The Traveller's Table: Let the Gibb Begin ... Off to El Questro We Go

I am already freaking out about the amount of money we are about to spend on fuel....today we start our journey across the Gibb River Road. We had been waiting for this, and as exciting as it was I knew the price of fuel along the way was going to hurt. We decided to back track to Kununurra to refuel before hitting the Gibb River Road, it would be alot cheaper than anywhere else and was only an extra 90km. So, all fuelled up we pulled up at the Gibb River Road sign for a quick pic and headed for first stop, El Questro.

Everyone has always talked about El Questro, it’s been on TV and we were a little unsure if it might have lost some of its beauty to being over commercialised. Not the case at all. We are very lucky the owners of this station allow people like us to visit and they seem to be doing a good job at balancing tourism with the outback. We have heard so many fellow travellers complain about El Questro being “too expensive” and having not visited for this reason but they have missed out. For what it is, we didn’t find it expensive at all. It was $36 night to camp there, the same as any other caravan park (we’ve actually paid $40 night for no power or hot water). In addition to this they ask you pay a $36 park permit, valid for 7 days, allowing you to visit many beautiful gorges, swimming holes & lookouts. Well worth it!

On arrival we were offered to camp at the grounds with facilities near the office & restaurant or at a private riverside camp for the same price. It was a no brainer really, we were given a choice of campsites and picked a real beauty with our own swimming hole, views of the ranges and plenty of room for the dogs to run free.

Even Ben was impressed by El Questro’s scenery, it’s magnificent. You could drive around for a week, do bushwalks everyday and still see something different and spectacular. We were only staying 2 days on this visit, in hindsight we should have stayed longer.

We drove the steep incline to Saddleback Ridge and Lookout for sunset and the next morning headed to the much anticipated “Zebedee Springs”. The thermal pools are the best we’ve been to and surprisingly there are a few of them around the country. To help monitor the flow of people into the springs and to stop overcrowding they are open to guests from 7am-12midday only... i think the tours visit in the afternoon. I thought this was a great idea, the springs were still busy when we arrived at 9am in the morning but it would have ruined a very relaxing swim if we had to share with a bus load of people. Zebedee Springs is such a tropical oasis, surrounded by palms and high red cliff faces. I could have floated around and admired the view for hours.

The wrinkly skin set in however and we decided to continue our days exploring. We set off to Emma Gorge, as short drive back out to the main road. We were ill prepared for this one. The park info states:

“Enjoy an invigorating but partly shaded 1 hour walk with some pools along the way. At the top, plunge into a huge waterhole with a droplet waterfall enclosed on 3 sides by 65m sheer cliffs.”

So, having tackled alot bigger walks we set off with our 700ml bottle of water and our thongs. We were soon to find out the walk was more challenging than we expected, over many rocks, crossing the creek etc. We weren’t turning back now... the walk seemed to go forever but it was beautiful and the waterfall at the end was extremely magical... it felt like I was on a movie set. Instead of the usual gushing waterfall, the drops fall around you like gentle rain.

The other thing they failed to mention that the swim that you are really looking forward to when you get there is about -100 degrees. (Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration.) We used to think Mossman Gorge in Qld was the coldest water around but it had nothing on this. There was no way I could brace myself to jump into that. I dipped my legs in to cool down but Ben braved the swim... a very very quick breathtaking swim!

The walk back always seems much quicker than the one there... why is that? We made it in one piece, pluggers in tact, slightly exhausted and very hungry. We considered joining on to the end of one of the tour groups stopped for lunch but headed back to camp instead.

We also took a drive to Explosion Gorge. The track is beautiful with a spectacular lookout, looking across the ranges, over waterholes and across the gorge to the famous homestead. The homestead sits on the edge of the gorge but unfortunately you are only able to visit there is you pay hundreds of $$ as a guests. This time around we decided to enjoy it from afar.

Tomorrow we are off to Kalumburu, tonight treating ourselves to a bbq at the campground with some live music and a fire. We really enjoyed our stay here and would love to come back and take some more time to look around. I think Bear & Xena really appreciated having their own campsite and creek to roam and swim in too! Magic!