What words can we use to describe the Gibb River Road? Miles of red dust, beautiful river crossings, stunning gorges, very rough dirt roads, Aboriginal communities & ancient artwork, crocodiles, prolific bird life, dingoes, boab trees, screwy pandanas, and did we mention the bloody red dust?
Variety is the spice of life they say – the dust at the beginning was grey!
Boab Trees are everywhere – and in all shapes and sizes!
What a fabulous fortnight we have had exploring this very remote, rugged and amazing part of Australia: Inland Kimberley and the Mitchell Plateau. The Gibb River Road runs East/West from Derby through to Kununurra.
Note new dust colour! Gotta love the sign in the tree.
This 660 km iconic dirt road is only open in the dry season (May-November) and features a number side road detours to some of the best gorge country and falls in the top end including, Windjana Gorge with its sun-baking crocodiles, Tunnel Creek which requires wading through sections of cold water and a good torch for the caverns it traverses and Bell Gorge with its rock overhangs, waterfall and stunning plunge pool (great for swimming). There a dozen or so other smaller falls and gorges to the left and right. Some are a short drive and walk, some require more time and permits from land owners.
Windjana Gorge
Looks harmless enough?!? This is a freshwater croc they are not man eaters 🙂
Brolga preening at dusk – Windjana Gorge
A light at the end of the Tunnel Creek
Lizard sun baking in Bells Gorge seemed unconcerned by our presence.
Big Python crossing the Gibb River Road – also pretty harmless 🙂
These red dragon flys are all over the Kimberley.
Bell Falls from the the cliff edge.
Here we are cooling off under the falls after the hot walk in 🙂
After visiting Bells Gorge we camped in a beautiful roadside track right beside the Bell Creek that night before continuing eastward. After 4 days in the western Kimberley we refueled at Mt Barnett Roadhouse ($2.50 per litre… our most expensive so far) before turning north towards the Mitchell Plateau which is the feature of our next blog 🙂
We were closer than it looks in the photo – but close enough for Ginnie 🙂
markusandginnie 
Great to talk to you today. The Earthcruiser is truly fantastic and you could really go anywhere in the world with that!! The Meditteranean Shipping Co. containers only charge for height, length and width and are not interested in weight so you can load it up with as much as you like.
MSC were certainly the cheapest we found at $1,300 odd one way back in 2005.
As Justice Michael Kirby said “Anyone who can live for a year in a kombi van with another human being can live a lifetime with them”. So true. Keep the blogs coming – we are so enjoying our Clayton’s Odyssey.