Lap Around Australia Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek

On the Gibb River Road: Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek

We don't have an off-road caravan, so doing The Gibb River Road in its entirety is not an option for us. But! ... we have done a fair bit of it from both ends now. Just not the bit in the middle. Ho hum.

We did prepare better this time, a lot better. After our nasty experience at Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge) when we misread information and nearly ran out of water, we were determined to avoid trouble this time. To that end John did lots of car prep, including carrying two extra jerry cans of fuel, decreasing the tyre pressures and stocking up on extra water and food for our trip. We also removed or repacked sources of rattling -.such as our metal fire pit - as experience has shown that all might be going well on dirt roads but rattles can be very distracting, not to say worrying.

We also left very early in the morning. I think Jess thought getting up at 0500 for an early breakfast and getting on the road before dawn was a bit over the top. But when we didn't get home until 1630 that evening even she conceded that the early start was a good idea. It did mean that we got to see the sun come up on the Gibb River road, although due to the heavy fog in the morning it was a bit hard to see.

We'd been told that the road was sealed to the turn-off to Windjana Gorge. Lies! That's not correct! There's quite a bit of roadwork going on and at least half our journey today was on corrugated dirt roads. No creek crossings or big stones in the dirt, so we were able to keep up a pretty good pace.

We arrived at Windjana Gorge fairly early in the day and went for the big hike. It's a flat walk on a well-defined path, so not too difficult. It was obvious right from the start that there would be no swimming here as we saw our first few crocs within about 15 minutes. There were lots more after that! At one stage we watched as a kangaroo hopped down to the waters edge for a big drink and three different crocodiles started to stealthily converge on him from different directions. These were freshwater crocs, so I don't think they intended trying to take the roo down .... but you never know.

We saw lots of other birdlife on our walk. A family of brolgas and some egrets as well as a colony of bats. We walked until the sun got too hot and we decided time-wise we needed to get on our way to Tunnel Creek.

Before we drove on to Tunnel Creek we had a bite to eat and lots of cool drinks at the picnic tables at Windjana Gorge. The thirty five km to Tunnel Creek was all dirt road, but we were lucky there was not too much traffic throwing up red dust at us. The exact opposite of the el Questro road this really was all dust and no stone.

We'd brought torches, headlights and water shoes with us for Tunnel Creek. You have to walk through knee deep water in the dark through the caves and there are freshwater crocodiles in the water (we saw two .... but other people that day said they saw five). It freaked Barb out a bit to be in the water with crocodiles, but we did make it all the way to the end of the tunnel and back without incident.

We were pretty chuffed with ourselves after we got home again. It felt like a big achievement and our car has now been well and truly christened with the red dust of the Kimberley.