15th August El Questro 0 km to day 5,947 to date

I tried to have a lie in this morning, but the Cockatoos had other ideas.  The last straw was when someone started up a leaf blower!  Anyway we took things easy. I had a shower and Alan connected his computer analyser to the BMW to see if he could find a reason for it’s slight hesitation when powering on in a high gear.  We checked out a few activities but most started early in the day, so we decided to try the Telecom Hill walk up behind the stables.  There was a cruise later in the afternoon in Chamberlain Gorge so we booked into that.

El Questro is a cattle station that was changed into a tourist resort by an English family the Burrells, who bought the place in 1990 for $2m – the value of the 4000 head of cattle.  When they moved in they found it had twice that number.  That paid for a lot of improvements, including a new homestead overlooking the Chamberlain Gorge and the Station buildings which are the hub of the tourist resort.  The Burrells sold out and ELQ as it is known is owned by Delaware Nth – an American company that runs lots of tourist venues including Yosemite Valley.  You could see how they operated by having loads of tours to soak up the visitors cash!

The walk to Telecom Hill was not difficult once we found the track.  The name comes from an old disused Telecom microwave tower which was used for communications before an optical fibre was installed.

 At the top we had great views of El Questro Gorge, the Station and the Cockburn Ranges.  I noticed their rubbish dump which was on fire and had crows circling around it.  Not very clean or green!  We did part of another walk along the banks of the Pentecost River which was pretty.

We had a beer and sausage roll for lunch, which was luxury considering what we normally ate.  To get to the landing jetty for the cruise we had to ride about 8 kms. Alan found out that a bus could take us there and booked a couple of tickets – he wasn’t doing any riding today.  A couple of rangers drove us past the airstrip to the jetty.  On the way they pointed out the Burrell’s homestead which is now a very exclusive private hotel with all sorts of VIP’s staying there.  We got on a punt and Andrew and Ollie entertained and informed us as we glided through the still waters of Chamberlain Gorge.  We were in a long waterhole that was blocked each end by piles of boulders.  It was a very impressive gorge with walls rising vertically from the water for up to 80m.  The walls were orange from iron oxide but the lower levels were pale grey which is the native colour of the sandstone.

Chamberlain Gorge at El Questro

There was a very big storm in 2011 and a tree on the edge of the gorge had scarring up to 18m up the trunk to show the height of the water.

Andrew concentrated on describing the geological and natural features of the gorge but when we got to the end Ollie took over with his more comical stories based mostly on fishing. 

There were many fish swimming under the boat and the first trick Ollie showed us was how to get the Archer Fish to squirt water at little beads of fish food we held in our fingers.  They really did squirt little jets of water. 

Then he turned his attention to the Barramundi, some of which were huge.  He explained that Barramundi catch their prey by opening their mouths very quickly and sucking the prey into their mouths and crushing it with plates at the back of their throat.  He demonstrated this by hanging small bait fish over the water.  He tried to lure the Barramundi to the surface and tried to grab them by the mouth, but to no avail.  On the way back we saw several Freshwater Crocodiles and Rock Wallabies sunning themselves in afternoon light.

We had a few beers and a burger for tea and went to bed thinking about the challenges of the Pentecost River crossing we would have to tackle the next day.  This is one of Australia’s longest and most difficult river crossings.  Just to add to our concerns the river has Saltwater Crocodiles in it.  We had heard a story of a BMW GS1200 rider who dropped his bike in the river and cracked the rocker cover thereby letting water get into the oil and damaging the engine.  The bike was back in ELQ for some time while new parts were flown out.  Alan has heavy engine protector bars so he should avoid that fate.