Day 55 – 13th July – Gibb River Road – Windjana Gorge

At last… today was the day… we are finally on the Gibb River Road! 

But first, a glimpse at the road into Derby… you hear about the endless stream of grey nomads up here… I was too slow getting my camera out, there were actually a couple more caravans in front of these…

A bit further up the road, we chucked a left and then we were on the Gibb… there was a significant amount of cheering in the car… and out of the car… 

We can’t complain so far about the condition of the road.  We travelled about 130km before we turned off and almost all of this was sealed… but from here on there’s nothing but lumpy, bumpy dirt…  Our only incident was heavy braking to avoid running over a bungarra (goanna) slowly making his way across the track.

Our first stop on the Gibb is Windjana Gorge.  I am deliriously happy for two reasons.  Firstly, we are in the bush again so no crowds, no traffic, just the peaceful whine of dozens of generators… (just joking, we steer clear of the areas that allow the use of generators ). Secondly, I LOVE national park camping where you are literally in the middle of nowhere, camping in the bush and you have flushing toilets and hot showers…

Our first glimpse of the gorge… very different from the gorges of Karijini… In fact, 360 million years ago, during the Devonian period, the Kimberley region (as we know it now) formed the floor of a shallow sea. The range in the background of the photo is actually the remains of a fossilized barrier reef.  Mind-blowing stuff I reckon…

This sign is different from the other ones we’ve seen so far… this time we have to watch out for freshwater crocs… 

Of course, the first thing we did was try to spot a croc.  We didn’t have to try hard…  Here are the crocodile hunters in action. 

And our very first croc (the first one is always special…).  Needless to say, about 10m further up the river there were dozens of them… 

This is the only fossil we managed to find… a nautiloid from 360 million years ago… cool huh?  I would liked to have found some more fossils but without a book or a tour guide pointing them out we didn’t know what we were looking for. 

Further up the gorge 

The fearless one 

More prettiness 

To top off the walk we found a Bower Bird’s nest (first time the kids had seen or even heard of one).  This bird liked white things… the floor outside the bower was piled high with stones, shells, bones… anything white.  The most prized treasures were small, super shiny black and white pebbles which were kept on the inside of the bower.  

We didn’t quite make it to the end of the gorge.  Some erosion of the track and a weed problem means they have closed access to the last kilometre.

After a quick shower and drink we decided to head back into the gorge at sunset to watch the bats come out.  We had heard that sometimes the crocodiles will catch the bats as they get close to the water.  In true BK form, we headed into the gorge as the sun was going down only to realise none of us had thought to bring a torch… So we only stayed long enough to see a few bats before we had to head back out before we completely lost the light.  Maybe we will try again tomorrow night and be better prepared…