Tour Australia

Today we headed up Gibb River Road. We left the caravan at the Lennard River unofficial camp site and were aiming to get up to Manning Gorge and back with a few stops on the way. We knew this was going to be a big day and left the caravan early in the morning.

Our first stop was Lennard Gorge which was around 8km off the Gibb and then a 3km return walk. The day was very humid making the walk feel harder than it actually is, however, it is a bit of a rocky and uneven walk with a hill between you and walking down to the gorge. Some tourism literature claims that you can swim in the gorge but it is very steep and loose either side of the gorge and our assessment was that it must be incorrect!

There is a nice lookout at the edge of the gorge and no access to get down. It is a big gorge and very pretty. We enjoyed sitting there and having fun with the echo as there is a large rock wall opposite the lookout.

After walking back to the Jeep we were feeling like we were ready for a swim, however, our swim was not until Bell Gorge which was almost an hour away. We arrived at the Bell Gorge carpark and had an early lunch and then made the short walk in. It was an easy walk to get to the mouth of the gorge and then a walk up the hill and a bit of a scramble to get down to the swimming area. The gorge is large with a beautiful waterfall at one end.

We swam around for a while and made our way further down stream. There are some smaller pools and some small cascades. Further on there is a large waterfall which opens up to a huge part of the gorge with a very large plunge pool. There is no way down to it so we enjoyed looking at it from the top.

We made our way back up to the main part of Bell Gorge and after being there a few hours made the walk back to the Jeep. We drove back to the Gibb and drove a further 90km up to Manning Gorge. We arrived at around 2:30pm and went in to the roadhouse/booking centre. We were told we were not allowed to do the walk this late in the day – people are supposed to leave the gorge no later than 3pm. We felt pretty disappointed and made our way back to Galvans Gorge which was not far.

We walked in to Galvans Gorge which is a very easy walk of around 1km in. It’s said to be the most easily accessable gorge on the Gibb River Road but that by no means is to say that it isn’t worth coming for a swim or look. It is a lovely pool and a nice walk in.

We stayed there for a while, dipped our feet in and then walked back. We saw a beautiful goanna on our way out warming itself on a rock in the afternoon sun. We started our journey back to the caravan which now was around 180km back down the Gibb. We arrived back at a bit after sunset and were feeling tired after our long days travel.