{"id":35030,"date":"2026-02-02T15:45:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T07:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maxyrally.com\/Pics&Wheels\/?p=35030"},"modified":"2026-02-11T14:59:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T06:59:38","slug":"gibb-river-road-kununurra-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maxyrally.com\/Pics&Wheels\/ro\/2026\/02\/gibb-river-road-kununurra-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Gibb River Road & Kununurra 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We drove the Gibb River Road west to east, starting in Broome and finishing in Kununurra. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After two preceding foggy mornings, on the day of our departure from Broome we woke up to a beautiful sunny morning. We saw a few brolgas on the side of the road out of Broome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We drove towards Fitzroy Crossing before turning left off the tarmac towards Tunnel Creek, which was our first destination on \/ just off the Gibb. It’s a place where allegedly Jandamara, an Aboriginal police officer turned freedom fighter, hid from police before being eventually killed at Windjana Gorge. It’s a system of caves and you have to walk through some muddy puddles to get to the other end which didn’t make me feel very comfortable since I knew there were fresh water crocodiles there. There was also a tree full of flying foxes (aka fruit bats).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From there we drove another 20km or so to camp at Windjana Gorge – first proper camping on the Gibb. The camping site was ok, with unexpected flushing toilets and warm showers! We had a quick look at the freshies that evening but we only did the proper whole-length walk the next day. The river bed was dry with some puddles every here and there where freshies were sunbathing. The end of the walk was somewhat abrupt to a simple sign “end of walking trail” rather than a physical end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We got much better views of the Windjana Gorge residents next morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From Windjana Gorge we drove to Silent Grove to camp for the night and see nearby Bell Gorge. It was not a good day\u2026 first of all our friends’ car had a flat as we arrived at Silent Grove. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The walk to Bell Gorge was quite nice but unfortunately I decided to have a dip in the water\u2026 what I didn\u2019t realize was how slippery the algae-covered rocks were so I went in much faster and deeper than I expected! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On the way back to Silent Grove (on horrendous corrugations) Emma also had a flat, so we deflated the tyres to even lower pressures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That night we had a nice surprise at the camping grounds as they screened some short films made by local people which were quite nice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day 3 we drove from Silent Grove to Adcock Gorge first. The road off Gibb was not too bad initially but the last kilometer or so was really rocky and rough so we decided to walk that last bit. The walk was quite nice, past a lily pond. The gorge itself is quite small and the water was quite green \/ not inviting for a swim. That\u2019s where we first met the red dog, with a young couple from Margaret River who were taking their time to get to Gold Coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From Adcock Gorge we went to Galvans Gorge which was quite close to the main road. On the way we stopped at Imintji community store (got some Diesel, ice creams, no tyres fixed, watched some Aboriginal women dot painting and two camp dogs catching ants), then at Over the range tyre shop to have the tyres fixed \u2013 500 dollars a tyre, which was probably reasonable considering the location and lack of competition!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We finished the day driving to Mt Barnett station where we camped for the night. It was nice to see the cows going back home past the gate \/ station. The camping grounds themselves were ok, just very busy and with not very good ablution facilities (cold water, only 2 showers\u2026).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the morning we went to Manning Gorge. The walk starts off Mt Barnett camping grounds. There is a dinghy to go across a river crossing right at the start, but there was a queue of old people so we ended up walking around it\u2026 for quite a while and in quite tall bush. Luckily no snakes! The gorge itself was really nice, probably the best of the whole trip. And it was full of fish very keen to have some bread crumbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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