Gibb River Road - Mount Hart to Mornington

The Kimberley area is very rugged and much of it is unexplored. It covers an area about the size of California but only has a population of about 40,000. As it had been so wet recently everywhere was green with quite a lot of flowers in bloom. The rocks are mostly red the same colour as our car and clothes after a few days!

Apart from Derby and Wyndham the only other store is at Imintji. It was well stocked and sold diesel fuel but not petrol unfortunately.

While crossing one of the creeks we spotted this Red Necked Turtle in the water and managed to avoid it in case you were wondering.

We were seeing more and more Boab trees by the side of the road and most of them had fruit on them. The fruits are large hard shelled nuts about 100-150mm long and are filled with seeds in a white substance which resembles polystyrene. They are supposed to be very rich in vitamin C so we tried boiling some in water to make a drink. I will let you know if we survive!

The station at Mornington has been taken over by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy who are trying to restore the environment to the way it was before it became a cattle station. Some of the gorges were still closed after the wet but we were able to drive out to the Fitzroy River which runs through the property. Only fresh water crocs in here we were told so it was good for a swim.

We also visited Sir John Gorge on the Fitzroy River and another swim.

Our camp site was in a nice and quiet bush setting.