El Questro, WA

Pretty easy drive straight up the Great Northern toward Wyndham for 200 odd kilometres, then turn left, onto yet another new road for us. But then we turned left again, this time onto the eastern end of the Gibb River Road. Our research had prepared us for mostly bitumen to the El Questro turnoff, and it was, but with innumerable floodways, all taken with caution. Or research had further led us to understand that the road into El Questro was gravel but in good shape and passable to most vehicles, with the possible exception of the Pentacost River crossing. It’s only 16km, how bad can it be? It’s also one of those roads that once you have committed yourself, you pretty much have to go on with it. The road is badly corrugated, really badly in places. I felt awful dragging our van down there, but there was no real choice. We came upon a muddy crossing and while I was expecting one, this didn’t look like it. We paused, took a breath and ploughed on. No drama. We were almost at the end of the 16km and I was beginning to wonder if that been the actual crossing, but no, about 1km from the Station, we came upon it. We stopped as there was a car coming across and he slithered and slid a bit and I began to wonder about all this. He stopped next to us to check his tyres and told us to go ahead as it wasn’t that bad. Down we went and into the river. It wasn’t flowing as had been suggested, just a big pool of water about a foot deep (sorry, 300mm deep, babies and rivers are always in Imperial). We kept up a steady pace and gunned it for the exit. Woohoo! We made it clear and free. I allowed myself a smile and and started breathing again.

The park is quite good actually and we found ourselves a nice spot under some trees. A bit dodgy to back into, but hey, we crossed a river so we could do anything!

When we opened the van up it was a bit of a mess, the pot drawer out and on the floor, the microwave obviously unsecured and hanging out of its hole, and a few things down from one of the overhead cupboards. These were fixed up easily enough. Then Judy opened the fridge – crash, out it all came. The bottom door shelf is busted off, the front of the door is off and it’s a bit of a mess. Not to worry, clean it up and rearrange stuff. Mental note: do not do dirt roads again with big bottles of milk and drink in the door shelf.

We had some lunch then went for a ‘swim’ in the rock pool down the back and basked in the sun. We booked a Chamberlain Gorge cruise for tomorrow, had a drink at the bar and then went back to the van. When I opened the door to the glass cupboard, I groaned. The spice bottless had all bounced out of their rack and fallen into the boxes holding the glasses. Sadly our two crystal champagne glasses from the Sydney Olympics were shattered along with one of the normal drinking glasses. What a shame, but that’s what happens. We cleaned it up and then thought we’d better check the rest of the furniture. Only other casualty is the pantry again. There’s just something wrong with this design and we’ll have to make do without it until we get home and it can be fixed proper.

We have no power and I couldn’t be bothered with the water, so were are pretty well free camping, except for the not so minor matter of the camp fees. Ha, who cares, we’re here and pretty damn pleased with ourselves.

On the whiteboard at the reception, it clearly stated that there were no seats left on the 3pm Chamberlain Gorge cruise, which was disappointing and it was one of 2 reasons why we came here. While we were sunning ourselves I read one of the brochures that said they had a breakfast cruise, so I wandered back to investigate. I casually asked if they had any cruise activity at all, and was surprised when they said, ‘yes, heaps of seats at 10:30am’. I asked about the breakfast one and they said, ‘no, not running them at the moment, maybe next week’. I grabbed two tickets on the 10:30am and then of course we had to drive out and find ‘the jetty’, which turned out to be about 5km down another dirt road. Judy, who does the non-van driving, baulked at the top of a rather sudden descent down into the bottom of the gorge, but bravely crept down and through the two hairpins to the landing. Took some snaps and then turned around for the ascent. No problem, ‘flew up in top gear’, as my dad used to say.

Day two

I got up early and took the 1 ½ hour ‘steep to strenuous’ walk to where the Telecom tower with an initial detour via the Pentacost river crossing. Not a bad view, wandered back down via the Botanical Walk and got back just in over an hour. It’s no harder than walking up to the trig point on Coolemon Ridge.

The cruise was quite pleasant, not very long and not as spectacular as Katherine Gorge, but OK. At the end, all of about 1km along, they stop the boat and feed the Archer Fish, which delight in spurting at anything bright that might be held overboard, such as a watch, camera lens etc. The archer fish are being herded up by Catfish on the next level down and below them are the giant Barramundi, who are lurking about ready to snatch an Archer fish. They also supplied fresh fruit and orange and champagne Kimberly Kocktails. Nice.

After lunch we took to the swimming hole again and some more sunbaking. As night fell, we went up to the Swinging Arm Bar for a happy hour drink and to take in the entertainment provided by some bloke who could make a guitar zing but whose vocals were a bit ordinary. Needless to say, every song (Country?) contained a 15 minute guitar solo, which was ok for the first 10 songs, and then it just got on your nerves.

We splashed out and had a proper dinner at the Steakhouse. We shared scallops and bread and then both had the barramundi and prawn offering. It was so good, we followed up with Banana Spring Rolls, Tropical Fruit Pavlova and coffee. Excellent!

One word about El Questro, the camp ground at ‘The Station’ is pretty big and was pretty full, probably at least a hundred, most campers and camper trailers, and kids, 100’s of them! Place looked like the school playground at Lyneham Primary at lunchtime. Bit of a shame that the toileting and bathing facilities were 8 ‘ensuite’ huts and the standard toilet block with 2 loos and 4 showers. Take a ticket and wait till your number is called, the rush starts at 6am. 

The loose plan was to maybe drive out to our second 'must-do', Zebedee Springs. It's about 8km out along that same dirt road we came in on, then a bit of a rugged walk to the springs, which we are told are just a series of smaller rock pools with warmish water flowing through them. We chose to leave it on the list and pretend that we'll come back one day to tick it off. Maybe. 

In summary, El Questro strikes us as being a city slicker 4x4 hero heaven. They come out here in their big trucks, built their tent cities and then spend their time roaring around all over the place on the dirt roads that are even rougher than the access road. Then they come back to the Station, have a nice hot shower and adjourn to the bar or restaurant - really doing it tough and just think of the bragging rights.

A picture:

Vegan Crocodile. Chamberlain Gorge, WA