The morning after our big day at Ngauwudu the girls and I went on a cultural tour of nearby rock art sites, led by a local Wunambal Gambera woman Azaria. Azaria took us and an intrepid tour group to a nearby gathering of standing rocks with the most amazing rock art, some of which have been confirmed to be at least 40,000 years old.
After an amazing hour seeing some of the oldest art by humans in the world, we headed back to the camp to start packing up. However, first I wanted Bob to have a listen to a odd new clanking sound I noticed while driving to the art site. We did some investigations ourselves, and then Bob drove up to the ranger station to get some advice from the locals who are generally pretty good at bush mechanics. They thought it was probably just a missing shock absorber cover, and that we should be ok to drive on it, so we headed back down to Drysdale. We got there in time for dinner and a shower (but no washing for me 😢).
The next morning Bob got the car up on long chocs and investigated the problem a bit more closely. With some help from his friend Claude, he worked out that he should probably remove the shock absorber completely as the casing was totally smashed and the absorber itself seemed to actually be unmoored from its mounting. We didn't have the correct socket in our toolkit, so I headed out to wander around the campsite and was able to borrow one from the first couple I asked. The bolt remained stuck, despite application of diesel and washing up liquid, so we were tossing up on taking the chance to take it to the nearest mechanic at Mount Barnett. Wanting to be extra careful Bob called our mechanic at home, Fernando, who has always been super helpful especially for Frankie (he loves an old school Landcruiser!). He was happy to check it out on a video call, god bless him, and as soon as he saw it he said definitely we had to get it out as it would definitely damage other parts of the car if we drive with it unmoored. So Bob got back under there and made it happen, getting the bolt loose and the whole shock absorber out.
We then packed up again and hit the road, aiming for Mt Barnett to check in with the mechanic. I had booked into Mount Elizabeth Station for 2 nights, but then we heard it was 50 km off the main road and the road it was a bit dodgy, so I called and cancelled the booking.
However, we later realised there was no dinner options at Mt Barnett passed 4 pm, or even groceries, and we didn't have enough in the pantry or fridge for dinner. And this was a problem, given how late we got on the road. So then we had to call Mt Elizabeth back and rebook, as well as ordering burgers from their burger bar which closed at 6. They were lovely enough to make them for us and leave them in the pie warmer for when we arrived. Despite the delicious burgers, we really were starting to question our choices ....
After a pretty stressful day we had a quiet morning, and I was able to fill my own cup a bit with some washing 😝. We also moved the van to catch a bit of shade - ending up with a suboptimal van site is always a risk when arriving in the dark! Bob also did a bit more research and decided we were ok to drive on our collection of 3 shock absorbers, as long as we took it slow. He also reached out to the company that installed the GVM upgrade just before we left, who confirmed that the replacement would be covered under warranty. But as a result we would also have to wait till Broome for it to happen, so we were extra grateful for Claude's advice that we'd be ok to drive Frankie as is.
Mount Elizabeth Station has a number of gorges and swimming spots, so in the afternoon I took Nora and Josie to one of the small closer spot for a swim. I knew it was along the road to one of the gorges that was particularly rough, but I assumed the rough stuff would be closer to the gorge, after the turn off for the swimming hole. So I was pretty taken aback when we came across a river crossing out of nowhere, and even more so when I hit a HUGE hole as soon I was on the river bed. But I held my nerve and made it across, and the girls had the whole swimming spot to themselves for a lovely play. That night we'd booked in for the buffet dinner of beef cheeks, potato bake and sticky date pudding. Not going to lie, I was a bit hesitant about the cheek-ness of it all, and we definitely left out that detail when we told the kids what was on the menu. But the lure of a good sticky date pud was enough to get me over the line, and in the end it was very tasty!
The next day we headed down to the other swimming spot, known as the beach. The state of the road was pretty atrocious, so there were some tense moments along the way, but it really was worth it - the beach was just gorgeous. Very rel
The next morning we packed up and headed out for Mount Barnett, where we could stock up on diesel, water and groceries. We then headed into the Manning Gorge campground 30 kms behind the roadhouse and got set up, with the intention of making the trek to Manning Gorge itself the next day. In the meantime we had a lovely swim in the river before the sun set, and tried to work out if we'd be able to get Toby across the river, which is a requirement for the walk to the gorge.
The next morning I worked out that I'd lost a few days in the itinerary - in my defence I had been required to juggle a lot of spinning plates! Toby also declared that he was not going to be able to cross the river, plus we were concerned enough about the car that we were considering pushing through to Derby and staying there for a few nights and hiring another 4WD to do a few day trips to the highlights that were close to the western end of the Gibb. In the end we decided to skip the last few key gorges, including Manning, which seemed especially silly given we were so close, but then again it was a long time to leave Toby alone. I did take Nora and Josie back to the river to have a go on the rope swing which ended up being heaps of fun!
We agreed it was too far to make it to Derby in one day, and I was hoping to get to Tunnel Creek to learn a bit more about Jandamarra, the Aboriginal resistance fighter in the late 1800s. So we decided to stay the night at Windjana gorge and aim to drive the final 2 hours to Tunnel Creek the next morning. But then we experienced how bad the road into the campground was, and the thought of 2 more hours both ways to make it to the Tunnel Creek was just too much. Plus we read a bit more about the experience of doing the actual walk, which included walking through the pitch black in waist deep water with a distinct chance of catching the eyes of a few freshwater crocs in your torch beam. So we decided it was a bridge too far for us, and after having a quick look around Windjana gorge we hit the road and headed for Derby.
I was really looking forward to stopping at Mowanjum Aboriginal Art and Culture Centre just outside of Derby, but we were very sad to discover it was closed 😞. We then had 2 main goals for Derby itself - to see the boab prison tree and to go to the Visitor Information Centre and buy some 'we survived the Gibb River Road' merch. The prison tree was as big and imposing and depressing and infuriating as I'd expected it to be. The thought of people being treated with such inhumanity was really hard to bear. So it was only a quick stop.
We then headed for the Visitor Info Centre to make our purchase in celebration of making it all the way through the Gibb (minus a few missed stops towards the end). We'd seen some along the way but I decreed we had to wait till we had to actually survive it before buying any, just in case 😝. But when we got the to Visitor Centre it had been converted to a municipality centre, which had exactly 1 piece of 'we survived the Gibb' merch, a faded yellow keep cup. We were all crushed, Josie sobbed, and I promised that I would find some even if I had to get it online.
At this stage we were getting the sneaking suspicion that Derby wasn't really for us, so we called to see if there was a way of getting into our caravan park in Broome a day early. Unfortunately this was not possible, but we were feeling so burned by Derby that I started to look into other options, including some more slurge-y ones that might entail a floorplan larger than 15 feet. In the end I found us a 2 bedroom apartment and booked it. And we booked it out of Derby, waving goodbye to the Gibb River Road on the way out of town.
