Five rivers, a Spanish Resort and a couple of Bungles.

Leaving Lake Argyle we made our way back to Kunnunuru to stock up again far the next few days. As we arrived there we really did not know what we were going to do- maybe go through the Gibb again, maybe not, or just meander down the Great Northern Highway.

However on visiting the information centre we found that the Purnululu national park had reopened after a series of disastrous fires, deliberately lit, had razed through. So that settled it.

But first we had to see Wyndham- a small town almost on the coast north of here, where we had been told there was a wonderful viewpoint. There was indeed, a view of five rivers joining the Cambridge Gulf, the King, the Durack, the Forrest, the Ord and the Pentecost. All of these we had crossed at some time or other, in fact the last one had been the source of a few traumas at times, in particular when we lost a tyre crossing it last October.

We had decided to spend a couple of nights at El Questro, a station at the entrance to the Gibb River Road, a few miles to the south of Wyndham. It is really a tourist resort, and avid readers of this missive will remember that we stayed here last year as we left the Gibb. One can stay here for as little as $20 a night, or in the finest accommodation, $2500

a night. We paid the former and stayed in our roof tent.

Last year we did a lot of traveling on the station, seeing all the gorges, walking to the springs etc, so this year we took it easy, and messed around the station village.

We bathed in a swimming hole in the Pentecost river that runs through the station, and had a walk up Telegraph hill, a mile or so from the township. In the afternoon though we took a trip on a boat through Chamberlain Gorge, which was closed last year, and saw rock formations that were reputedly older than life on earth. The Chamberlain only runs for 150k, and 130k of it runs through this gorge.

When we pulled up on a sandy beach we  fed the fish, in particular the Archer fish, as we held a piece of bread about a metre above the water the fish would squirt water at it, hitting it every time. Fascinating! That’s how they catch flies it seems, shooting them down into the water so that they can feed. But then along came a very large Barramundi, at least 90cm long, and grabbed an archer fish for it’s supper! Trevor the turtle came for his supper too, taking fruit out of our fingers.

Today we moved on again, hoping to get to Purnululu before they closed it again. This park is the home of the Bungle Bungles, a rock formation unique in the world. However to get to our camp site, a very basic one with no showers and very few other amenities, we had to travel some 60kms on very rough tracks, some of the worst we have been on in our travels. I hope it is worth it!.