Friends on the Gibb

David and Paula were standing in the Amalia Gorge car park when we pulled in, two familiar faces from Manly in the middle of the Kimberley.

The day had started at Lake Argyle: a run from the campsite to the dam, breakfast, filling the water tank, then packing up for the drive into Kununurra. We collected a parcel for David and Paula from the post office, worked through the grocery list, refuelled and checked tyre pressures. None of it was exciting, but before a road with limited fuel and shops for the next stretch, it had to be thorough.

From Kununurra the Gibb started sealed, boab trees standing alone in open grass and the first low escarpments showing on the horizon. The Gibb River Road runs for around 660 kilometres between Kununurra and Derby, built in the 1960s to move cattle off the remote stations along it. It is now one of Australia’s classic outback four-wheel-drive routes: gorges, waterfalls and river crossings the whole way, open only in the dry season. We turned off toward El Questro, aired the tyres down and crossed a few small rivers to start. El Questro itself is a working cattle station and wilderness park covering around 700,000 acres, a little larger than Luxembourg, with gorges, crossings and campgrounds spread across it. Amalia Gorge was just one entrance into it.

Travelling as a couple works well for us, and on most days the two of us are plenty of company. But David and Paula are friends from Manly, and after weeks of meeting new people at campsites and boat ramps, having two people who already knew us waiting in a gravel car park was a different kind of welcome. For the next few days we would be travelling together instead of just sending each other photos.

Amalia Gorge

They had already hiked Amalia Gorge a few days earlier, on their own, so this time we followed people who already knew the route: where it turned to mud, where the climbing started, where to put your hands on the rock.

The walk in was red rock, filtered shade and a fair bit of scrambling before the gorge opened into a waterhole with a waterfall at the far end. A family was just packing up as we arrived, so within a few minutes it was only the four of us. The water was cold, noticeably so, though nobody let that stop them getting in.

We swam, floated on our backs and stayed a lot longer than we would have with other people around. David flew the drone above the gorge and got footage that showed the rock walls and the water from above, worth watching back later. On the walk down we stopped again at a smaller pool.

Talking with David and Paula was different from the small talk we have with strangers on the road: other travellers, campsite neighbours, the person next to us in the fuel queue. Those conversations are easy but stay on the surface. With David and Paula we did not have to give any of that backstory, and an hour of talking could move from something serious to something stupid and back without either of us noticing the shift.

El Questro Evening

Just before El Questro we hit the deepest water crossing we had done anywhere on the trip so far, over half a metre and long enough to feel like a proper crossing. Roger went through without any drama.

From there David and Paula took us to a sunset spot beyond El Questro. We sat, talked and watched the light move across the ranges until the colour was gone, then drove back to camp in the dark.

We stayed at their site that night, next to the caravan, and did not have to pay for the privilege. Paula cooked, and we ate dinner sitting inside the caravan instead of around a fire: no wind pulling at the stove flame, no dust settling on the chopping board, no torch needed to find anything under the canopy. After weeks of running our own kitchen out of the back of the car, somebody else’s dinner table was a genuine treat.

What legends they are.

Caravans to Swags

The next morning David and Paula packed the caravan away at El Questro. From here the road got rougher, and towing a caravan through it stopped making sense, so they switched to just the car and swags for the rest of the way. A swag is the standard Australian answer to a tent: a canvas roll with a mattress and bedding built in, thrown on the roof rack or the back seat and unrolled straight onto the ground at camp. We would rather reach for our small tent and blow-up mattress, which packs down smaller and goes up just as fast, but on the Gibb a swag is clearly the more common choice.

The night before we had eaten inside a caravan. From here it was dust, river crossings and cooking over a fire again.

The Pentecost River

Our first real crossing on the Gibb itself was the Pentecost River. It is tidal, salty, and sits in saltwater crocodile country, which changes how you treat a crossing even when the water in front of you looks calm. The level was low and going through was straightforward, but the length of it and the setting made the whole thing feel like an event rather than a formality.

The road on the other side got rougher than sections of Cape York or Arnhem Land, though nothing that felt out of control. Ranges, red dirt, dry grass and boabs made the roughness easy to accept.

Ellenbrae Station

We stopped at Ellenbrae Station for the night, about 230 kilometres from Kununurra on the Gibb. It runs as a working cattle station across roughly one million acres, a little larger than Mallorca, and also as a stop for travellers: homestead, campground, hot showers and a couple of waterholes. Our site had plenty of room around it and enough distance from the next van that it felt like actual bush camping rather than a car park with a view.

David and I went to collect firewood, and I used his chainsaw for the first time. That settled it. Cutting wood to length instead of dragging back whatever branch happens to fit changes the whole job, and at some point I want one in our own kit.

Before dinner David and I checked a swimming spot that was supposed to be one of the good ones: lily pads, still water, nobody else around. It looked the part, but the water was murky enough that we didn’t feel like testing it. Back at camp, all of us tried a second spot closer to camp instead, water still a bit cloudy but clear enough to trust. David and I got in for a few minutes; Steph and Paula stayed on the bank.

We cooked, talked and kept the fire going long past when it needed to be that big, helped along by newfound chainsaw enthusiasm. Four people, two very different setups, one bush campsite, rough road behind us and more of it ahead.