Day 88 Gibb River Road (part 3)

Early start for the three gorges day on the Gibb. But first driving back from Mt Elisabeth station to the Gibb River Road with quite some wildlife crossing the street in the early morning while passing all the advertising for the Dodnun Shop, where our hope to get some food was disappointed once again last night...

First stop back on the Gibb is Manning Gorge. You need to get a day pass from the Mount Barnett Roadhouse which opens only at 8am, so despite wanting to start the walk early we had to wait in the sun til 8am (and the person in front of the roadhouse was swearing so much already, no point in asking before 8am...).

You need to cross the Barnett River first before you can start your walk to the gorge: there is a small green boat available with which you have to tow yourself and your stuff over the river. Looks easier than it is in the end. To reach the Manning Gorge it is then a walk up over rocks and stones before walking down into the Gorge, where you have nice clear water. To reach the end of the Gorge it is scrambling over large rocks and boulders, but with the swimming pool with the cold crystal-clear water at the end it was well worth the effort.

After walking back to the car park and another swim, this time in the Barnett River, we are heading off to the next stop: Galvins Gorge. It is in comparison a pretty easy and short walk to the gorge and on the way you see some water lily with nice open flowers. The water at the gorge is not so clear due too all the leaves of the trees, but would be ok to swim as well. With the Boab tree growing on top of the gorge it is a nice view to have a short break before heading back anyway.

The third gorge of the day has the shortest walk, although it is a bit of a scramble over rocks at the end, always carefully to not drop Stuart in the water. At Adcock Gorge there is swimming possible but as the edge of the pool is very rocky and grass growing everywhere it is not so tempting to swim as on the first stop Manning Gorge. So we enjoyed with Stuart only the views without another swim.

For the night we were heading on to the Imintji campground. We stopped at the store ahead of the campground and got a pleasant surprise this time: they were selling beef burgers and potato chips. Though potato chips aren´t a full meal for a vegetarian, we were happy to finally have some warm food after the last three days without. Stuart was also very happy to see us in a by far better mood - no photos, the food was gone far too fast for that.

The campground itself was very clean & tidy with very good facilities and a great view around, but except us there was only another family staying at this campground. Ok, there was also Reinhard on his bike going around Australia and with starting point in St Kilda (Melbourne) he had done already about 8,000km on the bike, but he decided to stay outside the campground just next to the street so save the 20$ campground fee.