Week 7 – Home Valley to Fitzroy Crossing

Week 7 – Home Valley to Fitzroy Crossing – 868 kms

Day 43 saw us move on from Home Valley to El Questro station. The first stop was Zebedee Springs, a series of small rock pools fed from a hot water spring, a great spot to refresh ourselves. Next it was onto the station village to select a campsite and pitch the tents. Given the sweltering night we had just experienced in our tents we had very little enthusiasm to repeat it again, however given we had no other accommodation choices, we all sat around pulling long faces watching Pete complete the set-up. All suffering from the heat, we quickly sought a waterhole which didn’t require a hike to get to, Moonshine Gorge river was the choice. After feeling suitable refreshed and rested we tackled Emma Gorge, a beautiful walk through a gorge to a very large water hole, a great reward after the 1 hour walk. We had a lovely dinner in the restaurant at the village and then retired to our special accommodation and once again spent a night sweltering in our tents through the heat.

Day 44, time to leave El Questro, head back to Kununurra to pick up the van and drive to Turkey Creek/Warmun to spend the night prior to heading into the Purnululu National Park, the home of the Bungle Bungles. Prior to leaving El Questro we had one more gorge to tackle, the El Questro gorge. This was a beautiful 4.5 hour return walk through another gorge with a number of great swimming holes along the way and of course a fantastic one at the end. The walk was very challenging for the last 1 hour with lots of large rocks to scramble over and a waterfall to climb, the children thought it was a great adventure. Unfortunately the walk was somewhat soured with Octavia getting stung be a bee on the toe, thankfully after a few tears, and no sign of a reaction we were able to continue without issue.

Days 45 and 46 involved exploring the Purnululu National Park, and treating ourselves to some home comforts by staying in the Bungle Bungle Wilderness Safari Tents run by APT. The safari tents had an ensuite and both breakfast and dinner was provided, so after life in the van it was pure luxury. Once again we tackled a number of walk; Echidna Chasm, Osmond, Kungkalatayi and Piccaninny Creek lookouts, Cathedral gorge and the Domes walk. Unfortunately our usual reward of a swim in a beautiful waterhole at the end of a long walk was not to be as the National Park at this time of the year is dry so we had to settle for a nice clean shower instead. The highlight of this part of the trip was the helicopter ride over the park especially the Domes.

Day 47 was once again a travelling day back to Turkey Creek to pick up the van and then onto Halls Creek just for an over night stop. Halls Creek was just hot and dirty and unfortunately the caravan park is very close to the hotel so we had loud music playing away to 1am and then the locals entertaining themselves on the street until about 3am, a pleasant spot to stay!

Days 48 and 49 were spent at Fitzroy Crossing and exploring the National parks nearby. Geike Gorge National park was first, where we took a boat cruise along the Fitzroy river and had many animals especially freshwater crocodiles pointed out and a very informative explanation of how the area was formed by the local Aboriginal ranger. The next day saw us drive to Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek National Parks. The Windjana Gorge walk was quite disappointing, after the first 15 minutes the walk was through scrub and you couldn’t get a good look at the gorge or the river so we decided to turnout back after about 1 hour of walking, our decision was also prompted by the fact that there was no swimming. The one highlight of the walk was the number of freshwater crocodiles you saw sunning themselves on the banks of the river. As a contrast Tunnel Creek was fun, a walk through sandbanks and a river contained within a 750m tunnel. The tunnel got very dark in parts and due to the strength of our one and only torch (we forget to bring the other 6 which were back in the van) at times we could only see about 2 feet in front of ourselves, which led to a lot of screams from Adelaide. Along the way we saw some small fish and many bats, apparently there was also eels and 2 small freshwater crocodiles that we missed due to our torch strength. I am sure if we had seen them we would have been joining in the screaming with Adelaide. In the evening the girls and I ventured out to the Tin Can Cinema, on old galvanised iron shed set-up as a theatre for a private viewing of “Bran Nue Dae”, no-one else turned up. Bran Nue Dae is a story based in Broome, which was totally appropriate given it is the next stop on our itinerary. The boys stayed back at the van watching a Simpsons DVD, that’s living the dream!