It’s hard to believe but it has been 3 weeks since our last post; it has taken that long for us to drive the Gibb River Road and for virtually the whole time we have been out of phone and internet service.

The GRR leg of our trip has been great. The road has been very rough and often we have driven at 20 – 30 km per hour for hours at a time. Jo has decided that she has had enough of corrugated roads. As we mentioned earlier the past wet season brought less than 50% of the average rainfall so the whole area is very dry. Creek crossings are dry, water falls have only a little water, water levels in gorges are lower than normal and the roads and camp grounds are very dusty.

The Kymberly scenery has still been amazing. We have enjoyed lots of 4WD tracks, hiking in gorges, swimming in water holes, eating out at a couple of bush restaurants and meeting new friends. The GRR is officially 660 km long but we went into most of the stations along the way so we did about 1100 km, about 1000 km on rough gravel road. Some people do the trip quickly but we deliberately took it slowly. The car and caravan performed well, although one of our 3 water tanks did come loose because the nuts unscrewed on the corrugations. The tank dragged along the road and had to be tied up with rope for about 300 km, but not before the road scraped a couple of holes in the plastic tank, causing the loss of about 90L of water. Ted fixed it this morning so hopefully it will be ok now.

We stopped for 1 to 3 nights in:

El Questro – a large camp ground with a bar and a large restaurant and several hiking, 4WDriving and swimming options.

Home Valley Station, where we camped beside the Pentecost River, with salt water crocodiles.

Ellenbrae Station, famous for its scones, and with a very nice swimming hole.

Gibb River Station, the least interesting of the places we visited.

Mt Elizabeth Station, 20 km from the GRR, swimming in a gorge a further 20 km away on a rough 4WD track.

Manning Gorge, probably our favourite spot on the GRR, with great swimming in a large water hole beside the camp ground.

Charnley River Wilderness Camp, 40 km from the GRR, with green grass and shady trees, managed by Australian Wildlife Conservancy.

Mornington Wilderness Camp, 80 km from the GRR, another favourite spot, with 4WD tracks and several places to swim.

Bell Gorge, where we hiked for an hour to the stunning Bell Gorge, with some water flowing over the falls.

Windjana Gorge, 40 km from the main road, where we counted 70 freshwater crocodiles in the beautiful gorge only a 15 minute walk from the camp ground before walking through the amazing Tunnel Creek.

The end of the GRR was at Derby, a small town where we saw the ocean for the first time since leaving home 6 weeks ago. Lunch at the cafe beside the jetty provided an opportunity to relax and enjoy the end of the red dust (for awhile).

Now we are Broome for 6 days, trying the get the red dust out of our clothes, shoes and bedding. We won’t worry about cleaning the caravan because we will soon be hitting the dusty road again.

Love to all, hope everyone is safe and well

Ted and Jo