El Questro / Gibb River Crossing 6/9/2013

Well you can hope, but the bloody generator was on all night! We were both quite annoyed, after paying so much money to camp. We slowly packed up, then had a swim in the river we camped next to. The scenery was really beautiful and so of course it turned into another photo session. When Iain had finished taking pics of me, I decided to practice some of my own skills and did some photos of him.

We just started packing up when Iain discovered one of the SD cards with hundreds of photo's of me on it was missing. He remembered putting it on the table, but it was nowhere to be found. After searching all the obvious places, we began to suspect it had fallen on the floor - in the sand. Iain decided the best option was the metal detector, we got out another card and listened to the sound it made. Sure enough buried in the sand under the table there it was!

We took our camping tag back and got instructions on how to access the gorge. When Iain complained about the generator, the girl just shrugged and said sorry – this gorge had better be good, we were both feeling a little miffed. We drove down to the gorge, got all our hiking gear on and set off. We soon realised that in WA if they say that it is difficult, they mean it. It didn’t take us long to forget the night before and realise that it was certainly worth it, the gorge was absolutely magnificent. It was like walking through something out of a Disney movie, very special.

Before leaving the gorge, we had a chat to some fellow travellers, who had already done the Gibb River road, and best places to go. Our intention was to go to Mitchell Falls, this is one of the must sees, they said that they hadn’t bothered as they were told there was not much water going over the falls. We decided to head that way anyway, and to stop in at some of the homesteads and ask their opinion. We were driving down the road, when suddenly there was a guy walking down the road towards us pulling a cart. We pulled over to have a chat. Turns out he walks a desert every year, this time he was walking from Derby to Kununarra – brave  soul. He highly recommended the scones at Ellenbrae homestead down the road, so we thought it would be a great opportunity to get some info – and have a scone!

The scones were fantastic, the homestead really lovely and we contemplated staying the night. After chatting t the owner and a couple who had just come from Mitchell Falls, we decided it would definitely be worth the trip. With that in mind, we decided not to stay, but to camp at the Gibb River at the turnoff to Mitchell Falls. We arrived there at around 5 and drove around a bit to find a place to camp; we spotted another vehicle there and were keen not to get to close. When you are free camping, you tend to give other campers their space if at all possible. We soon realised that we were going to have to be relatively close to them, so we parked the car and walked over to ask if they minded. They were extremely friendly and didn't mind at all so Iain fetched the car and we set up for the evening.

  We had realised it was a similar setup to the Unimog when we drove past, when we got closer we realised that they were international visitors. We introduced ourselves and they said they didn’t mind us being close at all. We had a quick chat, they told us they were from Switzerland, and their names were Susanna and Peter, and they had been travelling the world for 2 years. They had done almost the same route we want to do.

We decided that we would invite them over for a coffee – we don’t often share, but this was one occasion we definitely wanted to. While Iain set up the Nespresso, I went over to their truck. I wish I had a camera to capture Sussana’s face when I said we had a Nespresso machine, she was so excited; they grabbed cups and came over. Their faces lit up even more when they saw the selection of capsules. We had a coffee and chatted some more, then they left to make dinner.

About half an hour later we noticed they had a massive fire going, Peter wandered over and invited us to come and sit by the fire with them. It was such a lovely evening chatting to like minded people and listening to their experiences. It was also great for me to talk to another woman and get her perspective on travelling. We talked late into the night.