Thankfully when we parked the car before the crossing, we
came across two nice ladies that stopped to ask Brendan how to put their Prado
into 4WD (they hired it), and they asked Brendan to drive us all across
(win-win!). So across, rocking, and
rolling over the stony bottom, we went.
Then it was a very sandy drive of about 1km up to the start
point of the walk. We were glad we had hitched a lift.
We made it to the start of the walk, and were off at 7am,
glad of the coolness. This walk is rated as difficult and challenging, so we
were not sure how far we would all get.
We didn’t have to go far before we were confronted with the
tall livistonia palms. They look stunning against the red gorge walls.
After about an hours clambering up the wet and dry river
bed, we came to what looked like an impassable part of the river. There was a
giant boulder blocking the whole creek.
Clearly many others had been stopped by this too. It was a
stunning spot, a deep clear rockpool with small fish swimming around. Our
family were the only ones brave enough (or stupid!) to continue on. So we
stripped off into our togs, and partly walked, partly swam across the water,
and heaved ourselves up over the boulder to the top. This is where the walk
started to get really challenging.
The next part we had to climb up through a vertical
waterfall (balancing heavy, water bottle laden backpacks), up the steep gorge.
Then it was another hours walk clambering up and over huge
boulders, and wading through clear, running river water. Then finally after
feeling we couldn’t make it much further, we reached our reward.
Wow – the view was amazing. This was the end of El Questro
Gorge – a waterfall plunging into a very deep, very clear beautiful pool at the
base. We couldn’t wait to have a swim.
After spending a while swimming around in this peaceful
place (and feeding some of the archer fish in the water), we thought we had
better start the two hour return trip back, before the heat was upon us. We had
made the entire journey so far in the shade of the gully. We were very lucky
that we were the only people up in the gorge (we discovered most other people
stop half way because of the difficulty). So we pressed on, back to the half
way point at the large boulder blocking the river. This time three of us jumped
off the boulder, plunging deep into the cooling water below (much easier than
scrambling up the way we had come).
As we were clamouring over rocks, and trying not to slip on
the half wet, half dry huge rocks, I suddenly heard a loud cry from Lily. As I
ran up to see what had happened I found her completely upside down with her
feet in the air, and her head wedged down between two large boulders. It took a
bit of an effort to right her. Needless to say she got a bump on her head, but was otherwise fine, and
keen to keep going, brushing aside any tears. Sam said she sat down to slide
down the rock, but overbalanced, tumbling backward doing a somersault, and
ended up with her head facing down. Sorry, no time for a photo!
As we continued our walk we spotted a file snake, swimming
slowly through the water (not where we were walking thankfully). We stood and
watched the orange brown snake effortlessly glide through the water silently.
Then it was back to the start of the walk. It took us a good
four hours to do, and we were quite exhausted at the finish, but very satisfied
that we had completed the whole thing.
Now to get back out to the car – which was about a kilometre
down a very dusty, sandy track, the other side of the deep water river
crossing. No strangers around this time to offer us a lift, so off we walked,
and finally after wading through, we made it.
Needless to say we had a very quiet afternoon back at the
van.
Although we have loved El Questro, next time I think we
would do it in a long day trip from Kununurra, visiting two of our favourite
places – Emma Gorge and Zebedee Springs – both spectacular in their own ways.
Just need to buy a day pass from the Kununurra Visitor Centre.
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