the aboriginal community of Kalumburu to Honeymoon Bay on the northern Kimberley coast.

Home Valley Station - Gibb River Road

We spent 3 nights at Home Valley Station. The facilities here are pretty good with warm showers (albeit the 'warmth can be a bit tempremental) in ensuite style amenities. In the camping grounds there is plenty of shade and green grass as well as a bar, swimming pool, and kids playground. There is also a "fisherman's camp" about 5 minutes drive away on the Pentacost  River, but this lacks all the nice facilities of the main camp ground (although the view of the Cockburn ranges from here is splendid), so we opted to stay in the camp grounds with the Summers family.

On day 1 we headed west to Bindoola falls for a day trip. After some initial difficulties finding the place we found some great rock formations with lots of waterfalls ranging from 'small enough for the kids to climb in' to 'stay the hell away from that drop off'. The kids spent an hour or so playing in the smaller waterfalls while the adults wandered around and admired the red stepped rock formations.

Nat and Jess at Bindoola Falls

Dazza - King of Bindoola Falls

After an enjoyable morning, we had the idea to hire a boat and go for a fish for the afternoon, but the hire boat motor had packed it in and it was off the menu. Instead the barman told us about the 'secret fishing spot' used by the local fishing guides.  With directions (never trust the barman) we jumped into the patrol and headed off down the track.  Well we had a great time 4wding through some very interesting bulldust holes and rocky drop offs, but after about an hour guess where we came out? The Fisherman's Campground 5 mins from the main campground. Yep we had done a big loop and the barman got his laughs on us that time.
Not to be easily beaten we had a crack at casting for barra at the fisherman's camp. But all we got was a chance to watch the 4m saltie cruising the bank and Nat sconed a mullet with her lure, scaring it out of the water, but not onto the hook sadly.

As we'd booked the kids in for pony rides, we headed back to camp and found the campground inundated with swags, mountain bikes, and support vehicles! Yep, the place was full of crazy mountain bikers who were cycling the Gibb River Road for charity and there were hundreds of them! Suddenly you couldn't  walk 5m in any direction without tripping over a swag, and god help you if you needed to use the toilet or wanted a shower! As it was the last night of the official part of the ride they flocked to the bar and turned the place into an inner city night club for about 8 hours before staggering back to their swags and spending the rest of the night vomiting and snoring. 

Matlida - after half an hour of refusing to even look at a horse eventually plucks up the courage to ride one!

Next morning we got up a 5 am (partly to annoy  the bike riders and mainly because we wanted to get some sunrise photos around the Pentacost River and Cockburn Ranges before walking Emma Gorge in the cool part of the day. So making as much noise as possible we got ready to leave, and discovered that the bikers had helped themselves to a large portion of our firewood overnight. A couple we STILL brazenly  helping themselves at that moment! Without saying a word Daz walked up to them, picked up the last 4 pieces of wood and stalked back to our camper and stashed them. Then we drove off. ( I'll add that when the Summers family got up they also had their own version of a hissy fit over the firewood theft problem....the bikers must have got the guilts because they donated their left over food to our combined families by way of apology as they left)

Oblivious to the happenings at camp, we spent some time taking some photos of the sunrise over the Pentacost and tried a bit of early morning fishing (with our usual lack of success) before heading off to Emma Gorge. This was a 3.6km return walk...and for the kids it was a big ask as it involved a lot of rock hopping. Still it was worth it as the falls there are really beautiful.

Sunrise at the Pentacost River

Emma Falls

Kids just near Emma Falls

We'd planned to chill out at Zebadee Springs after the walk to Emma Gorge but it closes at noon to make way for some kind of yuppie guided tour where you can drink Champaign in the springs without all the peasants spoiling the view. So instead we went into El Questro and had lunch before heading back to Home Valley Station. We got to give the firewood-thieving-mountain-bikers a bit of a dust up to help cure their hangovers as we passed them on the way back - revenge so sweet!

Back at camp we headed back to the fisherman's camp to try again to catch the elusive barra. Nothing as usual (although Nat did catch a few live mullet for live bait in the landing net) and watching the sun set in to part of the world was really something special.

Sun set at the Pentacost River looking back at the Cockburn Ranges

Back to camp and pack up. Next stop Drysdale Station enroute to Mitchell Falls.

Lake Argyle & Kununurra

Crossing into WA

We crossed the WA boader at about lunchtime. Its like entering another country. Clocks back 2 1/2 hours hand over all your fresh fruit and veg and honey drive through and get the boarder photos. We headed straight to Kunnunurra for supplies and then doubled back to Lake Argyle.

Something I may not have mentioned earlier, but the moment you cross to the NT boarder everywhere you go there  are grass fires near the roads. These are usually deiberately lit to prevent big fires later in the dry season so after a while you just get used to driving past fires all the time (the first time this happened Daz an I were super worried but now we're pretty blase about it.) The reason I mention this is beacause on the road to Lake Argyle we drove through a pretty big fire front. As this was creeping over some mountains and up gullies we were able to see some massive trees in the distance flaring into massive fireballs as the fire got them. Gives you an appreciation into why out of control fires can be unstoppable.

Fire front on the road to lake Argyle

More fires

The Lake Argyle  caravan park had good facilities with ensuite style showers infinity pool overlooking the lake, nice  green grass, plenty of shade, boat tours and restaurant. For our first night  we ate a meal at the restaurant ......fish called "silver cobbler". Sounds nice eh? I found out the next day that that's just Western Australian for catfish! Still....it wasn't  dreadful I suppose.

Lake Argyle from the Dam Wall across the Ord River

Lake Argyle is massive and technically classified as an inland sea. It was built by constructing a single dam wall  across the Ord River over the duration of 3 dry seasons back in the 70s.  What is amazing is that the dam wall isn't  really all that big yet its construction has created a body of water that is bigger than some countries in Europe! What is disturbing is that the freshies in the Lake grow up to about 3 m..... still think freshies are harmless? I don't! We took a sunset cruise and we saw several of these 3m freshies...and I can assure you that I was not about to go swimming with them. Also on the Lake you can look north and see water as far as the eye can see,  then look south and see the same.  When you look south there appears to be hill with a steep drop off jutting out into the lake in the distance. This is actually the open cut face of the  Argyle diamond mine and is 30 km away from the lake! Lake Argyle is used for water storage for the region as well as hydro electricity - mostly for the diamond mine.

Lake Argyle Cruise

3m Freshies are a common site at Argyle

Captain Jess at the Helm

Sunset over Lake Argyle

Speaking of diamonds, the Argyle diamond mine produces 1/4 of the worlds diamonds, and is famous for producing rare pink diamonds - one of which now adorns my wedding ring...yes its very small...and yes small is all mere mortals can afford ;-)

We did a bit of 4wding around spillway creek and did some lure casting in the creek with no luck as usual. As our travels took as around the area it became apparent  that the fire we saw on day 1 was getting uncomfortably close to the caravan park. So it was time for the locals to take action. Thankfully the wind was lowing the right way for a bit of back burning...so they lit up the hill behind the caravan park. 45 mins later and there wasn't much left on the hill to burn (try explaining the logic of lighting a fire to save us from a fire to a 5 & 6 year old)

Back burning on the hill behind the Caravan park. Daz and the girls are standing about 20m from our camper!

Next day (after 3 nights at Argyle) we hit the road. It was into Kununurra to pick up Nats wedding ring and top the car up to the eyeballs with food and fuel ready for the Gibb River Road. Driving into town we hit mobile phone reception and among other messages we had one from the Summers Family who we had parted with at Litchfield NP. They were at Home Valley Station and hoping we could bring them some nuts and bolts for their trailer.

With nuts and bolts in hand we headed west, but before turning onto the Gibb we headed towards Wyndham for about 10 km to visit a place called "The Grotto". Situated on the NE side of the Cockburn Range the Grotto is pretty much a rocky hole about 100m deep that's opened up in the ground with a creek that falls into it. As a mother, not much scares the hell out of me more than seeing my kids standing next to a 100m drop off with nothing between the two, so it was with my heart in my mouth and Matilda firmly gripped in my sweaty hand, that I edged my way down the VERY steep steps (no railing) the whole time reminding poor Daz not to let go of Jess....." not even for a second!" Nag nag nag. The bottom was impressive with cliffs surrounding a plunge pool and lovely mosses and ferns growing all over one wall. Unfortunately there  were a few water monitors around and given my love for all things reptillian in these parts, I decided that swimming was out of the question.

Once we got to the top again we hit the road back south and hung a right onto the Gibb River Road. This was an exciting moment for us, as the Gibb is touted as the 4wd touring Mecca of  the Kimberley (just pick up any 4wd mag), So as Daz let some air out of the tyres I went a little crazy with the camera getting the customary shots of the road signs and of course that vital point of when the bitumen gives way to gravel.
It wasn't long before before reality began to sink in....around every hairy bend and flood way the well maintained gravel road would suddenly switch to bitumen again before switching back to well maintained gravel again! What was going on? Where were the washouts and corrugations that the magazines all raved about? oh well - at least there were  less grey nomads in their 8 wheeled mansions here.

Cockburn Ranges

We started to see a few turnoffs to places that we knew of: El Questro, Emma Gorge and of course the stunning Cockburn Ranges loomed into view. These ranges are just as magnificent  in the flesh (if not more so) than the mags make out. Although the wind had kicked up enough dust to make photography futile, we knew that as we were nearing our destination of Home  Valley Station that we'd be back this way in the next few days, so the photos could wait for another day.

Our last obstacle for the day was crossing the Pentacost River. This crossing is about 150m across and can be pretty rugged in the right circumstances. Fortunately for us the water was only about 40cm deep and the Patrol cruised comfortably over the rocky ford with Nat sitting on the roof filming. If you want to start a business, here's an idea...go the the Pentacost  River a and film people driving across it. Nat filmed 2 people crossing and could easily have accepted offers of money for the footage...instead (being on holidays and all) she did it for zip.

Continuing on we pulled into Home Valley about 20 minutes later and were greeted by the Summers family who had dibbs on a good camp site with plenty of shade and green grass. They were happy to receive delivery of their nuts and bolts for their trailer, and the kids were soon making a bee line for the swimming pool.

Pentacost River

Home Valley Station

Gregory National Park

Gregory NP

We drove from Litchfield NP to Big Horse Creek camp ground in a day, stopping at Katherine to top up supplies and to publish the last set of blog posts (thanks to mobile phone reception!). All of the roads into Gregory NP were closed having not yet recovered from the wet season. While Gregory NP wasn't really on the trip plan I have to say that the drive through this area was really beautiful with the Victoria River winding its was through high mountain ranges rimmed with red cliff faces and escarpments. We passed through Timber Creek and about 10km to the west we pulled into Big Horse Creek camp ground a day earlier than planned. Daz and I were both getting pretty tired at this point as we had done a reasonably long drive that day, so you can imagine our dismay when we discovered that the camp ground was already packed to the rafters with Europeans and grey nomads! Literally there were nomads with massive caravans parked on the side of the road sitting in camp chairs with their legs extended onto the road as the sipped their Chardonnay. All a girl would have to do is sneeze as she drove past and she could have clipped off a few grey nomad shin bones to use as crab bait....hypothetically of course! Anyway out came the trusty old Camp 6 book which informed us that there was a free camp ground about 5 km back towards Timber Creek - we headed for that. This spot was up on top of a hill at a pretty good lookout....right near the "No Camping" sign. What the?! By this time the sun was setting and there were a few people in bongo vans taking photos of the sunset and looking suspiciously like they were going to camp. We were pretty fed up by this point so we decided to risk it and camp there anyway figuring that the fun police weren't likely to turn up and evict us at this time of night. So no sooner did we have the camper up and who should turn up? The fun police! Yes...they have a night patrol! Luckely the guy was really nice and said we could stay the night as long as we promised not to get drunk and fall off the escarpment. We promised. The couple in one of the bongo vans decided that if we could stay then so could they. Turns out they were a couple of musos from Mullumbimby living on the road and getting paid to do gigs - what a life! That night the wind came up and it blew its chops off. The tropical roof of the camper roared and billowed all night long and near drove us mad. But the crowning glory was when the fun police (day patrol) turned up. Obviously not aware of our agreement with the night patrol bloke the night before. This power-tripper was clearly in need of ...uh....some happiness....in his life. His monologue went something like this: "can't you read a sign....it says no camping here....you got half an hour to clear out or I'll call the cops!" < drive away> We took 2 hours to have bacon and eggs for breakfast before packing up and leaving. No cops arrived. By the time we pulled into Big Horse Creek campground all the nomads had left and we got a great campsite. The Nuskes rocked up five minutes after us so we set up camp and started drinking. We stayed at Big Horse for 3 nights and spent a fair amount of time casting lures for Barra around the boat ramp. We also set crab pots and cheribin pots but got notthing for our efforts. "A MECCA for Barra fishing" the book said....wot rot! Nonetheless we had a great time catching up with Pete & Tracey. With the windy change also came a cold change so it was off with the noisy tropical roof and on with the flanellette shirts after dark. Apparently this cold widy snap explains why the Barra are off the bite...but personally I think it's really because they are a figment of the tourism industry's imagination! Anyway....next stop WA & The Kimberley!

Our 'illegal' campsite on top of a lookout

Some pretty flowers

The sun setting from our 'lookout' camp site

Big Horse Creek camp site