30.9.09

Only a couple days to catch up on today but fairly full ones. We left Kununurra two days ago and went straight to Emma Gorge on the edge of the El Questro Wilderness Reserve. Emma Gorge is only about 70km from Kununurra but the last 26km is along the Gibbs River Rd, in other words, rough gravel. It wasn’t as bad as some people had led us to believe but corrugates still shook the $%#^ out of the car and we were determined not to miss this.

Emma Gorge, once you brave the road is simply stunning. From the resort (yes there is a resort) it’s about an hours walk into the Gorge itself, it’s hot and dry and quite wide at the bottom but as we followed the track the walls got closer and closer. Speaking of walls, the Emma Gorge walls are up to 120m high, red like Uluru and have a real American West feel to them, the whole landscape does actually , hopefully my photo’s will show that. It’s quite a rough walk and the track is defined by markers as much as anything in a lot of places but when you reach the end of the hike, hot, sweaty and thirsty it is well worth the effort. Our walk up ended with the end of the gorge, by now the water is running permanently and the gorge ends in a large, deep and crystal clear pool with overhanging cliffs on three sides. On two of the sides there is water falling into the pool, it’s only a trickle at this time of year but still lovely, with the fall directly across still reasonably substantial and worth a swim over. Emma Gorge runs North South so the sun travels across rather than along, the significance of this was seen when I reached the waterfall on the North side of the pool. I turned around and looked back through the light and looking out from the shadows the pool was the most brilliant Emerald green with the second waterfall landing right in the middle of the patch of sunlight. It would have to be one of the most breathtaking sceneries I’ve ever seen and there was absolutely no way I could take a photo of it because I couldn’t swim my camera across, even Lachlan was impressed.

We played in the pool for a while (we even had it to ourselves, could have been romantic except for the two kids) then made the trek back out, had Drumsticks at the bottom (YUM) and headed for Broome. As we left we realised we were a bit later than we wanted and had quite a way to go before our camp for the night, for the first (and hopefully only) time we arrived in the dark. I have only been so nervous driving once before in my life (New Zealand – crazy roads) as driving through dusk and into the night up here. This is a land of huge cattle stations where the cattle are free to wander onto the road and they do frequently, and Kangaroos are everywhere. I was so tense by the time we stopped and the Red Wine went straight to the spot.