El Questro

Our car and the Boab tree

Okay, up early and packed on the road by 9.30am, not bad, oh my its absolutely boiling, its 25 deg at 9am by the time we get going its almost 30 deg. Okay, I’d never heard of El Questro, but many travelers we have met have said you have to go see it, its beautiful place. El Questro is down the Gibb River Road, which is a dirt track, 4WD. We start the dirt track and head down, starting with a little bit of made road. Gibb River Road is 500km long and many travelers do this road with their 4WD’s, we come to the turn off to El Questro, it’s a bumpy road for sure and we come across river crossings, I feel sick at the thought of trying to get across. We hadn’t done much 4WD, and I could tell Mark was in deep concentration. I sat there with one eye open and holding my breathe. Its just you don’t know how deep the rivers are but we had spoken to people and they said you’ll be fine. We got across and it looked deeper than it actually was, the kids loved it. I could feel the tyres getting us across the rocks underneath, it was like wow, and our cars now like a boat. There were a few river crossings into El Questro, we had 1 final one and we were into the wildness park. This park is all no power and you can camp where you wish, so it’s first in to find a good shady area. We found one under a tree, which was lovely, we happen to see the same people from the night before at Kunanurra just behind us. We spoke to them and guess what, they are from Frankston. The lady is a nurse at Frankston Hospital and they live off Heatherhill Rd. Here we are in a remote area of W.A and we camp next to people from good old Franskton.  We set up and then went for a drive out to Moonshine Gorge, which is a place where you can snorkel and see fish. We head out there down the really bumpy roads and across river crossings; I’m now sort of getting used to them, and arrive at Moonshine Gorge. We are the only ones here. The boys all went in straight away, I didn’t like the look of it. The boys were snorkeling and yelling, ahh I saw a catfish, ahh I saw a huge striped fish. It was obviously amazing. Lily and I sat on the bank and Lily played in the sand, she didn’t go in either. We stayed awhile but needed to make sure we left with time to get back before the sun goes down, we didn’t want to be 4WDriving in darkness. We did do another drive out to El Questo Gorge but when we got there it had said that the walk was 2 hours and we weren’t up to that, as we wouldn’t have time. Back to our camp and a dip in the river down from our camp, well actually the kids went for a swim while Mark and I sat on the banks having ale. Lily had befriended a little girl at Kunanurra and she happened to be here at El Questro, so Lily and Ella played together in the sand building for a while. We spoke to her parents and they are from Sunburry,Victoria. Wow, sun goes down quickly so it was cooking in the dark. Oliver has had a small bit under his arm and a few spots around it, not looking good, I put some first aid powder on to help dry it out. Bed early, all in bed by 8.30pm. Now that’s rare.

Moonshine Gorge