Another start before sunrise to walk the banks of the billabong at Parry Creek Farm and watch the birdlife. We  disturbed a nankeen heron from its night roost & watched the birdlife starting its day, the sunrise wasn’t spectacular, however, the birdlife at the end of the billabong was good.  Halfway along the billabong we came across a crocodile trap & at the end of the billabong another crocodile trap.  We made sure we were standing well up the bank & away from the water edge.  We watched a black kite catch a small bird & fly off with it and 3 brolgas fly into the billabong.

We only had about 7km of dirt road before we were back onto the bitumen and drove into Wyndham for a look.  There is a new part of town and the old port town about 5km away where we walked through the town museum, which was very interesting.  Tereza snuggled up to a croc on display in the park & really, that was the highlight of Wyndham.

Down the highway the way we had come & onto the Gibb River Road.  We stopped at the signs for the obligatory photo shoot and started on the next piece of hard gravel road.  We are travelling  fairly slowly, around 60km/h as the road has a lot of very sharp stones & loads of dust, so we are spaced a fair distance apart so it is safe to see.

Our first stop on the Gibb River Rd is Emma Gorge, it is a very pretty gorge that has an hour walk in along a very pretty shaded creek bed with lots of big rocks to climb over (I thought that I will never complain about the 10 minute drive to our local swimming pool again) and a beautiful swimming hole as a reward at the end. We came across a juvenile tawny frogmouth (bird) on the walk into the gorge & it was trying its hardest to look like a dead branch, it was so cute.  The swimming hole is at the base of a very high waterfall & the water is a bit chilly when compared to the 35C air temperature (yes, that’s right, its 35 degrees centigrade here, in winter).  We donned our swimmers & dove in, it was a bit brisk to start with, however, soon it was very pleasant.  In one corner a hot spring was feeding into the pool and droplets of water were seeping out of the overhanging cliff face and huge drops were falling into the pool like rain.  The walk back to the car park was also very pleasant until we got out into the sun again & the heat hit us.

Back onto the Gibb River Road & a further 10km to the El Questro turnoff and another 16km into the campsite.  The private road is very well maintained and just for excitement included a couple of long & rocky water crossings over the Pentecost River.  The campsite at El Questro is on the banks of the Pentecost River & we were fortunate enough to get a campsite right on the river bank. (These million dollar real estate are still around, you just have to drive a heck of a long way). This is a 5 star bush camp site, no electricity, but it has little huts with proper toilet, washbasin & hot/cold showers & to top it off its got cattle roaming between the camp sites. Unfortunately we couldn’t set our Karavan up this time so that our kitchen was facing John & Sue’s kitchen. John cooked up another great seafood dish with fish & garlic prawns while Tereza made the rice & vegies, all washed down by another nice wine.  After dinner we caught up with Jenna & Kevin, camp friends we first met in Alice Springs & had a great long chat with them.  In camp most people get up with the bird & go to bed with them too, by 7 or 7.30 pm the camp is almost in darkness, except for some mad blog writers & a few rebels sitting around a camp fire sipping a glass of wine & talking quietly but even they turn in by 9 pm.