Kunnunurra-El Questro

Kunnunurra is a very small town that we decided to stay in because it was one of the closest places besides Wyndham that we could leave the caravan to head off and see El Questro, which is off the famous Gibb River road.

We found a nice 'Big4' caravan park to stay at which is right alongside the lake and only 4km from town, we went all out and paid $1 extra for a lakeview site (Big4 love to charge for anything and everything) it cost us $32 per night for a powered LAKE VIEW site, we also were under a big shady tree and seeing as the weather was not cooling down shade is a must!

Brenton kicking back.

The view a few steps from the carvan, lot's of fresh water crocs!

Hard to see but we had a couple of lizards crossing the road on the way in to town.

Our car had been making a few weird noises on the way to Kunnuurra so Brenton decided to look into and found we had a few problems.

Hhmm not meant to look like this so we needed to replace them before going anywhere!

As you may assume it's not easy to get anything you need fast here, it's not even easy to get anything you need, Brent went to nearly every car shop in town and it took the guys a few days to find something for him , even then they weren't sure it would work.
After spending a fair bit of time on the car and with me as his trusty (clumsy) assistant we were up and running and were enjoying the surrounds of Lake Kunnunurra, more amazing sunsets, sunrises and another opportunity for brenton to have a fish.

Doesn't this look inviting? You can hardly tell but there is a baked potato somewhere in there!

Rex Hunt at work.

And he officially caught a fish, with a rod!!

Too bad it was a cat fish and not a tasty barra!

Another little visitor we had in the caravan park, just outside of our toilet block.

Brenton managed to catch 4 more fish but it may have been the same one, they were all cat fish, although it was just nice to see him catch one, he was very excited!

 Sunrise on the lake.

The sky was amazing!

After the car was fixed and we enjoyed the sites of kunnunurra we left our caravan at the showground caravan park for storage, only $5 a night and headed off toward the Gibb river road. 

We were lucky because some rains passed through a week or so before we got there and El Questro was shut for a while but re-opened just a day before we got there. 

El Questro is about 110 kilometres from Kunnunurra or if you want somewhere closer to stay Wyndham is about 58 kilomteres away.

Gibb River Road

There was still water over a few sections of the road.

This guy was in no hurry to get off the road, so we waited for him.

It was a rough ride to El Questro on the Gibb river road, they were doing some road works on certain parts of it so we had to wait at one section for 15 minutes for the truck to get off the road.

We made it eventually though, and there were a heap of water crossings!

I was on croc watch...

Before we went and checked out El Questro gorge we went to the township to buy our park pass which cost $17 each and also pay for our campsite, $17 per person, no power. 

After we were settled and our wallet was a bit lighter we headed off to El Questro gorge for a walk and hopefully a swim.

The start of the walk was rocky, very easy ankle spraining terrain.

Lots of obstacles, under tree's, over rocks...

All the while following the blue triangles.

Halfway through the walk we found water, but not enough to swim in!

There was lots of shade on this walk, thank god, because the sun was beating down.

Then a swimming spot!

Troy Dan resting near the clear waters of el questro.

The water was freezing but so refreshing!

It was so green, and there were a heap of frogs jumping around.

Everywhere we go we run into one of these guys.

After our walk and our swim we headed back to the camp site.

 Brenton braved the dirty waters next to our site.

Then when we got back we notice a bull roaming around the camp grounds.

After dinner we headed to bed early but were quickly woken by our friend the bull who was rustling some bushes about a metre away from our tent, we were a tad scared that if we made any noise he might stampede us and I think Brenton was more scared when I got the giggles like a 3 year old and could not, not make noise.

We did make it through the night without being squashed and were up with the sun to go on a walk to champagne springs, we just left the car at our site as it was only a short walk to the starting point of the champagne springs trail.

The walk was 10 kilometres and they say to give yourself four and a half hours without a swim, and there was no way we weren't swimming, so we were ready for a 5-6 hour day trip.

              

We headed off around 7am and it was already so hot!

We had a rest after about an hour and half at this huge boab tree

After 2 hours we were wondering if we were ever going to see water.

There were times it was hard to find our blue markers and seeing as I managed to drop our map at the half way point we really needed to find them, it is only a recently established trail and that was obvious, it's considered a moderate to difficult trail and with the sun beating down it's more difficult than moderate.

Champagne springs is named after the thermal springs that bubble from deep inside the earth's interior and surface at the end of the walk and we couldn't wait to see it and hoped it would all be worth it.

There were some great sights on the way, but there were also some times when we wondered if we should turn back.

Hhmmm are we there yet??

After we had been walking for just over two hours we really were ready to give up, we had walked through sand and mud, climbed over rocks and under trees , had to navigate across a creek bed whilst trying to duck under the palms that were growing out of it, we had also finished all of our water so desperately needed to find some a.s.a.p!

And then just when we had lost hope, we could hear running water in the distance....

And this is what we found, aahhhh Champagne springs.....

We were so delirious all we could do was laugh, maybe it was just to avoid crying at the disappointment of what we had found, on the map it described a gem pool and thermal springs to swim in, even a waterfall, so we were expecting clear water and well.... a waterfall, it was green and in some parts very still and sickly looking.

We did splash around a little and managed to find a flowing area with water that we could fill our bottles with for the walk back.

Then just when we thought it couldn't get any worse my hat blew off into the green water!

Brenton saved the day and although green and slimy it survived.

So after our water bottles were full and our spirits not so we began the big trek back to the homestead, it seemed a lot longer on the way back but we still managed to take some snaps, we found a huge bee hive on this boab tree, honey galore!

After another 3 hr walk we found ourselves back where we started, it was around 1:30 in the afternoon and we even passed some people who were attempting to start in the middle of the day, we did give them the heads up but they still seemed happy to keep going, at least they can't ay we didn't warn them.

Yay we made it!

Brenton making some friends at the homestead.

Finally back at the township.

We decided to head off after our big walk, we were going to stop at a few more springs on the way out but when we got to most of them they were closed, apparently a lot of places closed by 12pm to 'help protect the vegetation', at least that is what the sign said, we heard later that it is so El Questro can take their private tour groups in there.

As much as we did enjoy some of the sights here it is overpriced like a lot sights out this way, they charge you for everything and then the fact they don't let you into places after a certain time so they can look after people with more money annoyed both Brenton and I. 

So it was back on the Gibb river road and back to collect our caravan.

He was even in the middle of the road on the way back, stubborn bird.

We had paid for our caravan to be stored for 2 nights so decided to look for a camp area that the caretaker of the park had told us about.

It's not sign posted so we had to use the info he gave us and make do, there weren't too many dirt tracks off the main road and the first one we turned down was the right one and after about a 5k drive we were at Molly Springs.

Molly springs was great, there were tables and places you could have fires and best of all there was a swimming hole, that was believe it or not, free.

On the sign it does say they 'prefer' you not to stay here but we were very good house guests and after all the money we spent at El Questro it was great to have a free night at this magical place.

The water was so clear you watch all the little fish swimming around you.

Snags & Mash for dinner.

After a refreshing night at Molly springs we were back on the bitumen heading towards Kunnunurra, where we stayed for one more night before heading off toward the bungle bungles.

xxxxx