The Gibb River Road

Our trip has now taken us down the Gibb River Road.  The start of our drive on the GRR was horrendous, as we'd been lead to believe it would be. "Corrugations as big as a beer can" is what we were told and I don't think that was far off being true. We passed some cars towing vans doing ~50 km/h but we needed to travel at ~70 km/h to ride over the top of the corrugations. We passed some drivers doing 20 km/h and they would have been riding up and down every corrugation. 

Ellenbrae's spot on the map!

We popped in to Ellenbrae for homemade scones (made with lemonade, like Melanie's) and caught up with folk we'd camped with at Lake Argyle. 

The welcoming sign at Ellenbrae

At Ellenbrae, we learnt the story of how in the early 1980's Ellenbrae captured the imagination of two young brothers:

Thomas Henry Byrne Terry born 19 November 1959, and 

Edward Francis Terry, born 27 February 1961. 

In moving from Qld, they encountered a unique set of challenges that would change their lives and ultimately inspire them to live their dreams. 

Edward's love of aeroplanes and adventure saw him take up flying in the Kimberleys, Torres Strait and PNG. He died in a plane crash in Milne Bay in July 1995, just 34 years old. 

Byrne's passion was Ellenbrae and he spent 17 years turning the run down property into an environmental showcase. Along the way it became a Gibb River Road landmark, attracting visitors from around the world, many apparently affected by Byrne and the vision he held. Byrne's other great love was motorcycles, and he was killed riding his Harley Davidson to Lake Argyle in 2001, aged 41. Tragic stuff.

We left Ellenbrae and drove up to Mount Elizabeth Station where a Chinese couple who bought the Station last year will marry in two weeks' time. Graders and diggers and rollers were working flat out on the property.  The road from ELQ to an hour and a half the Derby side of Ellenbrae was vicious. 

Mount Elizabeth Station entry.

Mount Elizabeth Station has some wonderful aboriginal art works but the road to get to see them is horrendous.  We decided to move on to Manning Gorge which is ~7 km behind the Mount Barnett Roadhouse, where we picked up a few essential provisions - two Picnic bars at $5.00 each!  

The entrance to Manning Gorge is spectacular; a short walk across a broad stretch of sand and you're at the water's edge.  You then board a 6' tinny and use the pulley system to get to the other side of the river. 

The tinny to cross the river.

 John and I spent the day reading, blogging, swimming and sleeping on the banks of the river.  Now we're feeling truly relaxed! Retirement is a wonderful thing. 

The walk into Manning Gorge the next morning was arduous and taxing in places, but it was well and truly worth the three hour trek in and out. The Gorge is spectacular and probably the prettiest we have been to. 

The climb down to the beach was via a sheer 5' drop onto a rock. The waterfall created a huge force with waves that made swimming up and under it hard. There were lovely (non man-made!) warm currents throughout the Gorge. 

The Manning Gorge waterfall.

The river was certainly warmer than the Gorge and under the eyes of the freshwater crocodiles we enjoyed swimming and relaxing floating around with our noodles chatting once again with people we'd met camping back at Lake Argyle, at Ellenbrae, or at Mount Elizabeth. 

The glorious river where we spent hours swimming.

Mount Barnett Roadhouse is an interesting place selling all manner of things 4WD travellers might need from spark plugs to sausages, diesel to dandruff shampoo (not that we needed any!). A ten dollar Telstra phone card gave us a ten minute public phone box call home to check on the family - we're still not loving Telstra!