Manning Gorge to Drysdale Station (IT’S REALLY QUIET HERE!, Big burgers and Chocolate Mudcake)

Woken before 5:00 AM by the tour bus party having loud conversations by the showers:

“DID YOU SLEEP WELL?”.

“YES THANKS, IT’S REALLY QUITE HERE ISN’T IT?”.

“YES, AMAZINGLY QUIET”.

I’m sure you get the picture.

We dozed until 6:00AM, had breakfast then packed up the camper and set off on the drive to Drysdale Station, 160 kilometres away.  The road was pretty good (just a few corrugations in places) but our fuel consumption was not.  There were lots of creek and floodway crossings which required us to slow right down then slowly get back up to speed.  The Hann River was our biggest crossing to-date.

The road from the Gibb River Road to Drysdale Station was the worst we have encountered so far.  59 kilometres of bone shaking corrugations.  Rachel and others had warned us about it but assured us that the section from Drysdale Station to the King Edward River (Mitchell Falls direction) was very smooth.  So we slowed right down and reached Drysdale at 12:30PM.

What a brilliant place!  As well as a fuel station, Drysdale has a shop and a very good cafe that serves excellent Beef Burgers the biggest of which, is the Kimberly Burger; they’re very good!

The afternoon was spent preparing for the trip up to the Mitchell Falls, we’re very excited!  We hadn’t planned to go to the Falls but, because of the good road conditions, decided it was too good an opportunity to miss.  We’ve decided to leave the camper trailer at Drysdale and take tents because we’ve heard that the road from the King Edward River to the Mitchell Fall campground is ungraded and has a couple of nasty creek crossings – should be fun!

Had dinner at the cafe.  The food was good and the Chef kept the children entertained – “No dessert unless you eat your greens!”.  Quite right too, it’s important to have a healthy, balanced diet.  Dessert was Chocolate Mud Cake.