For many people, Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek, on the Leopold Downs Road, are the first icons of their “Gibb River Road” experience that they will visit. Well, they certainly won’t be disappointed. Both are quite amazing. Tunnel Creek because it provides such a unique experience – walking through a natural tunnel containing a flowing creek. And Windjana because of its sheer majesty and beauty. It really made an impact on us and will always be a special place.
We visited there 12 – 13 July 2018
Kerry’s snippets in fuchsia
Getting There
Fitzroy Crossing > Leopold Downs Rd (42km) > Tunnel Creek (70kms) > Windjana (35kms) – total ~ 147kms
Day zero
We left Fitzroy Crossing at about 7am and drove through some very flat country, on a pretty good road, the Great Northern Hwy. The original road would have been narrow, but there was a 2m strip added to each side. Which was just as well as a road train soon overtook us.
We noted that since about the Bungle Bungles the ant or termite nests had changed in colour and shape. Instead of the conical grey mounds, that people occasionally dressed in a t-shirt and other adornments, we now saw what looked like a giant cow pat in a rich brown. Some of there are massive.
At 42km, we turned right onto Leopold Downs Rd and pulled over to let our tyres down – we would be on dirt roads for the next 6 days or so. As we were doing this a young woman from a group of people in a couple of cars, sitting having coffee, came over and asked in a very French accent if we had a compressor – “is that the right word” – as theirs had broken down. We assured her that we did indeed have one and that we would drive over when we had let the tyres down.
Naturally, the compressor was packed behind and under a lot of other stuff. So, out came the box of 12v lights, the camp stove and various other odds and sods to actually get to the compressor. We had not thought we would need the compressor for 6 days…. oh well. I did manage to reorganise everything so we could get to it easier if needed to help out again.
We drove over to the group of 6 French 20-something year olds. They barely acknowledged us and one fellow just said “40psi in that one”, pointing to a rear wheel. As we got set up Kerry mentioned the World Cup and they were asking about Crotia v England which had been played overnight. She gave them the good news that England had lost, and they were very excited, with one fellow taking over Kerry’s iPad for a while looking for highlights.
Meanwhile I had got the tyre to the required psi and packed up. As we drove away not one of them waved or acknowledged us in any way. French arrogance? Ce la vive.
The dirt road is pretty good and we guess it had been recently graded – lucky us. Ahead we could see mountain ridges start to appear and we soon passed through some dramatic limestone cliffs and outcrops. We guess it is the same reef that formed the lovely Geikie Gorge.
The road remains good although there are now occasional rock areas protruding on the surface, but nothing serious. Soon we crossed Little Spring – a permanent wet crossing fed by a spring. The water was about 400mm deep so no problem for us. We soon crossed another 2 wet crossings, but very shallow water.
The flat landscape returns but there is always a hint of distant ridges. We see some very strange trees we have not seen before – they grow straight and tall.
As we approached Tunnel Creek, a good sized range of rocks and cliffs emerged on our left. At the carpark there are quite a few cars already there despite the early hour. We got our torches ready – we each had a head torch and also one hand held. We put on our wet shoes as we have read we will need to wade through the creek as we go through the tunnel, and headed down the path. Not sure why we had our hats on – habit we guess.
Getting into the tunnel or cave is not easy and the entrance is quite hidden. We had to clamour over rocks, edge our way through a gap, and climb over more rocks to get through – no wonder the bandit Jandamarra could hide there so successfully. The Jandamarra story is a fascinating one and tells us a lot about our history – click here to read it.
Inside is a massive cavern with a pool of water on the left side and sand and rocks on the other. We had heard so much about wading through water that I almost walked straight into the pool, until I saw how deep it was. Instead we just took in the view and the shapes of the rocks on the walls and roof. Amazing place.
We saw some lights at the back so knew others were down there. We realised that there was a track on the rocky sand spit and followed that. It is a great photo looking back out from the inside.
It is very dark and even our torches struggle at times to light up a rock feature. Taking photos is difficult. We walked through some shallow water but only for short distances. The cave is massive and there is a little waterfall over to one side.
Half way along – perhaps more a couple of hundred meters or a bit less, we see daylight at the point where the roof has fallen in. More great photos passing that.
We were soon in the dark again and then came to a very large pool that filled the cave. This looked to the be endpoint as there was no track around the pool nor into it that we could see. It also looked quite deep. We had seen people coming out when we first entered the tunnel, but couldn’t see how far they had come from, so as the water looked pretty deep and the cave appeared to “end” quite abruptly, we stood around looking at the patterns on the roof and walls then decided that it would be better to head back… very dark in there. We heard later that you do actually go through this pool to the exit of the tunnel – a sign would have helped
.
We made our way back out and were soon back at the entrance.
Near the entrance we were looking at some stalagmites on the roof when one of my feet slipped on a rock and as I tried to counterbalance, my other foot caught on a rock and I went down heavily onto the rocky surface. I landed on the left knee on a pointy rock and copped a few more cuts and bruises on the way down. It did indeed hurt.
I washed the blood off and Kerry got out the first aid kit to try to patch things up. The cut on Des’ elbow was quite bad and required a large dressing. His knee didn’t LOOK bad, but he had gone down really hard on it. He really did look like the walking wounded.
We moved on from there to Windjana Gorge National Park, only another 35kms further along. Close to the Gorge we visited the ruins of the Lillimooloora Police Station, which unfortunately has no information boards. This prison played an important role in the fight agains the bandit Jandamarra – you can read about that here. The local communities saw Jandamarra as a hero at some points rather than simply a bandit.
Once at the Windjana Gorge camp, we went to the quite area camping (no generators) and selected a site under a tree. It was all dirt so we put out a tarp and lay everything on that as we downloaded from the roof rack. Putting the tent up was not a problem, and we are minimising what we got out of The Cruiser. But it still seemed a long time before we were done.
At about 2:00pm we drove to the registration point and met the ranger. She told us the water was good to drink, and showed us where to go to start the walk to the Gorge – there are no signs in a very large area – which is actually in the day use area. The showers are solar, she says, but not so many. There were ofter queues.
We quickly realised that this Gorge is a very special place, with beautiful black and red cliffs on both sides. we entered through a very narrow gap and found ourselves in a really beautiful area with lovely trees along the middle and on the river bank, and amazing rock formations to the right. A really peaceful place.
From there we followed the track and had good views across the river to the cliffs on the other side. On the sand bank we so many freshwater crocs sunning themselves.
We went down to the beach area which is beautiful, with great reflection on the pool of the cliffs and two little island rocks, and another very large rock protruding from the beach.
We walked further along the beach from there ,spotting a few freshies as we went. This is great as the sun was lighting up the cliffs next to the track on the right hand side, with those on the other side of the water increasingly in shadow. We came very close to a large freshie.
We got back on the track and saw plenty of weeds taking over some parts – sad to see. But also some more of the gorge.
We walked on to a high level floor runner beside the river and from a hill next to that saw at least a 15 freshies on the opposite sand bar.
I was beginning to struggle a bit with the sore knee, so when we came to a large expanse of sand with a lovely sunlit gorge wall in front of us, we called it quits.
Back at the beach, the changing light made it look quite different, with some great reflections.
I could see the end to the gorge in brilliant sunshine and I knew there was a very special reflection photo coming up. It is awesome, and I told a young girl taking photos to go down there to capture it. She was quite chuffed.
Even the lovely grove at the beginning of the Gorge looked different.
Back at the camp, it’s happy hour and we readily join in. We talked to so many people around a fire someone had started, including 6 people on motorbikes. They had come across the Tanami road – loved the country, but hated the sand and bull dust. One was a man and his daughter on pillion, and two couples. Really interesting night. There are a lot of happy, friendly people in this camping area… great to see as in some more up-market caravan parks nobody appears to want to socialise at all.
All in all, we really loved our Windjana experience – unforgettable in a very special place.
To see the photos for this post, click here
To see the video for this post, click here