Crocodile Rock
Julie Dann takes a trip down the legendary rugged Gibb River Road in the Kimberley, Western Australia, in search of crocodiles, rare gouldian finches and muscle-bound Euros.
The Gibb River Road is 700km of back-crunching, finger-numbing, exhilarating, rumbling gloriousness. It’s an epic trail often on people’s bucket lists and deservedly so as it is by turns challenging and beautifully serene.
As we took the legendary turnoff near Derby at first we were mystified by the apparent smooth bitumen for the first 33 kilometres. But as we soon discovered it gets rough, very rough, soon enough.
The Gibb River Road runs through the central Kimberley Plateau from just outside Derby to the Cambridge Gulf at Wyndham. The majority of its surface is dirt and gravel with only some floodways paved, so four-wheel drives are a must. The true gateway to Kimberley gems, such as Windjana and Manning Gorges and El Questro Wilderness Park, it is an eye-opener for those in search of the real Australia.
Six different Aboriginal languages are spoken along the road and the communities maintain many of their traditional spiritual customs.
Just outside Derby is the prison boab tree. It is reputed to have been used in the 1890s as a lockup for indigenous prisoners on their way to Derby for sentencing. The hollow tree trunk has a circumference of more than 14 metres. Pictures of Aborigines in chain gangs on the information board are a shocking indictment of a not so glorious past.
On the Gibb River Road, there is little or no phone reception or internet, car casualties are a regular sight with forlorn motorists looking askance at ripped-up tyres lying like black lizards on the side. This is no place for the hopelessly unprepared. But there is a camaraderie; most drivers stop and check on stranded motorists.
No place for ‘‘old men’’ caravans, we towed a camper from Crikey Campers attached to a Toyota Landcruiser. Preparation was key so we stocked up with water and provisions and food at the Wharf Cafe in Derby – good tucker to prepare us for the hard road. First stop was Windjana Gorge where we attempted to put up the camper.
The orientation by Crikey’s Broome agent had been a ‘‘once over lightly’’ and we struggled with poles and canvas in the growing dusk and sticky humidity. After nearly taking my eye out with a pole and being smothered by collapsing canvas, I retreated and the husband bravely battled on. Many thanks to a couple of fellow camper veterans who came to our aid.
We cooked dinner in the dark and then, bizarrely, the people in the next camper decided to watch a Will Smith film at full volume. Thankfully, Will was finished by 8pm and we enjoyed the best night-time entertainment – the huge sky and glittering Milky Way.
As morning came, we discovered Windjana – this 3.5km gorge is a stunner. Carved by the Lennard River, which exposes the ancient reef system, riverbanks abound with leichhardt trees, native figs and paper-barked cadjeputs. Kaleidoscopic-coloured finches, noisy fruit bats and corellas are matched by dozens of basking freshwater crocodiles and a noisy Bowerbird complete with a beautifully constructed bower near the car park.
A warning notice caught our eye on the way out. It showed a man’s badly munched ankle and said this tourist decided it was a good idea to stroke a ‘‘freshie’’. While they are not as aggressive as saltwater crocs, it is still not a good idea to cuddle them. Never smile at a crocodile, as the song says.
Tunnel Creek is 30km from Windjana and by now we were getting a taste for the corrugations of the road. You can go hard and risk losing control of the car in the deep drifts of sands interspersed with boulders or you can suffer the bumps. After a few hours of this you feel like a coalminer with white finger, your eye drawn to the sharp flinty rocks waiting to rip up your tyres like salties and your seat starts to feel like a particularly sadistic massage chair. But there are rewards aplenty.
Tunnel Creek is one of those places that sound like a really bad idea. The concept is fairly simple, first grab a head torch, then clamber over and squeeze between some 6-8ft high boulders, avoid the python, then walk 750m, wading through freshwater crocodile-infested water, in the dark, to inspect some Aboriginal drawings. Okay so it doesn’t sound flash, but I can tell you it is a unique experience. Tunnel Creek was formed around 350 million years ago and is famous as a hideout used by Aboriginal leader Jandamarra, who died outside its entrance in 1897.
A scan of the walls reveals indigenous drawings high up on the walls, more art is on the rocks at the end of the tunnel. Up to five species of bats, including carnivorous ghost bats, live here alongside the crocs in the pools. Top tips: wear reef shoes and take a powerful torch.
Our bed for the night was at Mt Hart Wilderness Lodge and Homestead some 50km off the main road. Anton showed us to our safari tent with adjoining ensuite, sheer luxury after the dusty road, and we then tucked into some good home-cooked food. It is very isolated here and they had been without internet for three weeks after the last cook knocked the satellite dish over with a car.
The pastoral lease, first taken out in 1914, proved too difficult to get the cattle out for the first two men who took it on. One shot himself and the other left with just the clothes on his back. Subsequent owners suffered floods and waterholes drying up, abandoning it by turns until, in 1960, 63-year-old Charlie Telford from Melbourne built the homestead. He carted hundreds of trees from Adelaide in an old truck that did 45kmh. It took him seven weeks, then he went back and did it again. He too sold the place and the Department of Conservation eventually took it over.
Back on the road, shy dingoes slunk across the dirt road as we made for Imintiji Community Store near Bell Gorge, which had just been reopened three days earlier. It is a welcome stop for good coffee, diesel and a public payphone.
Bell Gorge, just 200m off the Gibb River Road, is a spectacular series of tiered pools. Once again a river crossing is necessary to get to the lower pools and stunning waterholes but it’s big enough for everyone. We found a spot out of the blistering 35-degree sun and made like crocodiles in the cool, clear water.
Our bed for the night was at nearby Bell Gorge Wilderness Camp, an oasis of hot showers, good food and comfy beds with staff who go out of their way to welcome you. There’s a relaxed pastoral feel to the place with cows wandering by the open-air dining area and bellowing for mates at dusk. Distances here appear small, our next stop was just 39km down
the road, but the turn-off to Mornington Wilderness Camp is 92km and takes about two hours. We checked the state of the road at a radio booth at its start. The road had just been graded and one camper got a puncture by the entrance from rocks chiselled to knives by the grader. Another fixed a puncture only to have the wheel go rolling off into the bush after setting off again – the joys of the open road!
Mornington is a non-profit entity owned by Australian Wildlife Conservancy and the campsite is clean, quiet and a haven for nature lovers.
A presentation of its work revealed how it’s fighting the devastation of bushfires by dropping incendiaries from a helicopter, which sounds counterintuitive, but this creates mosaic burning and mini fire breaks.
The biggest challenge out here is the deadly march of the cane toad, introduced in Queensland in 1935 to control the cane beetle. These toxic creatures with poisonous glands are now wiping out wildlife at a rapid rate and were about 30km east of Mornington. Scientists are now using the toad’s toxin to kill its tadpoles, while crows have learnt to flip these toads over and kill them to avoid the poison. One Sydney lawyer we met took great pleasure in hoofing them all over the campsite.
We arrived at Mornington on BarraMonday and the fish supper was superb followed by delicious creme brule. We were gradually getting the hang of the camper but taking it up and down every morning and night, when we would be rather exploring the gorges, wasn’t good for our sangfroid.
The next day we were up at 5am for a bird-watching tour. At Boundary Pool we climbed to the top of the small cliff and watched the waterhole as double-barred finches jostled with honey eaters and peaceful doves. Then we held our breath as a juvenile gouldian finch, 12 grams of bejewelled loveliness came down, followed by a very rare red-headed adult. These tiny purple yellow and green birds are classified as endangered in the wild, so I was ridiculously excited.
After breakfast we picked up paddles and lifejackets and set off on a 45-minute drive to Sir John Gorge. Short-eared rock wallabies frequent the gorge and only one set of canoes is available, you paddle up to the first rapids and beach the canoe, then clamber over more rocks to pick up the second canoe. Repeat until you reach Tin Can Gulley. Unfortunately, we paddled the wrong way ended up looking for a canoe that wasn’t there and nearly expiring from heatstroke. The clue was that we were on a river not a gorge...
Shame-faced, exhausted and a little heat-addled we returned to more sedate pursuits and wandered down Annie Creek where a delightful purple-capped fairy wren lifted our spirits.
We woke the next morning to the sound of a busy bushful of crimson finches in the campsite and set off to explore Cadjeput waterhole and Dimond Gorge. Cadjeput is a great place to swim, relax and soak up the scenery and you can also hire canoes at the stunning gorge. We avoided this as our internal compass seemed to be on the blink.
On the rocky road back to camp we had a Mexican standoff with a big muscular male Euro (a type of roo), which was doing a great impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He seemed just as surprised to see us before bounding off.
The next day we drove to Mt Barnett Roadhouse, a veritable hive of activity with queues for diesel, noisy backpackers and tour groups. It felt like New York after our break from civilisation.
Jodie Newman the manager was helpful and, after topping up on food, coffee, drinking water and fuel, we set up in Manning Gorge Campground run by the Kupungari community. Manning is beautiful and one of the most popular gorges in the Kimberley. It starts with a novel river crossing. A boat is pulled across the river on ropes by the occupants or, of course, you can swim. Then you should allow at least three hours to explore the gorge, and you are advised not to set off on the track after 2pm. The trail starts with open savannah and is marked by stone cairns, pointers and random beer cans. It is not for the frail. After the savannah, there are several steep climbs, and it proved difficult for some.
But the rewards are great when you do get there. You suddenly walk out of the rocks onto a ledge overlooking the huge waterfall and swimming hole. We took a picnic and spent a few hours here soaking up the stunning location watching people jump off the waterfall. If you are up for an adventure of a lifetime and prepared to balance the rough with a stunning wilderness experience, the Gibb River Road delivers in spades.