24th May: set off from El Questro to start the Gibb River Road with first stop Home Valley. We went to Emma Gorge to do the Emma Gorge Walk involving only a small amount of back tracking. The walk was 3.8km return grade 4 over a lot of rocks so I didn’t bother with my poles. The swim at the gorge in the end was wonderful! Cold and deep and yet with warm patches from thermal activity including one very warm rock pall! The gorge had a waterfall, water dripping over 3 sides plus a magnificent vertical garden of ferns. We returned more quickly than we went. We joined Gibb River road, crossing the Pentecostal river and we waited for Jill & Craig whilst they crossed it. It wasn’t more than 0.4 meters deep- just wide- only reached to our running boards, but not the caravan steps. We arrived at Home Valley and took an unpowered site under the trees. We had barramundi and roast potatoes and salad for dinner at their restaurant. I went for a walk with my binoculars but birds were hard to identify at dusk.

































I’m

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
 24th June 2026: had a relaxing start to the day then decided to go on the afternoon tour of Fairview Station in a large bus-like 4 WD, led by a guy who has a good driver but didn’t seem to know a whole lot about the place. There were only 4 of us on the tour, and I volunteered to open the gates we had to go through. This involved getting out and into the vehicle without an extra stepping stool and opening a variety of fastenings on a number of gates , only one being a padlock! Fortunately I could do it! The Station is 1,000,000 acres and home to 10,000 to 20,000 cattle Brahmans and a type of Red beef breed. At each muster, the cattle are first spotted by helicopter. They are never able to round up more than 70% of the herd at one time. They don’t use cattle dogs because they bite the cattle’s leg or nibble their ear and then that particular animal can’t be sold once it has bite masks. The cattle mainly go to cattle sales in Mareeba, with a few sold locally. We didn’t see much wild...
Read more
Image
 1st July 2026: got up early to take the caravan to Northern Wheel alignment for wheel aligning! We dropped it off in an awkwardly narrow street in a premises with the narrowest of drives and fortunately the technician offered to back it for us. We then headed to COFFii nearby for great coffee and toasties. I then posted Julia and Frances’ birthday presents from the Cairns Post office and bought some barramundi and yellowfin tuna from Seafood Express in Sheridan St. my old apartment is still there somewhat tarted up! We returned to Kewarra for lunch and then picked up the van late in the afternoon, where we were told we had a leaky shock absorber and Eric recommended Cairns Autoelectrical in Stratford. We headed straight there at 4 pm and saw Sam, the boss Brett’s wife who was extremely knowledgeable and booked us in the next morning based on the Nic’s research probe findings( VeePeak OnBoardDiagnostic scanner)! We headed back to Kewarra and I cooked Barramundi( over and rice and s...
Read more
Image
 17th June 2026: breakfasted at the Wongai Hotel on muesli fresh fruit and yogurt then Vanessa Seekee picked us up in her van and we collected the other members of the tour, all from Outback spirit. Many of the tour including Nic & I had fathers who fought in WW2 and Vanessa’s first task was to look everyone’s relatives up on some sort of data base she had access to!  She then took us to King Point where we saw an anti-aircraft gun placement sandbagged area with a place for the aircraft spotters, and an underground plotting room using “the Predictor” to determine where in front of an enemy aircraft’s path a shot shot be aimed. These structures have been archaeologically excavated by a team led by the Seekee’s. We saw areas in the bush where stash’s of aviation fuel were hidden and a restored zigzag slit trench. There were 5000 Australian and American troops on the ground on Horn Island in 1942 from a number of different battalions and regiments including the 880 strong Tor...
Read more