El Questro

 A very long day is ahead of us with our bus departing Wyndham port at 7 am and an expectation that that we will be back on board at 5.30pm.

Docking at Wyndham took place at 6am, and there is nothing here. The township is at 3 mile (the distance from the port), home to a population of around 900 of which 70% are indigenous. The port now only exists to facilitate live cattle exports.

The bus trip to El Questro Station takes about 2 hours, leaving Wyndham on the  Great Northern Highway towards Kununurra, the turning off onto the Gibb River Road (this section is paved), and then the last 16 km into the Station is heavily corrugated dirt road.

Leading up to the Gibb River turnoff, the Cockburn ranges dominate the landscape. We pull over at a lookout to get a photo of the ranges along with a number of tourists in 4WD’s.

Cockburn Range

Stretching our legs at the Cockburn Range Lookout

A shredded spare tyre

We continue along the Gibb River road towards El Questro with some great landscapes.

After 16 km of bone shaking dirt road we arrive at El Questro Station, a much bigger complex than I was expecting. There is a huge caravan park, restaurants, air strip and helicopter pads, amenity blocks etc. running through this complex is the Chamberlain River.

Our tour bus is split into two groups to undertake the two organised activities here which will be rotated after lunch. Our group heads off to the river front for an aboriginal cultural experience run by a local aboriginal family from one of the mobs that occupy this area. It was actually an interesting experience as they explained their beliefs, how their customs dictate their family interactions and a bit about bush medicine and laws that dictate their behaviour. They also gave us their story about how the world was created and the beginning of human existence.

        

Next activity, before lunch, is a boat trip through the Chamberlain Gorge.

Our cruise boat

The cruise went for about an hour with great scenery, and a short stop at the end of the gorge to feed some archer fish, some fork tailed catfish and a couple of decent sized barramundi.

The archer fish were pretty well trained. We were given fish pellets to feed them and they would “spit” a jet of water at you as if they were hunting an insect and receiving a fish pellet as a reward. There were some bigger fish swimming below them that would occasionally steal a pellet. Fresh fruit and Prosecco was provided on board during the stop, on a mooring they had placed there.

Back on land, the bus was waiting to take us back to El Questro resort where we had a very nice lunch at the Steakhouse. Most of us had barramundi, which was excellent.

It was then time for the afternoon activity before heading back to the ship. Our activity was a 4WD tour through the gorge pointing out some of the highlights of the early days of El Questro, and the usual impressive scenery. Our guide filled us in on the history of the exploration and settlement of the area, and in particular, the influence of the Durack family in those early stages. 

One of the highlights was a very old boab tree, named the Durack Tree, which contains inscriptions in its bark marking the passage of the exploration crew that the Durack family had sent here to locate the best area to establish agriculture.

Unfortunately for us, this tour had to be shortened as the earlier ones had run over time and we needed to be back at the ship by 5.30pm, with sailing planned for 6pm. We were supposed to travel on from the Durack tree through a river bed to a lookout on the other side which the morning group told us had a terrific view.

The road to Branco’s Lookout

We didn’t see a great deal else on this tour other than a few stops to talk about some of the native plants the aborigines used for various purposes, and a drive down to one of the private camping areas that are on offer near the river if you like isolation and there are only a few in your group ( for a premium charge, of course)

The two groups reassembled back at the resort where the bus was waiting for us to take us back to the ship. It took almost 2 hours and the sun was setting when we arrived back at the dock.

Once all on board we heard there had been an incident with one of the other tour buses this morning. Apparently a local boy had thrown a rock through the side window of the bus, whilst still in Wyndham, resulting in around 4 people with minor injuries from the broken glass. The police were on the. Spot and caught the perpetrator.

Silver Cloud set sail for Koolama Bay about 15 minutes late. We plan to anchor there at around 6am.