Mel 'n' Kimberley

Primary Colours 2 Barquing

Having already experienced the gorges and water holes of Karajini, the Kimberly proves to be a different beast all together. Yes, there are gorges; yes, there are water holes, but the landscape is subtly different, more open, the gorges broader – and, this might be the most important aspect of all – the water holes are a little warmer, being exposed more to the sun.

Bell Gorge is a case in point. To reach it, there is a simple walk, first across the river at the top of the falls, and then down into the gorge itself. The water holes is large and the water warm. We luxuriate in it for longer than perhaps we should given how long the afternoon’s drive is to be.

We stop in the middle of nowhere – proper bush camping with no facilities to speak of. Jez kicks up the camp stove and takes control of the meal, clearly a perfectionist with a camp-fire, the difference between the cooking on this part of the trip when compared with the first part is very noticeable. Tonight we are served lamb curry with rice and the cooler full for beer lurking in the back of the trick proves to be a welcome discovery.

I sleep much better this evening, the temperature is still warm, and the mosquitos still active, but I pass out gratefully with the swag pulled tight around me.

Ahead of us, the river bubbles and rushes and gloops.
"Is this the gorge?" The speaker does not sound convinced.
Jez shakes his head.
"The gorge is on the other side." He says, gesturing to the rocky hillside beyond the far bank of the river, "The water is a little high, so we’re going to have to swim across it."
He looks to us all and grins.
"Did anyone bring anything that they didn’t want to get wet?" he asks.
There’s a rumble of talk amongst the crowd, hands raise: first one, then three, then more.
Jez whips out a roll of bin bags.
"Tie them tight." He advises.
We strip to our swimming costumes and bundle everything else into the plastic bags, tying them and inflating them enough to float of sorts.
The water is cool and the current reasonably strong. We set off gingerly, bags held high for fear of damaging the cameras and clothing that they contain. The first half of the river is easy to navigate without the water becoming too deep (although Donald, typically, steps straight into a hole and drops his bag almost immediately). But the second half of the river proves impossible to negotiate without total immersion.
None the less, it is remarkable – with hindsight – how determined we were as a group to keep our bags as far away from the water as possible.
Jez leads the way, and is first to vanish beneath the surface, one arm still held high, plastic bag hanging in his fist. I struggle a bit more – holding the bag up with one hand and attempting to kick my feet (still wearing sandals) and swim of sorts, I end up going under regardless, the bag splashing down beside me, inflating against the water and floating primly beside me as it should do.
See? It seemed to be saying, I float perfectly well thank you very much. What were you during primary school physics?
Feeling slightly foolish, I clamber out at the other end, dripping, and open the bag tentatively.
Inside, my camera and my clothing wink back at me, as dry as they had been before the crossing.
We head off along the rocky path, signposted with ribbons tied to various trees and posts along the route. The path proves to be quite a long one, with many ups and downs throughout the rocky, unforgiving landscape.
"It’s round the next corner," Jez proclaims, not for the first time.
Ben chuckles to himself, also not for the first time.
Eventually, the path descends to Manning Gorge, and we are not alone. Another tour group are already there, and have already taken the plunge, we watch the tiny figures moving though the water in stop-start jerky motions.
Judith frowns.
"Isn’t that…?" she asks.
One of the figures is oddly familiar. It’s Rob, who joined the earlier trip in Exmouth.
"Rob!" Judith yells.
The figure beneath us, grinds to a halt. Treading water and looking about him in confusion. Then he spots us and waves.
He bellows out a greeting, his words lost in the echoing space of the gorge.
"What did he say?" I ask - the words seemed lost in the acoustics of the gorge.
"He said: ‘what are you doing up there’." Judith says.
The water is warm and very pleasant, but by this point in the trip, we seem perfectly happy to take a dip no matter where our tour guide might point us too. The water hole is long, and proves to be a fairly tough swim to reach the lower water falls, behind which we find another pool, filled by a larger, steeper series of terraces, fresh water thundering off each. It is a beautiful spot, despite even the gathering crowd of tourists idling luxuriously within.
Rob and his wife Solveig are here, and although we only left them in Broome a matter of days ago, we all greet each other as though it had been a lot longer.
We compare destinations and tour groups and Rob glances behind him, should those he is traveling with overhear him.
"Ours is a different group, this time." Rob says, "Older, certainly. We’re the young ones in the bus this time."

We spend longer than perhaps we should at Manning falls, which means that the afternoon drive, already lengthy, finds us traveling still past the sunset.
Ben clambers into the back with a proposal.
"We could continue to our campsite at El Questro Station," he says, "Or we could stop earlier and bush camp – no facilities. Does anyone have any strong preference either way?"
We exchange glances, then look to the cab at the figure of Jez, hunched over the wheel. He’s clearly exhausted.
"Bush camp it is then." Says Ben. He seems rather pleased.
The truck veers off the road onto a narrow path leading between the trees. To say that the path is uneven is an understatement, the truck pitches and rolls and we grab the seats in front of us for support. When the truck stops, we clamber out into darkness. Somewhere in the distance, there is the sound of water running, rushing.
"That." Jez says, "Is Bindoola falls. We’ll take a dip there in the morning."
Until then, we set up camp – the location is unlike anywhere else we have camped so far. Layers of flat rocky slabs form wide steps leading down to the water, between the rocks and in the cracks which have split them over the years, spiky grass shoots up in tufts.
We pick patches of rock long enough to roll our swags out on and tentatively explore the area with torches, wary for potential drops and chasms which might be hidden in the darkness.
That evening, Auralie tries to rally the group – considerably quieter than those on the previous tour – to some sort of after-dinner entertainment, if nothing else, something to do to keep us from turning in as early as we have been so far.
Unfortunately, while most can think of dozens of appropriate songs for the occasion, few can remember any lyrics of note, and it is left to Donald to step up and sing – a Scotish ballad, naturally – and recite a poem.
"I’m such a ham." He says ruefully in response to the applause he receives for his efforts.
The night sky is glorious.
Lying in a swag, staring up at it, becoming lost in its depths and detail is a remarkable way to fall asleep. I count seven shooting stars, streaking across the heavens before the display blurs in my vision and finally, I close my eyes. It seems selfish to keep wishing upon them when they seem so abundant.

I awake to a red-yellow morning sky, equal and opposite to the evening’s display in its majesty.
We pack up the camp and head down to Bindoola falls for an early morning dip.
"And they say this place has no facilities," someone murmurs.
Once more, the scenery is remarkable, but becomes even more daunting when considering how it might change during the wet season. The falls themselves are reasonably impressive at this time of year, but with torrents of water roaring through them, they would no doubt be astonishing. A shame, perhaps, that they would be almost completely inaccessible during this time – or maybe it is reassuring that such a sight should be easier imagined than witnessed. This landscape is sparsely populated after all, and it seems rather sensible that there should be distinct visiting hours between which tourists are not welcome, and where nature once again takes over the reigns.
A short morning drive takes us to what should have been our destination the previous evening. El Questro Station is a cattle station by default and a tourist resort – in the words of its brochure, a "private wildlife park" – in all other respects. It covers over a million acres, which is the sort of statistic which can only really be expressed in italics.
When compared to our campsite the previous night, it is comfortable, organized and has all the facilities you might wish for. It is also rather bland, as only a campsite full of vast camper vans can be.
It does posses, however, its own private thermal spring, and the Zebedee Springs (time for bed, we think as we doze off in its waters) is impressive in that it seems to be barely altered from what nature intended. The water here is not piped into some concrete bath, instead the public trek up the hillside, strip off beneath the palm trees and duck into the small, mossy pools, leaning against rocks and tree roots.
Being part of a massive resort complex, of course, there are drawbacks. Namely the fact that the public are required to vacate the premises by mid-day, because customers paying top dollar rates (Think $1200 a night) get the opportunity to spend the afternoons and evenings in the springs. Remnants of candles on some of the rocks give some idea of how magical the place could be in the evening.
A facility at which the public are welcome at all hours is the resort bar, where we inevitably wind up after hours. Like many out the way bars in Australia, this one is essentially an off-license with seats: offering cans of everything and nothing on tap. Even the spirits, pre-mixed with coke or ginger ale, come with a ring-pull rather than a glass.

The evening is hosted by Buddy, an aboriginal bushman with a taste for lewd jokes and demonstrations of skill with lassos and cattle whips.
To conclude his act, he inserts a lit taper between the backside cheeks of his volunteer. Once he has taken the time to light a cigarette off it ("Don’t be tempted to relax," he says), he extinguishes it with a lazy flick of his whip.
"The world would have been a better place had Adam and Eve been Aboriginal." He says, "They wouldn’t have eaten the apple, they’d have eaten the snake."

The morning begins with a trip to Emma Gorge, a pleasant walk through a rocky gorge, palm trees extended wide-fingered into the sky around us. It leads to a glorious high waterfall – plunging off the high rock overhangs above. The water here is bitterly cold, the gorge so deep that the sun rarely creeps so far down, but it is no worse than the places we enjoyed in Karijini, and it is only with minimal encouragement that we strip down and step in. We are becoming good at this: whereas near the beginning of the trip, the first plunge into cold water took much persuasion, nervous footwork and wincing as we lowered ourselves into the icy pools one shivering extremity at a time, now we take one step, maybe two, then plunge in head first. Our caution about such matters, it appears, was left somewhere down the road.
Once used to the temperature, lying across the surface in a star-float and gazing up at the circular aperture high above, the water running – a clear day rainfall – down from all sides, is wonderful – so wonderful in fact, that simply lapping up the scenery, with the falling drops of water sparkling in the sun high above us, could probably make you forget just how cold the water is. I swim back to the edge before hypothermia kicks in.
Our next stop is the Bungle Bungle National Park, which is another lengthy drive away. The longest part of which is a fifty kilometer stretch which takes us some two hours to navigate along the twisty, bumpy unsealed road.
We are in time to witness the sun-setting against the Osmond Range, a typical Australian sunset – a striptease of light against the red stone.
Jez produces champagne, which we drink from plastic mugs, and toast the departed day.