Our Family Trips: Day 17 – Silent Grove

We headed off at 10am this morning and backtracked to Imintji to dump rubbish, when we pulled up at the tip we found a cow digging through the rubbish looking for something to eat – he didn’t look to impressed to see us interrupting his breakfast, such an odd place to find a cow LOL.

Quick stop to get coffees from the store as you don’t get many choices along here to get any sort of take away food so take it while you can.

100km drive to Windjana Gorge and finally the road is improving – someone said to us a while ago that the closer you get to Derby the better the road gets but we stopped believing that after having such a terrible time the last few days. We are all able to speed up a bit now and its a more comfortable ride. Firewood is scarce in this area, they are strict on not collecting once you turn into the gorge tracks as the animals inhabit the dead branches so you have to collect along the Gibb or not at all.

We are unable to carry firewood but mum and dad can as they have the hard floor camper roof to store it on. Mum and dad were behind us so we thought we would find some wood and then leave it on the side of the road for them to collect, i called them over the radio and told them that it was there but Mum said when they got there a car in front had stopped to collect it. Battle of first in best dressed and we just helped them LOL oops.

We drove up a bit further and found a heap of wood that had been cut up ad collected but left on the side of the road, rather than leave it for mum and dad to get and risk losing it, we pulled up and waited for them – it worked out really well as the only other wood we could find was all rotted and no good to burn.

When we arrived at the campground we were greeted by an abusive, drunk trouble making aboriginal family who were screaming and causing trouble. It took half an hour and all rangers in the area to remove them from the campground – unfortunate that the police are so far away from areas like this. Either way they didn’t come back so that was good.

The ranges surrounding Windjana Gorge are just amazing, they are unlike any other range you will ever see and are so tall. Windjana is so different to anywhere else on the Gibb, they all have differences and are beautiful in their own way but Windjana is just so beautiful without the need for a waterfall and it makes it amazing to visit.

Dad, Anthony, Alexis and I went for a walk late afternoon to check out the gorge and crocodiles which are everywhere here. The walk is stunning as you enter through a cave and then walk under the massive rock range and over grown trees and plants while watching the crocs. As we were walking 2 crocs attacked fish in the water, we missed it both times unfortunately but you can hear the force of the water moved and see the ripples around the area, scary how fast they move really.

We will head down to Tunnel Creek tomorrow as it is only 30km down the road from here, very much looking forward to that.