DAY 90 Pilbara – Kimberley Trip
GIBB RIVER ROAD - CHARNLEY RIVER STATION
It was a lovely day to explore the station. I am not sure of the size of this station but both Drysdale and Mount Elizabeth were 10,000 square kilometres each. At a guess I would say it would be of similar size. The owners are away mustering on their other property near Fitzroy Crossing. The caretakers have only been here a very short time so were not familiar with the workings of the station. The property has hills, creeks, billabongs, gorges and lots of cattle.
Chooks, peacocks and geese roam the campsite as well as a small herd of poddy cows with a mischievous donkey. It is a wonderful place for kids to interact with the animals.
The chooks and peacocks came running to our campsite when the bread appeared. Was someone in their element – I think he has missed his chooks.
One chook even got itself comfortable on someone else’s open car engine. They ended up checking that no egg was laid on the engine before leaving.
We set of this morning to see Dillie Gorge. To get there we had some water crossings and had to make our way through several large herds of cattle lying on the track.
They had even managed to obliterate any sign of past car tracks. As they moved on they raised quite a bit of dust.
Dillie Gorge was a pleasant swimming gorge that was moderately easy to get to. There was a lot of water flowing in it.
Water cascaded over the rocks.
Whilst hubby had a swim I enjoyed the view and the textured basalt rocks. The rocks were gleaming in the sunlight.
From here we made our way back to a junction to continue to Grevillea Gorge. There were some very large termite mounds on the way. We hadn’t seen any of this size for quite a while.
It is a beautiful gorge but not that easy to get to. After scrambling down rocks you had to get over to an aluminium ladder to descend the rest of the way into the gorge. Well this is where I stopped - ladders are a no no for me- fear of heights its called.
The view from the top was great. There were several pools each lower than the other beneath the waterfall. What a lovely thing to have in your own backyard even though it is 40km from your homestead!
We backtracked to the junction and went to see Donkey Hole. It is a swimming hole that is absolutely beautiful. Several wallabies jumped past along the rim of the rocks whilst we were there.
Water lilies grow in the pool and it is surrounded by a lovely rock wall.
On our way back to the campsite we had a final creek crossing to get through but the cattle wouldn’t get out of our way before the creek crossing. They decided to proceed us across the crossing before we could get to cross it.
We finally made our way back to the campsite and got permission to wash our solar panels as they were very filthy and not working to capacity.
On our way back the car radio system stopped working. A couple of fuses had to be replaced and a wire required re-attaching.
We are sipping tea now as we listen to our i-pod under the bright starry Kimberley skies.
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