16th August; Ellenbrae Station Today 160kms To date 6107 kms

We were up with the dawn patrol this morning. The cockies were screaming at each other in the trees by the Pentecost river. The crows were giving it heaps just above our tent so we admitted defeat and got out of bed at 6am!! Sunrise is about 6am and sunset around 5pm after which it it gets dark pretty quickly. We had Spicy Prawns (Chinese noodles) for breakfast, strange but not too bad. Colin wanted to lighten his load for the impending crossings of the Pentecost river so I emptied his 5 litre fuel container into my tank and topped it up at the El Questro bowser. We left El Questro at 9am and had to immediately negotiate our first crossing of the Pentecost river as it is only 500 metres from the reception area. I went first and started walking the bike through the creek. I managed to get stuck halfway and poor Colin had to wade in and give me a pull. After that I made it OK to the other side. The problem with walking the bike through water crossings is you have no momentum so when you hit an obstacle you stop dead. Then you have to get going without burying your rear wheel in the river bed. If you ride across and hit a rock larger than the average you are liable to get knocked off and go for a swim. Colin negotiated the crossing successfully without needing any help from me. There was another water crossing about 1km further on but this was only half the length of the first and we both negotiated it OK.

We met Noah (the American we met at Tilmouth roadhouse), he was heading for Zebedee Springs for a hot tub. He enjoyed the Drysdale Station Off Centre Rally after having some problems with dodgy fuel he picked up in Billiluna.  Colin and I headed west along the Gibb River road when we came to the end of the road from El Questro. The road was good quality gravel and made for easy riding. A couple on a Suzuki Vstrom passed us in the opposite direction wearing only helmets and shorts. They said the main crossing of the Pentecost was easy to negotiate. We came to the crossing, which was twice the length of the one near El Questro, and found a couple of 4WD taking photos etc.

Alan crosses the big Pentecost River

Colin makes it across too keeping an eye out for crocodiles

These are photos of Alan (blue bike) and Colin (yellow bike) crossing the Pentecost River.

Colin asked one if they would carry my luggage to the other side so as to take a bit of weight off the bike. They were happy to do so and took many photos with Colin’s camera as we paddled our way over without incident. I loaded my luggage back on the bike whilst Dave (the bloke who carried my luggage) went back across so his wife Leanne could take photos of him?? Colin and I set off again heading for Ellenbrae Station some 120kms away. There is a lookout near Home Valley station a few kms down the road where we were told you could get Telstra mobile reception.

We stopped there and Colin checked for reception and found he had “two bars” so I  set up my computer and updated three days worth of blog (just so we can keep our band of blog followers happy!!). The Gibb River road is in pretty good shape with mainly hard-packed gravel so we maintained a good pace.

We had lunch at a roadside rubbish dump (Colin’s idea). It consisted of freeze dried Apricot Crumble …. quite nice. We arrived at Ellenbrae Station which is 5kms from the highway at around 2:30pm, settled into our bush cabin , had a shower and a serving of our host Karen’s famous scones. The station is 4,000 sq kms and runs 4,000 head of cattle. It is owned by members of the Grollo family from Melbourne.

The cattle station is managed by someone else. Karen and Jason run the camping and tourist accommodation.

Colin and I had freeze dried Baboutie for dinner followed by half a muesli bar washed down by a cup of bush tea!!!!