Gibb river road day 9 (22/8) & 10 (23/8)

We packed up and set off, after a shower, and were happy to leave such a disappointing site. Nick was in a bit of pain with his red raw chest.

Crispy fried Nick

We got back to the Barnets road house and utilised their air and grass area to "pop" the now flat spare off the rim and put on the last remaining tyre on it, so we were good to go if/when we got another flat.. Was a bitch of a job, as the air wasn't working so well and our pump was stuffing around and not pumping continuously. Anyways ran into Antonia one of the lovely girls from the APT travel lodge at Bell gorge, they had a week off and were heading to Mitchell Gorge. We had another 'lil chat, and wished each other well.

We set off and not 15 Km down the road we got another flat, AAGH.

Antonia and her boyfriend stopped but there wasn't much they could do, it was again on the drivers rear side. After the action plan had been actioned, and I suggest we rotate the tyres so the stronger looking one is on the drivers side rear. So we/ Nick end up changing 3 tyres by the dusty, dirty red rocky roadside, after just fiddling around back at the road house. Time frame we are 30km from Barnett Gorge when we leave the roadhouse. We left camp at 8:30am, and we arrive at Barnets gorge at 12:30pm. So lets clarify, this was flat number 5, we are running on all our tyres with no spares, and no option of picking up any either, for the rest of the trip. Kalumbaru and Mitchell plateau is off the cards for sure. Needless to say we were a little "stressed", well actually to be clear I was, nick was cool, as we still had the puncture kit. We are also just over 300km in, and Gibb river road goes for an unseeingly long distance of 650km, I remind Nick that we are closer to Derby than Kununurra, but he feels confident.


We aren't feeling the welcome vibe at all

We finally end up taking the turn off to Barnets Gorge, and both were very quite as we coasted down this rocky rough road, maybe listening for that tell all pish pish noise. We make it to the end and are both so exhausted, we decide get in the back, turn on the fan and have a lie down. There was a tour bus at the gorge and we thought we could wait them out. Well the lovely old sods had seen us on their drive past, and saved some of the lunches and donated it to our "sorry" cause. Nick was impressed with cake and a pasta salad, and gobbled them down. I asked about the gorge and it was a 20 minute walk, and had the possibility of freshwater croc's around, so we decided to keep on keeping on. Try to get as far as we could for the day and get off this wretched road.

We did just that and ended up making fairly good distance and parked near Ellenbrae Station, and watched a magical sunset in the Kimberleys. After a cool camp shower NIck made a bucket for little Deta's head, as her bum as it was looking rather nasty and we decided that we would try and make it into Kununurra by mid afternoon tomorrow (being Friday) for the vet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Up early, as we spotted a sign (conveniently only in the morning hehe) sating we weren't to camp here. We kept on and were happy to see we had 180Km left. We came across this big log looking thing in the middle of the road so we slowed down to pass and noticed it was this massive land lizard.

 

 

He was so calm and didn't move when we approached it, we think it knew we weren't going to hurt it, we tried and tried to get it off the road, so it wouldn't get hit be a car.

 

 

Then as another car approached it quickly hurried off the road before the car had passed it.. weird.

 

 

 

We stopped and paid tribute to this Ford Ranger, and thought some people have had it much worse than us out here, pity we couldn't get a tyre off it, as it had all flats, with smashed windows too!

 

We kept plodding on and came across this stunning lookout where we decided to stop and have lunch. We even had minimal phone reception so we started making a few calls and touching base with the nearest and dearest. We even amazed at just how big the Pentacost river was, and wondered how it would be to cross. We caught up with a young group travelling around who we had tag teemed at numerous places, normally when we had broken down with the tyres, they had gone up to Mitchel plateau, and were shocked at how bad the road was.

 

We loved this fitting rock picnic table and chairs, the ranges so dramatic in the background.

 The Pentecost river crossing...

 

These ranges followed the way in stunningly. The pictures don't capture it at all.

 

 

 

 

Then we hit El Questro ,2 pm, and would have loved to stop in but we were on a mission,  to get off this road....so we kept on and were excited that one, we had started on the "home stretch" two, we were now on bitumen three, we were 50 km away from the highway, then another 60Km from Kununurra and finally we were near some cool beer for Nick.

 

Well we spoke to soon... yep the final tyre shredded, it was almost as if the thing had decided that now the road was smooth it would burst! I shit you not!

 

 There are worst spots to change tyres, the view was lovely.

 Hehehe this is why we have the tyre changing outfit (lives in the front of the car)

 

Well Nick did an amazing Job patching the tyre, and it got us all the way into Kununurra, at 5:30pm. We had to limp into the servo and pump it up as it was flat, then limp around and follow that same routine for a bit. We ended up getting a cold 6 pack and went to Kellys Knob lookout (yeah I k now funny name huh) where Nick drank 5 beers and promptly feel asleep.