The Beginning of the End

 

Tuesday 8 June 2021 – The beginning of the end

We were packed and up and ready to leave Ellenbrae by about 7.45am and then turned east on to the Gibb River Road and continued our slow and bumpy journey. The Durack river crossing was a proper water crossing (apparently this section of the Gibb had been closed a few weeks ago because the Durack crossing had been about 800m high but it was more like 400mm deep now although still flowing strongly.

                                            

It was over two hours by the time we reached the Cockburn Range look out where we stopped for the obligatory photo of car and caravan and, sure enough, we had phone reception as Larry’s phone rang with a work call!  Larry told me it didn’t connect properly so he couldn’t take the call – hmmm.

Down the hill and to the famous Pentecost river crossing.  We had been looking forward to this thinking that it might actually have a decent amount of water this year but although there appears to be plenty of water in the Pentecost the actual crossing wasn’t very deep at all – probably no deeper than when we did it with Ben in 2016.

Onwards east and although we came across bitumen earlier than expected it was still slow going as the road is very undulating with numerous floodways and you don’t want to head into a dip too quickly when you are towing a 3 tonne van behind you!

Headed down the entry road to El Questro which is just as bumpy as we remembered it and never seems to reflect the amount of money they collect in visitor passes which supposedly goes towards its maintenance.  We even saw signs warning of a grader ahead but of course there was no sign of the elusive beast.

A couple more serious creek crossing including the Pentecost again just before you get to El Questro station (this was a little deeper than 2016!) and then we were checked in and heading to our campsite.

Although there are plenty of shady spots in this campground, of course we had one in the blazing sun just when we don’t need to worry about getting sun on the solar panels.  Never mind, we have power, and we can always run the air conditioner to cool the van down in the evening and we don’t intend to be hanging around the van in the middle of the day in any case.

We set up and had a late lunch of crisps and damper with butter and jam (I know, very lazy of us) and had a little relax after our bumpy morning of driving.  Mid afternoon we wandered down to the swimming pool right next to the station and soaked there for a while before heading home for hot showers and a clean change of clothes.

Walked to the Station bar right on happy hour and had a couple of Matso mango beers and hard berry drinks before ordering yummy burgers with a side of chips.  We had to eat quickly as the cooling fans blowing into the bar area were also cooling us and our food down!   The day certainly cools down once the sun sets and they could probably dispense with the fans by 6pm.  We stayed a little longer listening to the guitarist singing a nice mix of tunes until we got too cold and retired to the van to start updating Facebook, blogs etc.