Up before 5am to do our hiking before the heat of the day. Actually it felt like 0630 to us anyway due to the time difference with NT and WA (slight confusion at the bottle shop yesterday when we thought it should already be open but we were 1.5 hours early).
Stunning views of the Bungle Bungles in the sunrise, the photos don't do any of it justice. A fairly short walk to Cathedral Gorge and around the "Domes" had us already sweating before 7am and we jumped back into Nessie for the long offroad mission to the highway. Not as pretty in the harsh daylight but still cool. Tedious after a while however the only other time I've taken 2 hours to cover 53km is driving to work in the traffic and I'll take this over the rat race.
Up to Kununurra for more fuel and enough supplies for the next 6 days of the Gibb River Road. Actually sent some postcards too (finally). Decided to buy some new Kimberly postcards rather than send the ones I'd bought in Agnes Water some weeks and 6000km before! We got a local tip about a fishing spot just down the river and it turned out to be great. Very weird river crossing on a causeway, quite bizarre to be driving across quickly moving water without getting washed away. A spot of fishing, more bites but no hook ups. Getting sick of this, we really need to catch something!
Headed west once more and soon turned onto the famous (notorious?) Gibb River Road, 600km of amazing scenery and brutal corrugations. Within second we were being juddered and shaken to pieces but pressed on towards the setting sun. We only did a short sector this first leg to El Questro Wilderness Park. Cool spot but an absolute raping in terms of fees, $17 per person for an entry permit plus $16 each per night camping! At least there were some decent facilities (I even had a shower for the first time in a week) but we'd rather be in the bush for $3 a night (or for free). Made up for it with a few Emu Bitters and another outdoor dvd.
