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| Cable Beach |
K2K, Unfinished Business
Back in 2016, “doesn’t that seem such a long time ago”? We
set out on the first leg of our dream adventure, riding from Kangarilla in
South Australia to Kathmandu in Nepal. We dubbed this adventure K2K, it was
part of naming our dream, essential to achieving a big goal. Little did we know
the course of events that would take place over the next few years. On the
second of May 2016 we had never had more than two weeks off work in our lives. How
do you change your mentality to that of one where you are going to take a long
time to ride half way around the world? http://kangarilla2k.blogspot.com/2016/05/
I can remember saying to Mary that I feared being two weeks
into our journey and deciding that this cycle touring thing sucked. What then?
We had turned our lives upside down to embark on this adventure.
Five years later to the month, we are heading off once again
to complete some unfinished business.
Luckily, back in 2016, that first two weeks simply confirmed
that we had made the right decision. After five months riding our fully loaded
fatbikes unsupported seven thousand two hundred kilometres from Kangarilla to
Broome, we had to make a decision. It was early October and getting damned hot
in the Kimberley. Our original plan for this leg of the trip had been to finish
in Darwin, via the Gibb River Road, however, the build up to the wet season was
happening and we realised that continuing on was potentially a really stupid
idea. We never lose sight of our ethos of keeping our plans fun, safe(ish) and
achievable. We went home for a break before heading off again in January 2017
through south east asia http://kangarilla2k.blogspot.com/2017/01/.
On the Eighteenth of October 2018, we rode into Kathmandu, I
don’t think I can describe that feeling better than the words that Mary wrote
on that day.
“Our K2K journey pushed us well outside of our comfort zone,
it created a dream that scared us, it exposed us to many challenges, we met so
many beautiful people along the way and most importantly it gave us an
adventure we will never forget.
We found the love of Camping in our little tent from
Kangarilla to Broome; we discovered freedom pedalling across the volcanic spine
of Indonesia, (Bali, Java and Sumatra), we explored the beauty of the back
roads of Malaysia and Thailand, from Kuala Lumpur to Chang Mai; and we felt the
true India from Kolkata to Siliguri, Darjeeling to Gangtok. We absorbed the
love and peace of Nepal as we ventured to Kathmandu. What an amazing journey we
have had.
Thank you to our beautiful family and all of our friends for
encouraging and supporting us over the last 2 years. Sharing our story has been
the highlight of our K2K adventure. Namaste đ”
A LITTLE BIT UP, A LITTLE BIT DOWN
Our “Unfinished Business” has been eating away at us for a
while. Covid got in the way last year and since arriving on our bikes in
Kathmandu, we have cycle toured Kangaroo Island, been back to Nepal to trek the
Tsum Valley and Manaslu circuit, as well as completing the Mawson Trail during
Covid last year. But in the back of our minds, we still really wanted to ride
from Broome to Darwin, so finally, here we go.
We will still be on our trusty fat bikes, Larry (Surly
Moonlander) and Priscilla (Muru Finke) which are still in great condition and
we fully intend that these will be our touring steeds for many trips still to
come.
Some other gear however has had to be upgraded or replaced.
Our faithful Wilderness Equipment Tent has finally reached the point of not
being trusted for an epic adventure, so we have replaced it with a Mont
Moondance Sahara, much lighter (just over 2kg), smaller pack size and roomier
inside, we hope that this tent can stand up as well as the old one. We have
decided to change out our old MSR Whisperlite stove for a gas canister Soto
Windmaster. I am still nervous about finding gas when we need it, but we just
couldn’t cope with the fuss, and worse,
the pervasive smell of the always leaking whisperlite. We may be wrong, but
funnily, where we are headed on this trip, it’s actually not easy to find
unleaded petrol either, so, if the worst happens, I am sure we can cope with
cold food or lighting a small cooking fire for a while.
We’ve replaced Mary’s blown out exped downmat with a new sea
to summit one, and once again, thank our good mates at Paddy Pallin in Adelaide
for helping us to source the new bits of kit that we needed.
The plan. We really want to take the gibb slow, side trips,
multi day stopovers, hiking, swimming and having a good explore. We’ll take a
good four weeks getting to Kununurra. Then it will be highway 1 across to
Katherine and we hope to hike the 5day Jatbula trail while in Katherine. From
there it’s a bit fuzzy, but Kakadu, Litchfield and the back way into Darwin via
the Ferry from Mandorah on the Cox Peninsula.
11th to 13th May 2021
When we first booked our flights for this adventure it was
an early morning flight to Perth and then a connecting flight to Broome. This
however changed close to the date as Virgin cancelled our Perth flight and
popped us on one that left at 7pm on the 11th and then with our second flight
to Broome the next day at 11am. This broke the flights up a bit, but caused a
little problem as our bike luggage wasn’t able to be checked through so we had
to man handle the luggage in and out of taxi’s (amazingly it all fitted into a
Prius), then in and out of our hotel
room (which was on the first floor with no lift).
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| Random Dinner in Perth |
We arrived in Broome with one more taxi ride to our
accommodation. It was an exciting feeling being back in Broome. The sky was a
bright blue, the sun was shining and it was lovely and warm. The only problem
was that the mozzies were bad, really bad. They even attacked us through our
clothes. Apparently Broome and Derby are unseasonably bad right now for some reason.
It was early afternoon and we decided that the first job was
to get the bikes all put back together, and then venture out on foot to find
somewhere to eat for dinner. We sprayed ourselves silly with mozzie spray so we
were able to work on the bikes. The job was done quickly and the bikes both
looked good and were now raring to go. We felt like an early dinner, and as we
were staying in a lovely Airbnb just out of the main part of Cable Beach we
thought it would be nice to walk and see what we could find for dinner. On the
way, we found that the mozzie spray must have worn off and we got attacked
again. We got to a restaurant “The Sydney Oyster Bar” and were very lucky to
get a table as they were totally booked out. They had only just recently opened
up in Broome and had moved their whole restaurant from Darling Harbour in
Sydney, including kitchen, management and staff. The meal was sensational and
the service top notch.
The next day we rose early and rode into town for breakfast.
Our first job was to do a shop and stock up on the fresh fruit and vegetables
and other items that we needed to pack into our almost full panniers. Second
job was to ride to Matso’s and have lunch. Third job was to watch the sunset
over Cable Beach. Fourth job was to pack and be ready to roll out the gates
around 7:30am the next morning. It was a busy day, and we found a dirt road for
on the way out. All in all, a very successful day, as all our jobs got done.
BROOME TO ROEBUCK PLAINS 35km
Supposedly an easy warm up ride to a noisy roadhouse
campsite where we had camped on our way into Broome five years ago.
We had breakfast at a caravan park café before heading down
to Cable Beach for departure photos. It was a beautiful morning with the hint
of Easterly winds to come. Heading off the beach, we met the people setting up
for the Fat Bike Championships that were on that afternoon. We had been tempted
to delay our departure, to experience the racing, but Larry and Priscilla were
ready to go, they were quite prepared to leave without us, so we wished them
luck and good racing and were finally pedalling off the beach.
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| Roebuck Roadhouse Campground |
We had found a dirt back road to get us out to the main road
heading East, which gave us a taste of the red dirt and corrugations straight
away, shaking a few things out of my handlebar bag straight away. (How I lost
my leatherman last year). Now with gear correctly stowed, it was onto the
bitumen and into the fresh Easterly which made it a hot slog out to Roebuck
Plains. Mary found a new mascot, Cheryl the Crocodile, to accompany us on this
new trip
ROEBUCK PLAINS TO WATERFORD
72km
By mid morning, the Easterly was up again, and we knew we were in for a tough day. We were just planning on riding till 3-4pm and find a wild camp somewhere, so it was no big deal if the day was a bit slow. We were conscious of using the Broome Derby section to condition our riding muscles and gain fitness, so we really were intending not to overdo it. We saw lots of Bulls grazing in the bush close to the road, and a few that strayed too close to the trucks on previous nights. We don’t usually like camping in the roadside stops, but we did find one with a shelter and picnic table which gave us some welcome relief from the late afternoon sun. We are very happy with the useability of our new tent and ease of use of our little gas stove. There were only a few other people in the stop that night and it was quite quiet and dark, we saw a wonderful night sky.
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| The Savannah Way |
WATERFORD TO WILLARE
59.7km
An early start, made easier by our picnic table, saw us riding East before the wind came up too strong. We started to see Boab trees in the landscape and stopped for a wonderful second breakfast and coffee under a massive tree just off the road. We ate Boab fruit for the first time and while very strange in texture, we really liked the citrus flavour of it and will use it again as we go along.
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| Our First Really Big Boab |
It wasn’t too big a day today and was looking like we would make it to the Willare Roadhouse for lunch, so we decided to keep going and conserve our onboard supplies. Approaching the Fitzroy River, we had stopped to take a photo of a nice boab when we thought we saw a rider coming up behind us in the distance. We waited and met Renee, from the Netherlands who was cycling with his partner Rachel, from the USA, who wasn’t far behind. Continuing on, we crossed the Fitzroy river bridge, noticing some Crocodile slides in the mud banks. Suddenly a car went past us towing a boat trailer that had one wheel running on the rim with sparks going everywhere and making a terrible racket, he had to be aware of it, obviously he didn’t have a spare and decided it was easier to drag it about five k’s to the roadhouse. We had lunch with Rachel and Renee at Willare and chatted about experiences, as you do. They were heading across the Gibb too, so we swapped notes and they continued on to Derby. We decided to camp at the roadhouse and have an easy day into Derby the next day. It was a good campground with lots of nice green grass and good meals, so we were happy, despite the ubiquitous roadhouse generator plant out the back, that you never notice until the sun goes down and the wind drops.
WILLARE TO DERBY
58.17km
We had a good night in the roadhouse camp and had a great breakfast before we set off. It was only going to be a morning’s ride into Derby, about as far away as we can get from home without leaving Oz. The Boabs continued to dominate the landscape and we were amazed to see our first one in flower. They are very delicate, and we learned later that they flower for one night only, and are pollinated by moths.
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| Boab Flower |
We had to ride past a seasonal burn on the side of the road
not far out of Derby, we are amazed how they just burn in random places and
seem to be unattended. They do really settle down with the cooler temps and
humidity at night.
We did drop into what we call the sacred boab just out of
Derby. This ancient tree has a past that massively predates the abominable
practices that white man used it for. We choose to recognise this tree for its
history pre white man.
We rolled in to the very long and narrow Derby. We decided to stay in the main town caravan park and looked for lunch. We had some great Barra and chips before checking out the supply options at the supermarket (Rustys). We caught up with Renee and Rachel again and had a nice chat.
I was feeling a bit pressured starting the Gibb River Road in the morning, I felt that I wasn’t quite ready, so we called a rest day and decided that we could do the resupply tomorrow and let the first four days ride settle into our legs.
We chilled for a while and got camp set up before heading to
the pub for dinner which was seriously disappointing, so we were now glad this
wasn’t to be our last proper meal before the Gibb.
On our day off we checked out the Navar gallery which was
seriously impressive, got our shopping done and booked into a little Italian
restaurant for dinner that we had heard good things about.
When we got back to the tent in the caravan park disaster
had struck. Ants were all through our tent and food paniers still hanging on
the bikes. We had put a loaf of bread in the tent, and what we later found out
were Singaporian ants, had actually munched tiny holes in the tent wall in
order to get to the bread, they were everywhere. Our dried fruit and nuts that
we had brought from home were totally infested and had checked out every other
bag. Luckily all our expensive freeze dried food was in tougher bags and wasn’t
effected. It took hours to clear them out, some of whom we could only coax out
by them needing to be back in their nests before dark. We rescued most stuff
and just decided that a few of the worst things would have to be replaced on
our way out in the morning.
On the upside, we had a wonderful dinner out and slept well,
totally ready to head out on the Gibb in the morning.
DERBY TO WILD CAMP 80KM’S OUT OF DERBY 79.16km
It was a cool morning and we got out of town pretty well. It
wasn’t far to the Gibb River Road turn off and I have to say we were pretty
excited about the adventure ahead. We had the mandatory photo at the starting
sign and were happy to learn that the road was still closed to heavy traffic,
beyond Lennard River, so that was going to be great. Riding on, we only got
about 1k down the road when I noticed that Cheryl the Crocodile was missing
from the rear of Mary’s bike. This time Mary had to go back to the sign where
she had left her after photos. We did have the ever present Easterly head wind
that made life tough, but we were seeing Brolgas, Kites, Eagles and Red tailed
black cockatoos as well as the awesome boabs. It’s so much easier when you have
cool things to distract you as you pedal into a head wind.
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| The Iconic Gibb River Road Sign (Western End) |
It was a bit of a distance grind for the afternoon, and we
were near the entrance to Kimberley Downs Station when we decided it was time
to look for a campsite, it gets dark so early. In the end, we found a graded
drain that led down to a bit of a flat spot under a boab tree with lots of
wildflowers, prickly wildflowers. We slept with the fly off the tent, it was
pretty hot, but this allowed us to watch the brilliant night sky through the
bug net tent inner. Totally awesome.
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| So Many Wildflowers |
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| We Can Always Make A Drain Camp Look Great |
WILD CAMP TO WINDJANA GORGE 68.03km
The road down to Windjana gorge was pretty rough as well,
with some very hot meltdown moments as we struggled down this road. Not sure
why, but the early afternoon sun was punishing us, and it seemed to take ages
to get down to the National Park entrance. Once there, we found a nice campsite
in the afternoon shade and concentrated on re-hydrating for a while, helped by
a cool shower. The campground was busy and noisy, but it was all nice people
around and we just concentrated on getting good rest for our hike into the
gorge on our day off the bikes tomorrow.
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| Fresh Water Croc |
The next morning we headed into the gorge with a picnic lunch, ready to spend the day.
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| Windjana Gorge |
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| The Gorge Tunnel Entrance |
You walk in through a rock tunnel and the gorge opens up with a shallow flowing river running crystal clear. Freshwater crocs hang on the sandbars which was cool, but the thing that really mesmerized us was the archer fish cruising around shooting insects out of the air, we watched them for ages. We walked right up to the end of the gorge and hung there for a couple of hours, having lunch and just watching the amazing water flow by. We would have loved to swim but it is not recommended in here. We loved this beautiful place and found it to be extremely peaceful, and relaxing. As always, it was the small things for us, the tiny birds, the fish, the wildflowers. The big things were here too, the geology, the Kites, Ospreys, the crocs, but the small things that sometimes we feel very few others see, that captivate us.
Windjana gorge to Wild Camp in King Leopold Range, Boundary
Creek 74.47km
We came back out the Windjana Road much easier than we went in, we had dropped the tyre pressures dramatically and fresh legs also helped heaps. There was a small gorge after the Lennard river crossing with a rocky outcrop which looks like Queen Victoria’s Head.
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| Approaching Queen Victoria's Head |
We stopped under her nose and had second breakfast in a nice shady spot. We spotted a sign explaining the indigenous meaning and suddenly it dawned on Mary that the dog tracks we had been seeing on the side of the road were actually Dingo tracks and she decided that this was going to be her spirit animal for the trip. She was right, because it was very rare that we weren’t accompanied by these tracks in the soft sand on the side of the road for the rest of the trip.
The day got mighty hot and following the windjana road incidents, we had decided that we would likely sit in the shade between 12 and 2, then ride till later. The road had been reasonably good, and the softer tyres were helping lots.
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| Time To Find Some Shade |
The road began to wind and climb a bit and shortly after that it was time for lunch and some shade, man was it getting hot. We spotted a shady clear spot, (dried out swamp) and rolled the tent inner out for us to lay on in the shade. 2 hours passed wonderfully in the cool breeze, and we felt refreshed to kick on.
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| Thanks So Much Tina The Spinifex Fairy |
We were looking at our watches and were thinking that we had to find a camp soon, however, when Tina sent us on our way, she loaded us up with leftover sandwiches and fruit salad. When we finally found somewhere to wildcamp just as the sun went down, we didn’t have to worry about cooking, we just set up the tent and scoffed sandwiches, still cold fruit salad and ice cold water. We had a great night, despite seeing that we were surrounded by thousands of spiders with glowing eyes all around our tent when we brushed our teeth. We were quite close to the road but only two cars went past all night.
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| Our loot |
Boundary Creek to
Imintji 50.45km
Riding in the cool of the morning is amazing. We learnt a
new term today, Jump Ups. This is where the road goes up to a decent crest
before descending the other side. The more prominent ones were often a short
bit of sealed road. Lots of climbing today, but we were rewarded with great
views and lovely flowing creeks, often with water lillies. We started using our
water filter for top ups from the creeks because the water was just beautiful.
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| With Low Tyre Pressures (5psi) The sandy verge was so much easier than the corrugations. |
Imintji to Bush Camp above Galvins Gorge 64.4km
There were a lot of roadworks out of Imintji. The crew escorted us through for about 10ks which was fast smooth and flat and then again for another 10ks after that. We saw the large 4x4 school bus that ferries the kids from Imintji to the school at Mount Barnett. There were no kids on board, but it ran regardless. Our 30ks before second breakfast was over before we were even hungry, but we stopped in some shade and made coffee anyway, knocking off our wonderful bircher muesli that Mary makes.
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| Imintji Campground Facilities, Noice |
Then the climbing started again, which slowed us down a bit,
but it was starting to feel like our fitness was kicking in and we ground it
out. Jump up after jump up, creek after creek, we discovered a knew cooling
method. We would stop at the creeks and wet our shirts which would give us
awesome aircon for about half an hour, this kept us riding through the
afternoon heat.
We had a big climbing afternoon, we hadn’t expected there to be as much climbing as what we were experiencing, but of course this only improved the landscape. Late in the afternoon we were getting close to Galvins gorge and thought that we probably couldn’t camp there, so we stopped at a lookout about a kilometre before there and worked out a plan.
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| Second Breakfast, with leg dirt |
No sooner had we stopped when a Glamour bus turned up to check out the view. On spotting us, the view lost all importance and we needed to do an impromptu bikepacking presentation for the adventure hungry tourists. Lots of laughs were had and once one person offered us some snacks it was like the flood gates opened and all of a sudden, our food bag was full again, hilarious.
The sun was getting low, but we decided not to camp at the lookout as it might not be very private, so we ended up finding a spot in a drain about half a k back. It wasn’t far to water in the morning so we could afford to have a bucket bath and hit the sack with the fly off again. Hilariously, just as we were cooking dinner feeling smug about our stealthy camp spot, the Imintji school bus headed past us, the driver spotted us and waved, but we cracked up laughing when we saw the only kid in the bus was doing a plank between two seat backs behind the driver.
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| Another Drain Camp |
Nearly midnight and we woke up to thunder and drops of rain.
We raced out of the tent to quickly throw the fly on. As soon as we had got
back in the tent it stopped, and that was the first and only rain we had for
the entire trip.
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| Walking Out Those Climbing Legs |
CAMP ABOVE GALVINS TO MANNING GORGE 23.67km
It was a quick pack up and a very short downhill ride to Galvins gorge in the morning. We totally lucked out being the only ones there for nearly an hour. What a beautiful place this was, a stunning clear pool with a waterfall dropping in on the far side. Palms, boabs and rock art. You can see an amazing Wandjina on a wall from the middle of the pool. We swam for a couple of hours, took photos and had an amazing time, even when a few other people turned up, it was still very cool.
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| Galvins Gorge |
But the road was calling. We rode the dusty 13ks to the Mt Barnett Roadhouse for a welcome burger and cold drink. The people running the roadhouse were amazing friendly people who were very helpful. They also arrange bookings for the Manning Gorge campground and gave us great advice for a quieter spot to camp. When we realised that we forgot to buy bread after riding the 7ks into the campground, they offered to have one dropped out to us at the end of the day. The campground was astoundingly busy, with the full-on Glamour bus camp sites for various companies as well. One of the things that amazed us, was that a lot of these Glamping tours who charge upwards of a thousand dollars a day were camping in the same camps as us and using the same showers and toilets. We had a nice quiet spot about a kilometre further down the Barnett River. There is an amazing natural pool in the river near the main campground which was an awesome swim.
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| A Refreshing Swim Then Back To The Dust |
The next day we had to swim across this pool, probably about
100metres wide, in order to start the walk of about 2ks into Manning Gorge
itself. The walk was amazing, there were lots of wildflowers and great views.
There is a steep rocky descent down into the gorge, you turn a corner onto a
large rock ledge about 20 metres above river level. From here the gorge, falls
and main pool are an impressive sight. There was a lot of water cascading over
here and we couldn’t wait to get down there for another swim, are you seeing
the trend here? Eat Swim Ride.
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| The Swim Across From The Campground |
We took lunch with us and had an amazing day just hanging out at the falls with various people coming and going throughout the day. There aren’t as many people here as there are back at the campsite as I think a lot of people find the swim a bit intimidating. We walked back quite late, taking our time to enjoy the little things to see on the way back.
Back at camp after a swim back across the river, we cooked dinner as we watched the full moon rise. Then we noticed something weird happening, a bit of shadow across the moon. Slowly we watched a full lunar eclipse, which revealed an amazing milky way and night sky. We had known that it was to be a full moon, but had no idea that there was to be an eclipse. What an experience. We slept soundly after an action packed day.
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| Manning Gorge Falls |
MANNING GORGE TO HANN RIVER
60.97km
The next stage was turning out to be a bit of a mental game,
we had been unable to determine whether Gibb River Station was open, shut, or
even existed at all. Everyone we asked either had no idea, hadn’t ever heard of
it, or was extremely cagey about it for some reason. Even the Visitor centre in
Derby had been cagey, it would turn out to be for not very nice reasons.
Unfortunately, we now had to plan as if it didn’t exist, resupply at Mt Barnett Roadhouse and do some big days in order to get to Ellenbrae Station in three days, rather than the cruisy four days of our original plan.
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| Barnett River Crossing |
We rode out the smooth and sandy 7ks from manning Gorge campground and had a coffee, second brekky and stocked up on some essentials. Even in this hot weather, we have found that if we can buy a couple of cold drinks in the morning and bury them in our clothes panier to insulate them, they are still acceptably cool when we get into camp, so we do that when the opportunity arises. It’s worth the weight penalty. It was a classic day on the Gibb, plenty of dust from passing vehicles, but overall, awesome.
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| Oops Indeed, But Love The Art |
Our strategy for the first day out from a break and not
knowing where we want to stop that night, is to just get going and see how far
we get by about an hour before dark. This meant that we weren’t sure if we
would have water in camp or not. While we love to wing it, we don’t love
running out of water. So, for those reading this trying to work out their own
plan, it might seem that we had no problem whatsoever finding water, and you
would be right. However, please don’t take this as always being the case, we
lucked out, with many beautiful streams still flowing after a good wet season.
Another year, another season, this may not be the same, please be aware.
Anyway, this still meant that we were topping off our water at any opportunity,
which meant that we always had to carry too much water, but this was the price
to be paid for peace of mind. We could not totally rely on the information of
those who came before us.
It was during one of those topping off sessions when Mary decided to video me filtering water from the upstream side of a nice little creek crossing.
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| Filtering Creek Water |
To be fair, we were a bit close to the road, but the first two cars that went past slowed down, had a chat, and we wished each other good luck. But just as Mary put the camera away, we heard another car coming up from behind me. When he saw us, he floored it, engine revving madly and accelerating directly for the shallow creek crossing. Hurtling through the water splattering us with water and gravel, I’m sure this dickhead thought that he had achieved something meaningful in his day, but I am also sure that he then thought about how far we would make it that night and made sure that he went further, so as not to be found by us. Now I am not into stereotyping, but, while 99% of drivers on the Gibb were amazingly courteous and supportive of us, the other wankers fell into two categories. This category seemed to be men with black fj series twin cab landcruisers, the other was Glamour Bus drivers, more on them later.
Following our lovely refreshing bath, we kicked on and later
found the most amazing campsite alongside the Hann River, and got our second
bath of the day, awesome.
We also met a couple who said that the Gibb River Station was most definitely open and that we should drop in tomorrow, as they were camped there.
Hann River to Gibb River Station 15.89km
Well, it wasn’t very far to Gibb River Station, so we had a chilled start and thoroughly enjoyed our early morning at Hann River.
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| Dingo Having A Drink |
Gibb River Station is an Indigenous managed cattle station
which has a small store with basic supplies, a lovely campground, and lovely
people as well. It also has the only Telstra service between Derby and El
Questro Station. Two other spots had Optus.
Having learned about the dubious reasons why this spot is
not in the Gibb River Road travel info anywhere other than the Hema Kimberley
map, we decided that we would stay here and support them, despite having only
ridden 14ks this morning. We lounged outside the shop under a shady tree, mango
I think, caught up on the online thing, drank coffee and generally chatted and
chilled out. The only other people in the campground were the couple we met
yesterday, they were staying waiting for the Kalumburu Road to open.
Things started getting weird when the guy who manages the
store came out and said that he was heading out to shut the gate as there was
talk about a possible covid outbreak at Ellenbrae Station. We asked if they
wanted us to leave, but they said that seeing we were already here, we could
stay. They let us grab some supplies quickly from the shop and we headed for
the nearly empty campground. We just chilled for the afternoon in the shade of
the verandah of the workmans quarters and speculated about what it would be
like to get stuck here for two weeks. We thought that it could actually be an
awesome experience.
We went back to our little tent and spent at least an hour
listening to dingos howling in 360 degree surround sound. What a way to not go
to sleep.
Gibb River Station to wild camp near Parnell Spring. 64.6km
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| Ridiculously Soft |
The other thing was, there w
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| Parnell Spring |
The rest of the day was really nice, but uneventful, and we
found a great camp with a nice river once again.
Parnell Spring to Ellenbrae Station 51.79km
“Are you planning on stopping at Ellenbrae for some scones?” This is one of the most common of the twenty questions when people stop to talk to us. So, the famous “Ellenbrae Scones” mythical legend became more and more extreme as we travelled along the Gibb.
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| Not Far Now |
Many people don’t stop there if they are travelling East to West, perhaps because it’s early in their trip, so most people we talked to, knew about the legend, but hadn’t actually had them. “Huge, the biggest scones you have ever seen, with lashings of Cream and Jam,” “Melt in your mouth goodness, so large that you couldn’t possibly eat a second serve,” Now that’s a challenge that no self-respecting bikepacker can ignore. Let’s just say that we quite capably managed two serves each, but yes, they were quite generous.
Ellenbrae turned out to be a pretty special place. The
homestead is the classic Kimberley design, pretty much just a shed roof with no
walls to let the cool breeze through. Set in a stunning shady oasis of a
garden, it was a great spot to chill out for the afternoon. We finally decided
that we should go and make camp and found a good spot a short walk from the
river pool, which was huge, and very cold. The amenities here are great and
even had hot showers and a nice shady camp kitchen. So we had a rest day here
and ate more scones, toasted sandwiches, coffee and cold ginger beer.
Ellenbrae, stuff of legend turned real.
Ellenbrae Station to wild camp 69.66km
Another day of “see how far we can get”. It was looking like a hot day, and we were aware that we were heading down off the plateau today and we might have had our last swim for a while due to Crocodile risk. Also, looming ahead was the Pentecost River crossing tomorrow, which was rather doing our heads in. But as always, the direction is forward, turn the pedals.
The first challenge today was the crossing of the Bindoola
Creek, which we thought was the Durack, and was actually a wider crossing than
anything else we had navigated. A good strong flow with the deepest point about
knee deep, it was such a beautiful spot that we decided to stop on the far side
for second breakfast. A few four-wheel drives provided entertainment for a
while, but then it was time to hit the road.
What followed was probably one of the worst night’s sleeps
we had ever had. Once dark, we could see the glow of a bushfire just over the
hill. We considered packing up and moving but decided to just keep an eye open.
We set an alarm to wake us up in a couple of hours so we could check on it. We
were just falling asleep, keeping in mind that this was only about 6pm, when
the bats started swooping around overhead. We must have camped in their feeding
spot for the night, it definitely wasn’t their daytime roost. This went on all
night, flapping, squawking, crapping on our tent with the sickly stink to go
with it. At 10pm the fire was still glowing strongly, but there was no wind, so
we were pretty safe from that. But in our dreams, we weren’t safe from the
Crocodiles as we waded the Pentecost River tomorrow.
Wild Camp to Pentecost River
46.76km
When you can’t sleep, you get up as soon as it’s light enough to ride. We felt a bit crusty, pretty sure that this was because of the smell of the bat shit. Maybe we were batshit crazy. We rode off towards our impending doom at the Pentecost River.
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| A Dick Moment |
As the sun rose, the fires all got going again making the
scene quite hazy. But we were moving quickly and probably only had about 50ks
to get to the Pentecost. The road turned to bitumen for the long descent into
Home Valley Station. We were enjoying the easy going, when a 4wd camper went
past us with the lady in the passenger side taking our photo. The car zoomed
ahead then stopped suddenly on the side and the driver’s door opened. Pumping
the brakes, I was thinking to myself, Fuck, that fella looks like Dick Smith.
The next minute, the guy sticks his hand out as I’m pulling up and says, Gday,
my name is Dick Smith. Hilarious. We had a lovely half hour chatting about
various adventures with Dick and his wife Pip. They offered us a cold drink and
we had photos before hitting the road again. What lovely people and a totally
random experience once again.
The last 20ks or so saw us arriving at a fairly wide creek
crossing, when all of a sudden, we realised that we had arrived. “Is that it?”
We both said at the same time. Obviously all the photos we had seen of this
crossing before were taken with pretty wide angle lenses. Don’t get me wrong,
it was wide enough, but we were not going to be wading neck deep across while
beating the salties off with a stick. But then again?
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| The Pentecost River Crossing, Cockburn Range In The Background |
High fives on the far bank saw us decide to camp close to
the river on that side, there were a few campers already there. We found a good
spot well back from the water and had a nice chilled out afternoon, but without
a swim. A few things concerned us. A couple of campers with kids and dogs had
the kids set up on the water’s edge in deck chairs with fishing rods and the
dogs wandering around. We chatted with other campers who mentioned having
talked to them about the risk, but they were ignored. We wondered, maybe they were
locals who intimately knew the area and understood that there was no risk. Or
were they fools?
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| Luckily This Was The Only Croc We Saw |
Packing up the next morning we chatted with the lady with
the torch. She further explained that yes there was a big school of fish, but
when she swung the torch around out further, there was a line of several red
crocodile eyes visible, and it was obvious that they had herded the school of
fish up against the shallow rocky edge of the road crossing and were happily
feeding on the fish. This was no doubt the splashing we heard and left no doubt
in our minds that there were plenty of crocs around.
Pentecost River to El Questro Station 39.23km
With the thought of hot showers and fine dining ahead today, we were travelling again quite early. Someone had told us that the bitumen started right after the Pentecost crossing, but this was car driver speak. Another twenty ks of corrugations and head winds saw us roll onto the hard top to no real relief due to the head wind. We would get relief from that when we turned off to El Questro, but then it was back onto the dirt and dust and corrugations again, as well as quite a bit of traffic.
A lot of people just come in to El Questro from the Kunnunnurra end of the Gibb as it is bitumen most of the way. However, there were still two quite serious water crossings to do, including going back across the Pentecost, and these were claiming the not so serious four-wheel drives.
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| 2nd Pentecost Crossing on El Questro |
Arriving at “The Homestead” area with wet feet again, we
went straight to the café for second breakfast and to sit in front of the very
cooling misting fans, so awesome. Once chilled out a bit, we began to take in
our surroundings. It struck us as a surreal mix of Jurrassic Park and a city
Royal Show. There were a lot of people here, so we thought we better not waste
more time getting a spot to camp. This was no problem, despite being a bit
expensive, but the camp ground was a lovely shaded grove of trees, and despite
the number of people there it was spacious, friendly and very chilled out.
We were planning on having a few days off here, so we got
into the rhythm of the place and relaxed. We quickly found out that the main
attractions were all well out on the station and without a car, we would have
to take a paid tour, very much against our style. But with everything booking
out very quickly, we decided to book a full day tour that we couldn’t actually
get on for three days. So, we fell into the rhythm of eat, sleep, catch up on
washing and bike maintenance, people watch and repeat.
We got a lot of twenty questions treatment from fellow campers and once we got a bit bored and decided to do crazy things like hike up to the lookout etc, we often had our sanity questioned by those who never leave the comfort of the four-wheel drive. At dinner, “Are you that couple we saw hiking up to ‘xyz’ lookout this morning?” Yep. “Why would you do that?”
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| Ancient Palms at Zebedee Springs |
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| Emma Gorge |
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| The Turquoise Pool |
We had to decide which way we were going tomorrow, we had to ride to supplies. Both Kununnurra
and Wyndham were about the same distance away and we really wanted to ride the
Parry Creek Road, so Wyndham it was.
El Questro to The Grotto 65km
I also really wanted to show Mary a cool gorge called The Grotto, that I had been to when being up at Kununnurra for work a couple of years ago. We packed up camp and farewelled some nice neighbours in the campground, had breakfast at the cafĂ© and then realised that we were going to have to get wet feet straight away this morning. It was looming as a pretty hot day, so we weren’t too worried about that.
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| Airing Up For The Black Top |
We arrived at the Pentecost crossing and got straight on with it. We were about half way across when a glamour bus arrived on the far bank. The driver was gunning his engine and surging forward trying to hurry us up. I gave him a friendly wave, to suggest that he should cool his heels for a minute and be a little patient. This crossing is only wide enough for one vehicle with heavy bush and rocks on either side. This dick of a driver tapped his watch to indicate that he was running late and that we would have to die rather than him being late. He must have been on his last warning. He went for it, very aggressively. We tried to hold our line, remembering that there were potentially crocodiles lurking in the wings, we didn’t want to be forced closer to the sides. In the end, this guy wasn’t going to give up. We just wish that we had been able to have a camera running so we could have got this guy sacked. He really shouldn’t be out there.
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| Gibb Done |
Attempting to suppress our rage once on the far bank, we
forced ourselves to focus on the ride ahead, Karma would deal with the Glamour
Bus Dick. It was still about 15ks of corrugations out to the main road which
was quite easy, fuelled by our adrenaline. Once out on the hardtop we inflated
our tyres a bit and cruised Eastwards again out to the official end of the Gibb
River Road. With the obligatory photo with the sign done, we turned North
towards Wyndham. This was a beautiful new road with a wide verge for us to ride
on. There were quite a few road trains carrying iron ore up to the port of
Wyndham, but with the quality and design of this road it really didn’t cause us
any problems.
Despite being bitumen, we really enjoyed this ride. We
turned up the access road to the Grotto and climbed once again. The Grotto is a
sandstone gorge with a waterfall at one end and a very deep pool. The last time
I had been here, was in the wet season, but this time the waterfall was quiet.
But the pool was still deep, cool and clear. We had a great swim and sat
watching double barred finches coming down for a drink.
There were a few people coming and going due to being easily accessible from the main road. We were hanging around waiting so that people couldn’t see where we were planning to camp. We don’t normally stealth camp around popular places, so this was a new challenge. Finally, we were able to set up our little tent right on the edge of the gorge. There were a couple of strange happenings in the car park during the night, enough to convince us that in future we would move on well away from the attractions to camp.
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| The Grotto |
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| Stealth Camp Above The Gorge |
The Grotto to Wyndham
38.08km
It was a cruisy morning’s ride into Wyndham the next morning. We had a great time riding across the clay pans at low tide on the way in. Once in Wyndham we found a cool food truck doing toasted sandwiches and coffee, so we stopped there and ate while we worked out a resupply plan.
We decided to stay at the caravan park so we could catch up
on our laundry etc and walked back into town for a couple of days food. Enough
to get us into Kunnunurra for a big resupply.
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| Wyndham Takeaway Food??? |
Wyndham to Parry’s Creek Farm 24.52km
Parry’s Creek road was one of those routes that in trip planning, we felt was essential to get that true feeling of the East Kimberley. To us it was almost like an extension of the Gibb, and it turned out that we wouldn’t be disappointed.
We were only going as far as Parry’s Creek Farm today which
is a unique property right in the middle of the Parry’s Lagoon Nature Reserve.
Really just a campground on a billabong with confirmed saltwater crocs in it,
this was a gem of a place. Very chilled out owners who were keen for a good
yarn. There were some nice walks to do here, and we enjoyed a day off with good
food and cold drinks available.
Parry’s Creek Farm to Wild Camp near Black Rock Falls 52.16km
Leaving Parry Creek farm, the road shadows the Ord River the rest of the way to Kununurra. We could access the river in a couple of spots and saw quite large crocs a couple of times. Later in the day we encountered more bushfires quite close to the road and marvelled watching hundreds of whistling kites hunting the small animals fleeing ahead of the fire. We crossed large flat flood plains and then up rocky jump ups once again as the road began to turn South. Not wanting to go all the way to Kununurra today, we found a beautiful campsite under a massive Boab and settled in for a most amazing evening. Just on sunset a large herd of young Brahmans made their way virtually right through our camp, but they were fine and didn’t bother us at all.
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| Yepp, We Thought It Was A Croc Too |
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| Starry Night Under A Stunning Ancient Boab |
Wild camp to Kununurra
38.58km
Breakfast under our Boab, and then a sprint to Kununurra for second breakfast. We hoped. We had no idea what was open due to so many businesses closing during covid, but we really couldn’t wait for a great coffee and brekky at a real cafĂ©. It had been quite a while.
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| Parry Creek Road |
It was a nice ride and then we experienced the bitumen for
the last ten ks or so, as we weren’t prepared to risk the Ivanhoe crossing as
apparently the water was just low enough for high clearance 4x4, but astounding
numbers of crocs lurk here for most of the year, hunting fish that get trapped
against the crossing. So, it was the long way around for us today.
Arriving in Kununurra, we found a very busy café, found a seat,
and settled in for a feed. It wasn’t long before we were swamped by other
touring cyclists. Two guys travelling the opposite direction to us and very
nervously trying to decide whether to do the Gibb or not. They were keen to
pick our brains and eventually decided to do it. We heard later that they made
it ok. Another group were riding Cairns to Broome on highway one with a support
van, so they were doing some big ks each day. What we love about this, is that
there are all sorts of people travelling in their own way, doing their own thing,
and having their own adventure.
We had been keeping an eye on the wind forecast because we
had a 514km Eastward ride on Highway one to Katherine next. We didn’t want to
be pushing that into a headwind all the way, so when we looked at the forecast
and found that we had tail or sidewinds forecast for the next five days, we
decided that we would be crazy to pass up that opportunity. It was going to be
a quick trip to Kununurra, buy food, eat, drink, sleep and then get out of town
early tomorrow morning. No rest day for us, but we knew in our hearts that
pushing on was the easiest option. We would rest in Katherine.
Kununurra to Katherine
113.33km, 117.37, 89.99, 91.82, 99.81
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| Beautiful Riding Into Timber Creek |
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| Camp Kitchen At Timber Creek |
Not that it was boring in any way, but it was bitumen. Some
highlights included Timber Creek and Pine Creek campgrounds, for good food and
cold beers along the way. The ride into Timber Creek is spectacular and rates
as one of our favourites. Being asked, was that you I saw lying in a drain on
the side of the road this afternoon?
The downside? Well perhaps it’s the insane 130km/h speed
limit, justified by Territorians who say, “well the distances are vast in the
NT mate.” Without realising that WA and
QLD are much bigger, closely followed by SA and NSW, all who manage fine with a
more sensible speed limit. Speed itself isn’t the issue so much. The road quality
is significantly lower, and heavy trucks are still limited to 100km/h and many
caravans can’t do that safely, so it makes for some seriously dangerous
overtaking manoeuvres by those who feel it’s their birth right to do 130km/h
regardless of conditions.
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| Victoria River Complete With Bull Sharks and Salties |
Five days later, we rolled into Katherine to find that the
winter migration was in full swing, and all the caravan parks were full to the
brim. Luckily, we found one that let us put our little tent up under the clothesline
by the ablution block. We only wanted a rest and resupply day before heading
out to Katherine Gorge, so we would manage.
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| Katherine Gorge |
With virtually no sleep and feeling really shithouse, we
just wanted to get out of Katherine, at least the vomiting etc had settled
down. What happened next was the hardest 33 kms that we have ever ridden. We
were dazed, tired, and had no energy whatsoever. The ride wasn’t hard at all,
but we were not in a good place. When we got to the Nitmiluk camp ground around
noon, we just threw up our tent and crawled in, resting up, getting some
electrolytes in and trying some basic food. By evening we were feeling a lot
better and ate a proper dinner. A good night’s sleep had us raring to go the
next morning and we were off to explore.
Despite being hard to get on a river cruise, which we eventually did, there was plenty to hold our interest for a few days. Some really nice hikes, bird watching and chilling out had our eyes looking North towards Darwin. It was time to hit the road.
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| Katherine Gorge |
Nitmiluk HQ to Edith Falls via Katherine 37.44km & 63.87km
We had a sleep in, as we only wanted to go back to Katherine
today to resupply. Back on the bikes, we flew back out to Katherine, such an
easy ride compared to the other day. We did a quick resupply again, our bodies
telling us what it was that made us sick, so we avoided that. We had arranged
to stay at a relatives place that night in Katherine. They weren’t going to be home so we were able
to just chill out by their pool and be ready for a very early start the next
morning. It wasn’t far out to Edith falls, but we wanted to get there early as
we had heard that the campground was very busy.
The first ten ks out of Katherine were quite good on an old
rail trail, then we had to experience the Stuart Highway for a while, insanity
rains supreme on this road, so we were glad that the Edith Falls turnoff came
up quite quickly. Edith Falls is the other side of Nitmiluk National Park and
the end of the Jatbula Trail which we weren’t able to hike as it had been
booked out.
The campground is run by an awesome lady who has “done the
lap” on her bike and was very helpful in making sure we got a campsite. This is
a lovely, shaded campground and we were quickly working out that we were going
to enjoy a few nights here. There is loads of swimming available, in the huge
lower pool which is quite busy. But you can also hike up the Jatbula trail to
the last campsite of the trail and swim in a beautiful water hole there as
well. It was fantastic and we hiked back up there two days in a row just to be
away from the crowds. This is now one of our favourite places and we will
definitely be back to hike the full trail.
It was hard to leave our newly found Nirvana. It was harder still to know that we would have to travel on the Stuart Highway again. Some bits were ok, where there was a wide verge, but when there wasn’t, it was lucky that we were riding fat bikes and could get off onto the dirt shoulder when we needed to.
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| We Could Stay Here A While If We Had To |
We thought we would stay at Pine Creek that night, but having lunch there, we decided to kick on. We then found it quite difficult to find a place to wild camp, every spot we found was either burnt charcoal or terrible ants. In the end we found a little side road and found an equally crappy spot right on dark. Oh well, sometimes you just have to suck it up.
The next morning, we didn’t have to ride far before we could
get onto a side road, west of the Stuart, that would take us to Adelaide River
the back way. This was a really nice route to ride. About 15ks before Adelaide
River we checked out Robin Falls and found a beautiful little campsite right
alongside a crystal clear stream. We put the tent up and explored, it was a
great place to camp.
A fellow camper walked past and said, “did you hear there is
covid in Darwin?”
Robin Falls to Adelaide River 16.57km
With trepidation we headed off early to Adelaide River. The news was that Darwin was going into a snap lockdown at 4pm that afternoon. We decided that we would go to Adelaide River and if necessary, get supplies and head back to Robin Falls till it blew over. When we got there however, we found that the small shop and roadhouse had been cleaned out of fresh food. We could eat there though and at the pub, the famous 303 bar was open, so we weren’t going to starve. We got the last camp spot at the caravan park and settled in for a wait.
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| Yep, That Water Buffalo |
We had been planning to head to Litchfield National Park
from here, but we heard that it was included in the lockdown area. We weren’t
able to head to Darwin, no-one in, no-one out. So, order another beer at the
303 and hope that fresh bread gets delivered tomorrow. There’s one thing you
can be sure of in the NT is that they will never run out of cold beer.
Adelaide River to Litchfield NP 55.27km,
35.36, 30.58
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| Can't Beat Roadside Drain Brekky |
We had decided that we would head for the Florence falls
camp ground and see what happened. Checking out the termite mounds on the way
in, it was then one fairly decent climb up onto the Litchfield plateau. This
was all sealed road.
Rolling into Florence Falls, we saw a familiar looking car and caravan and found our son in law’s parents, Steve and Mary camped there. They insisted that we share their campsite, there was plenty of room for our little tent and we proceeded to have a great few days hanging out with them and touring around. We can’t say how much we appreciated their hospitality which made it possible for us to stay a bit longer than we otherwise would have. We walked and swam at all the cool spots, and while some of the campgrounds were quite full, there were no day trippers from Darwin at the moment, so the atmosphere was very chilled out and relaxed.
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| Buley Rock Hole |
On news that lockdown was ending we all moved further into
the park and stayed at Wangi Falls for two days. We were joined here by our
nephew Trent, who was able to drive down from Darwin, with some supplies. Yay.
We spent a couple of days with Trent having a great time checking out all the
spots again. Never have we swum so much, which was very cool. The big swimming
hole at Wangi was not open for swimming though, the water level was still too
high for the rangers to be sure that there were no crocs, so it was very cool
to be able to drive around with Trent.
Litchfield NP to Berry Springs 85.1km
There is a newly sealed road built leading out of Litchfield on the North Side towards Berry Springs. We had decided not to risk going up the Cox Peninsula to catch the ferry across Darwin Harbour. (I’m still very disappointed about this). If there was another lockdown we would be in trouble. So, we decided that we would go through Berry Springs and into Darwin that way. It was now just the finishing ride, doing the k’s. That feeling we get when the adventure is nearly over. We stayed at a water ski resort in Berry Springs which was a bit random, but really very nice, and we could eat there rather than head out to the tavern. We met some nice people who were there for an extended ski training camp and really enjoyed our stay.
Berry Springs to Darwin 55.91km
We were planning to stay with Trent (our nephew) and his family and were quite excited to be catching up with them and explore Darwin, which is one place in Oz that we had not been to before.
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| Bikes Behaving Badly Last Day Blues |
We were near Palmerston, trying to find our way onto the
bike path that runs all the way in from there. There was a pedestrian bridge
near the main shopping centre that gets you across the very busy Stuart
Highway, so we made our way towards that. Halfway across, there was a family
with shopping trolleys heading toward the shopping centre. They stopped us and
said that they had seen us the day we were riding out of El Questro. I guess
there are not many people out there touring on fat bikes, go figure. Haha. They
were lovely people and we chatted with them for a few minutes. And they
explained that we were heading the right way for the bike path to Darwin.
After that, we had a great ride with the paths taking us all
the way to the beach at Rapid Creek, meeting up with Trent, Amanda, Skye and
Flynn at a beachfront Café for a feed. We took the bikes on to the beach for
the final photo and then settled into Darwin Life for a few days. This entailed
eating Laksa, chilling out on the Robinson’s deck drinking coffee, then beer,
then coffee again. It was lovely, and we can’t wait to go back next winter?
What An Adventure
We were successful in our challenge to ourselves to sleep in
the tent every night on this trip, other than at each end. It’s useful to feel
comfortable of always finding a way to camp and really keeps our daily costs
down. It also really helps that we have great gear and are always very
comfortable and sleep well.
Total Distance: 2257.38klm
Days on the bike: 39
