Wednesday July 13    Camel Creek - El Questro

The sunrise was beautiful over the Camel Creek campsite; the hill opposite lit up as soon as the sun reached it. We heard birds singing scales before we got up, and over breakfast we watched flocks of red parrots. We set out early and decided to visit Ellenbrae, 25km along the road. This had been our target for the previous day, and we were glad not to have reached it, as the Camel Creek site was much nicer than the camping place at Ellenbrae. However the main area at Ellenbrae was very nice. We gladly ordered mango muffins and tea, and enjoyed them at a table on the carefully tended lawn adjacent to the outdoors café. We admired a gigantic boab tree, and the billabong with its stand of Pandanas trees.

The road was very bad, but the country was spectacular. There were several stops required to enjoy it: one lookout over the Durack River, and another amazing lookout across the Durack River valley to the Cockburn Range. We stopped briefly at Home Valley, and bought some canned drinks, but found nowhere there suitable to sit and drink them as the sun was blazing down. We carried on, and Cheryl managed to park the car at right angles to the road (in the middle of nowhere) facing an astonishingly coloured mountain range: even though it was terribly hot, at least we had a view while we had our drink. Soon after this we came to the Pentecost River crossing. Cheryl was driving, and carefully crossed the ford. There were signs warning against leaving our vehicle, because of the possibility of salt-water crocodiles. And the guidebooks reinforced this.

Eventually we reached our destination, El Questro. Many travellers had recommended this one million acre privately owned wilderness area, so we planned to spend a few days there. There was one "private campsite" available, called "Eagle", about 7 km from the township. We enthusiastically accepted this and set up our camp. We noticed that one of the tyres on the 4WD was making a periodic hissing sound, apparently suffering from the terrible road conditions. A check of air pressure back in the township showed that it was loosing air-pressure. However John was anxious to be doing something, so we filled the tyre with air, and made an excursion up to the Saddle Back Lookout. This was an extremely steep, rough, and winding 4WD track. One bend could be negotiated only by reversing in the middle. We left the car at the second car park, as Cheryl refused to go down the next slope in anyway other than on foot. So we walked to the lookout. This overlooked the airstrip, and while there we saw a small plane bring in some A-class tourists, who were met on the tarmac by a chauffer-driven 4WD. How to get down? Cheryl refused to do anything other than walk down for the first part.

By the time we returned to the townsite, the mechanics workshop had closed, and with it, access to the air pressure device had gone. We enjoyed a hot shower in one of the row of private bathrooms, and then had our meal in the resort restaurant. Very nice, but not as good as the Crossing Inn in Fitzroy Crossing. We reached our "Eagle" campsite, rather nervous about the continued loss of pressure in the tyre, and unnerved by the irregular bursts of hissing it issued.

We found our way into the tent in the dark. As we tried to fall asleep we heard a loud roar. It sounded like an angry bull, but we had seen no evidence of cattle in this wilderness area, and this roar was repeated several times. Cheryl remembered that she had read of salt-water crocodiles roaring like a raging bull before they made an aggressive attacked on land. She could not forget that the campsite, on the bank of the Pentecost River, was only a few miles upstream from the Pentecost River Crossing on the Gibb River Road where there were signs warning travellers not to leave their vehicles anywhere near the shore. The campsite had a gully on one side where a creek ran into the river. A large animal could easily leave the river and walk up onto the bank via the gully. She was so terrified that she felt unable to stay in the tent, which seemed to provide no protection against such a threat. So into the car she got, and after a few minutes, unwilling to abandon her, John joined her. A whole hour passed, while we tried to get to sleep in the car. It was impossible. John was getting frustrated. We agreed to get back into the tent to get some sleep – but it was not a good night.