It’s a hard life in paradise……. .

Another day- another gorge. This time it’s Emma Gorge, cross over the Gibb and go to the other El Questro resort, to the north of the Gibb, and walk for an hour over increasingly difficult terrain, large rocks block our way, go over or around, carefull where you stand, there could be a snake down there. Don’t put your hand in that crevice- don’t know what’s in there either!

It was well worth the walk, at 50mtrs the tallest waterfall we had seen, falling into a beautiful clear pool. Once again, as we are early starters, we ended up alone in the pool. A welcome dip after a hot climb up to the gorge.

But we are soon joined by other visitors, and after a while we made our way back to camp.

Later that day we drove up to a viewpoint on the top of a hill. It was strictly a 4wheel drive track, across a very wide river with large rocks as the base, and up a very steep hill, around 1 in 2, with a camber that threatened to send us over the edge! But as always, Betty made it to the top, and we were rewarded with the most wonderful 360degree views, not just the Pentecost River and the Cockburn Range, but also the entrance to Chamberlain Gorge, which runs for over 80 miles.

We drove down to the gorge entrance, again down very steep hills, as it has a few salties in there we decided not to swim. The wet season last year has considerably changed the gorge, making it impossible to navigate more than 700mtrs from the jetty, so our plan to hire a boat for the day was shelved.

We had intended to move on the following morning, to the Bungle Bungles, a few miles to the south on the Great Northern Highway, but we were told that as there was a major bush fire surrounding the entrance road we decided to stay in El Questro for a couple of extra days to give them a chance to put it out. However as we were going through the river to visit a walk a few Kms away we had yet another puncture- the same wheel, in a brand new tyre! This time the tread was cut right through as though by a knife, there must have been a very sharp rock under the water. Another $350! This is getting to be a habit!

Hey-ho, that’s the way the cookie crumbles…..