Tuesday, 11 November 2014

Gibb River Road to Broome

I think this morning we broke our own personal record. We were on the road before 5.30 am, after a much needed improvised shower with a water bottle.
Back we went the 50 km to the river and from here the rougher road started towards Windjana Gorge National Park. Upon arrival we found out there was a really big campground with flush (!) toilets. If we had known that we would have gone here last night. 

It was still reasonable cool, as in sweat wasn’t dripping of our backs yet, so we decided to do a walk first and have breakfast after that.
Via a crack in the rocks you arrive in the riverbed of the Gorge. And although the Gorge was really nice, the main reason we wanted to come here was to see the fresh water crocodiles sunbathing next to the still remaining water. Well, there were plenty of them to see and although they are much smaller than the salt water crocodiles they still can grow up to 3 meters and therefore were impressive to watch in real life.

From Windjana we drove to Tunnel Creek National Park. Going way back in history these parts of Australia used to be under sea level and the rock formation at Tunnel Creek is and ancient reef.
There is a 750 meter self-guided walk into a cave and water shoes and torch were recommended as the signs said. At some parts of the walk you needed to wade through cold water ‘pools’ where again freshwater crocodiles were present. As they are normally harmless to humans they do get defensive if feeling threatened so precaution was in place. 
Hmm… not sure what to expect any more we climbed into the cave which at first was okay and beautiful. But after getting to the darker part and seeing the first ‘pool’ Monique had seen enough. Even Sander admitted it looked a bit daunting. Probably it would have been okay if more tourists were around but with just the two of us Monique didn’t feel comfortable. So we hung around for a bit soaking in the coolness and quietness of the cave, disturbing a bat or two, before heading back to the car.


Via the same route we drove the 180 km back to Derby, got fuel and drove on to Broome. Back to civilization at last!













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