14th August – El Questro

We haven’t mentioned the weather we have been having during our trip. It has been absolutely perfect with clear sunny days and temps around mid 20s. Some of the evenings have been a bit cool around 10C but we just rug up. This morning Colin blagged a lift from a caravan park guest who was heading into Purnululu to his motorcycle which was 30kms down the road. I stayed in the Bungle Bungle caravan Park to await Colin’s return with his bike operational or to call the RACV rescue team in case he couldn’t get it going. I spent the time cleaning the mud off my bike from the previous days escapade. Colin eventually arrived at around 10.30am so we called El Questro and told them we would make it on schedule. Colin had to take the exhaust off to remove all the water in it. This was the reason the bike wouldn’t start as the engine was sucking water back from the exhaust. Colin reckoned the bike was running better than before its bath?? My bike was showing that I only had enough fuel for 8kms but I was certain I had plenty to get to Warmun (Turkey Creek) some 50kms away. I was wrong as the bike conked out some twenty kms down the road … empty. Luckily Colin had plenty of fuel so we did a 3 litre transfusion that got me to Warmun. We filled up including our three 5 litre gerry cans. We were gong to eat lunch at Warmun but the kitchen had just taken a huge order and we would be still waiting for our order at tea-time. We headed for the Doon Doon roadhouse which we thought was only 60kms up the road but was in fact 90kms so we were pretty hungry by the time we got there. They give a free coffee to the driver so we each got one. We also bought some instant noodles there to add a bit of variety to our diet of Backcountry freeze dried food. We got to the start of the Gibb river road around 4pm and were riding into the setting sun for the rest of the trip. The road up to the turnoff for El Questro is now sealed (around 45kms). The road into El Questro is still gravel and badly corrugated in places. At first I decided not to reduce the pressures in my tyres  as it was only 16kms to the Station Village but after getting the lights shaken out of me I stopped next to a couple of 4WDs who were suffering the same problems and softened the tyres. There were two water crossings on the way. The first one wasn’t too bad and Colin walked it to check for any hidden obstacles. We navigated it successfully.

Alan crossing the Pentecost River into El Questro

The second one was a lot longer and a bit daunting but it wasn’t very deep so we paddled our way through it, Colin first and then me. The problem with paddling is that you don’t get any speed up and you are liable to stall on any larger rock you come up against. Getting moving again can be a real pain. The other drawback is that you fill your boots with water and have to go through the drying process all over again. Colin took this photo thinking I was going to drop the bike but I managed to stay vertical.

We booked into our luxurious Station tent which consists of two single beds and common ablutions. At least it had power so we could charge all our gear. El Questro doesn’t have any mobile phone coverage and charge $10 and hour for internet access so we just stored our blog entries until we get to Hope Valley on Saturday. After showering and generally cleaning up we made the last 15 minutes of happy hour and had a couple of beers to wash the dust from our throats before heading to the Steakhouse for a big feed and a bottle of red wine.