Mawle Family

Set off early for Silent Grove which is the campground near Bell Gorge.  The road was very good and even sealed in a few places.  We passed through the Yamarra Gap in the Napier Range we saw the rock formation that looks like a silhouette of Queen Victoria’s head.  The road passed through savannah then climbed up through the King Leopold Ranges; the views were spectacular, other than the road there was not a man-made object in sight.  As we descended towards Imintji the road was sealed and passed through pretty tree-lined groves that reminded us of the south of France.  We crossed some small creeks the prettiest of which was Fern Creek which was covered in blue water lilies.

We were low on fuel when we got to the Bell Gorge turnoff so we continued straight on to Imintji (8 kilometres) to refuel.  The Roadhouse is like a little oasis, it has a green lawn with tables under Frangipani trees.  The store sells a variety of stuff, from biscuits to thermal socks.  They also do really nice coffee and milkshakes.

After refuelling (the car and us) we drove back to Silent Grove, set up camp and then drove 10 kms down the track to Bell Gorge.  By this time it was getting very hot.  We walked down the rocky path to the top of the waterfall.  Upstream was a series of shallow pools linked by small waterfalls and lined with smooth rock.  We followed the path across the river and over the shoulder of the waterfall, it then descended steeply to bring us out at the foot of the waterfall.

Bell Gorge. Meeting a Local

The children’s faces lit up at the site of the water cascading down into the large deep pool, another family were enjoying a swim so Ems and Ollie were in within seconds.  Emily, Oliver and I swam up to the waterfall then across to the other side andclimbed up onto the rocks.  As we swam back we spotted a Merten’s Monitor basking on the rocks near Charlotte.  It didn’t seem at all bothered by our presence and allowed us to get up close for some photos.

Back at the campground we had hot showers – these DEC sites are brilliant – then dinner and an early night.

The Ranger told us about a Bower Bird that is nesting on the campsite.  We wandered over to the nesting site (which looks a bit like two Broome heads side by side with bristles facing upwards) and could see the Male bird busy dropping white objects in and around the site.  A closer look revealed that some of the objects were man-made – bottle tops seemed to be the preferred article of this particular bird.  Apparently the bird had nicked a little girl’s plastic tea set a few weeks earlier, and they are quite partial to jewellery, coloured glass, coins and even empty bullet casings.  The Male does all this petty pilfering to attract a female (clearly the females are happy to live of immoral gains).

Bower Bird, Windjana campground.  You can see that this one likes bottle tops.

Chatted to an Australian woman who once lived in Croydon, UK.  She wouldn’t  go back.  Although Windjana Gorge is inhabited by crocodiles, large snakes and numerous biting and stinging insects, she thought Croydon was much more dangerous.  “There are strange people in the parks, and there are Rottweilers roaming the streets!”.

After breakfast we drove to Tunnel Creek (30 kms away).  On the way we came across a cattle round up.  The cattle were being driven down the road ahead of us; it looked like the sort of scene you’d see in National Geographic:

Cattle Round Up on the way to Tunnel Creek

Hot and Dusty Work

Tunnel Creek is the oldest cave system in Australia.  The tunnel is 750 metres long and was cut by the Leonard River and is further along the same Barrier Reef that Windjana Gorge passes through.  Although there are Freshwater Crocodiles in the tunnel entrance they are said to be small and harmless (well that’s alright then!).

Tunnel Creek Entrance

So we set off into the darkness armed with head torches, water bottles, and a bag of mixed nuts.  Oh, and Oliver had a Light Sabre (large stick).  Emily and Oliver immediately took up the job of scanning the surface of the water with their torches, looking for the red eyes of crocs (queue the Jaws music).

Inside Tunnel Creek

After several false alarms (“there’s one!”) we settled down and waded through to a sandy beach under a large opening in the roof.  We stood for a while marvelling at the plants and wildlife that had made this their home, we saw  St Andrews spider hanging in its web on a rock, colourful birds swooped overhead and, inside the cave we could hear the screeching of Fruit Bats up on the cave ceiling.

We continued on through the next section of the tunnel and emerged into a tree-lined creek with a couple of mucky pools.  We climbed onto the bank and followed a rough path up to a cave with some Aboriginal rock art.  We also saw a Monitor lizard basking on the bank.

We retraced our steps through the tunnel then drove back to Windjana Gorge, stopping for a few minutes at the ruined Police Station alongside the road.  Next to the ruins there was an information board which tells the story of Jandamarra, an Aboriginal who fought a Guerrilla-style war against the Settlers.  After three years of being hunted he was eventually tracked down to his hideout in Tunnel Creek and shot in the entrance to the cave.

Close up to a Freshwater Crocodile in Windjana Gorge.

Back at Windjana we prepared for tomorrow’s drive to Silent Grove then took another walk into the Gorge to look at the Crocs before having dinner:

Emily isn’t too keen to swim!

Packed up camp and set off for the Gibb River Road which starts a few kilometres out of Derby.  The road was originally built for transporting cattle from the isolated stations to the ports of Wyndham and Derby.

The first 120 kilometres of the road are sealed then its dirt for most of the remaining 540 or so kilometres to the junction with the Great Northern Highway between Wyndham and Kununurra.  The condition of the road depends largely on whether it has been recently graded.  When we hit the dirt we were surprised at how smooth the surface was (this’ll be a doddle!) so we cruised along serenely towards the Windjana Gorge with loomed up like a black wall on the horizon.

The Windjana Gorge campground is situated at the foot of the cliffs, close to the gorge entrance.  The only obstacle we encountered was a dry creek bed on the drive in to the campground.  The cliffs are the remains of a Barrier Reef that was formed in the Devonian period around 350 million years ago.  The gorge has been carved through the reef by the Leonard River.  It is magnificent!  The black cliffs are streaked with patches of pinky orange (a technical term) and there are large caves high up in the cliffs.  Trees cling to fault lines the cliff face.

We set up the camp then strolled through the campground to the gorge entrance, the path winds through some large boulders and a narrow cave then down to the river bank.

The river was almost dry but some large pools with sandy banks remain, they looked cool and inviting but were occupied by lots of Freshwater Crocodiles:

Windjana_Gorge_And_Crocs

We followed the path upstream to a wide sandy beach that stretched out to a large, white and pink marbled rock.  The river bank was lined with lush vegetation – The colours on the rock and the surrounding cliffs became more vivid in the late afternoon sun – the pinky orange patches in the cliffs turned more… pink!

Late afternoon on the beach in Windjana Gorge

The gorge echoed with the sounds of the birds.  As we stood on the beach marvelling at the sights and sounds around us a large crocodile cruised over and stopped just off the beach, it stayed perfectly still, watching us with only the top of its tail and its eyes above the surface (see below):

Windjana_Crocodile gets close

On the way back to the campground we stopped to watch some mall Wallabies tentatively approach the water’s edge on the far bank, they were definitely aware of the large black shapes lurking in the shallows.  Eventually they made their way to a small safe pool on the bank (very sensible!).  Oliver was very disappointed – he would love to have seen some action.  As we continued back to the campground we kept our eyes open for a large Olive Python (3 to 4 metres) near the entrance cave, we had been told about it and saw some photos that someone had taken earlier in the afternoon.  Apparently it’s a regular visitor to the cave.  We could see the snake’s trail along the bottom of the cliff face, it was clearly a big snake, but we didn’t see it.  Back at the camper Emily cooked Spag Bol for dinner (smashing!) then we star gazed – the sky out here is so clear, there are so many stars in the Southern Hemisphere sky, we could see the Milky Way.

The campground is really good, it’s run by the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) and only costs $26 per night.  There’s plenty of fresh water, hot showers and flushing loos!  It’s better maintained and much cleaner than many of the more expensive campsites we’ve visited.  We can run the generator between 7AM and 8PM.