Tuesday, September 6, 2016

6 September - Home Valley to Mt Elizabeth Station, Gibb River Road

6 September 2016 – 186 105
Home Valley to Mt Elizabeth Station, Gibb River Road
This morning we headed west again on the Gibb River Road. 
https://www.kimberleyaustralia.com/gibb-river-road.html 
We left at 7:45am and arrived at Ellenbrae Station at midday (114km). 
http://www.ellenbraestation.com.au/ 
Crossing the Durack River was very similar to crossing the Pentecost – long but completely dry. We did however do five water crossings over large puddles that formed from yesterday’s rain. At Ellenbrae we tried one of their famous scones (it was the best scone I have tried but I am not a fan of scones) and enjoyed a picnic lunch in their beautiful garden.  We then drove on toward the Kalumburu turnoff.  The road from Home Valley to this point had been very slow and rough.  It appeared almost to be colour coded – if it was a deep, dark, maroon red it would have very large corrugations; if it was a dark blue grey it would be made up of very sharp stones with minimal corrugations; anything else was a bit of both. After the Kalumburu turn off the road improved massively becoming a good quality dirt road.  We arrived at Mt Elizabeth Station about 4:15pm and have booked in for the night.  All up 283km, in 7 hours 45 minutes – with speeds varying from 5km/h to 70km/h depending on road conditions – our only apparent casualty, the loss of the cover on the external light fitting.  During this time, we saw two cars going the same direction as us and six going the opposite direction.  On the way in to Mt Elizabeth Station we passed a school bus – it was like the big off-road tour buses, never seen one like that before. https://www.mtelizabethstationstay.com.au/













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