We back-tracked a short way along the Gibb River Road to reach the Gorge walk.
We were surprised to find that we were the only people attempting the walk at that time. Then, a moment later as we stepped out of the Beast (4WD), we realised why. It was damn hot. Nonetheless we donned our sunscreen, hats, gathered our water and headed off. The walk itself was pretty easy – not much in the way of rough ground or clambering over rocks and it was fairly short too say 30-40 mins until we reached the Gorge. We were rewarded with a view into the narrow and steep sided gorge from above. A small a mount of water was trickling over a VERY small waterfall. We did suspect that during the wet season, it’d be a spectacular sight indeed.
A pool in Lennard Gorge
A fool in Lennard Gorge
We walked along the top of the gorge for about half an hour before eventually finding the trail back to the Beast.
We eventually found the trail out..
Keyla taking a breather on the trail
As we walked back to the Beast, we met a couple from Sydney who introduced themselves by asking about our HF Oz set-up (they had the same). The lady was from Mexico – and within a minute or two she and Keyla were chatting away in Spanish while the fellow and myself stood around looking bemused. We both noted that there weren’t many people around given the amount of traffic on the Gibb River Road.
Back at our campsite at Silent Grove, I noticed we had an unexpected guest in the form of a 2ish metre Olive Python cruising around our clothesline. It’s a beautiful creature.
Olive Python under the clothes line
A magnificent creature - a juvenile at approx 2m long
It caused a bit of a stir with some people who were setting up camp nearby. I was worried that someone may take to it with a shovel or something, so when I was asked by a worried Mum if I knew anything about snakes I repeatedly told them not to panic and to leave it alone and it’ll cruise on by of its own accord (which it of course it did). When we informed the Ranger later that evening, he told us that at 2m it was a juvenile and that Olive Pythons grow to approx 4m in length. He also said it was probably the “King Brown” that had been reported to him by our campsite neighbours the “know-it-all’s”.
We met our neighbours on the previous days walk to Bell’s Gorge. If you’ve ever played tennis – these couple were like the person who turns up with all the colour co-ordinated and brand identical matching shirts, socks, shoes, racquet, racquet bag, visor, towel, etc.. Really looks the part. Can hardly play tennis. This is the sort of person that made up the couple that we christened the “know-it-alls”. They knew everything and were wrong about nothing and had all the “right” gear to match. As we travelled up the Gibb River Road and around Kununurra, whenever we saw their sort of camper-trailer, we’d do a second look to see if it was our mates the “know-it-all’s”.
Late in the afternoon we headed back out to the Gibb River Road and drove along to a “jump up” (where the road rises up the side of a range) to take some photos of the countryside from vantage point where hopefully the late afternoon light would be awesome. We also hoped we could sit for a while, take it all in, and knock back a beer or two.
Creek-crossing fun on way to photo point
Vista from jump-up
Vista from jump-up
A small tree
Now I’ve had this car fridge of mine for about 2 years and it can be a bit tricky to use. It’s one of these fridges that you can “store up the cold” for a while and you can turn the fridge off for a day without any drama. However I haven’t quite got the hang of just letting it run and keep things cool. We use it as a drinks fridge at home and I constantly freeze and explode soft-drink cans with it. I refuse to read the instructions btw. Instructions are for pussies and are not at all manly. Especially with boy-gadgets like auto-fridges. The downside to this bravado (on this occasion) is that the home brew ginger beer froze solid and I had to resort to sitting the cans on the (very hot) exhaust manifold of the Beast’s donk to warm them up enough to drink. At least it was cold beer and only took a short while longer before we could enjoy the sunset.
Very cold beer on a very hot exhaust manifold
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