Home Valley station

The big adventure along the Gibb River Road has begun, we turned off the Northern Highway onto the Gibb River Road with a mixture of feelings, trepidation about the roughness and were we in a vehicle that was prepared enough and was our van strong enough, excitment, hopefullnes that our holiday would live up to our expectations. The road was being worked on so it was bit hard to guage what the road would be like. The road had a fair bit of it was sealed up to the turn off to El Questro Station.

As we drove passed El Questro we were thinking of our return in a few days when we would meet up with our good friends the Cowlings. The majestic Cockburn Ranges were on our right. They are the ranges you see in the movie Australia which was filmed in this area.
.
As we came around a corner to see the Pentecost River crossing which is the iconic photo you see of a car driving in the Kimberley. We stopped and had a look at the river and checked out if there was any free camping spots but the sand was too soft to tow the van onto. We ventured across the river and checked out the other side of the river for camping spots, there seemed some great spots but Ross was a bit worried about it being a bit damp. Luckily we didn't camp there as it was low tide, when high tide came in the crocs would have been knocking under our van as the river would have been up under our van as the tides here are extremely big, many metres and very fast.

We decided to camp at Home Valley Station down at the river side camping area. When we arrived down there the view just blew as away as it was just amazing, it is the view on the cover of the DVD of the movie Australia. Ross thought it would be good fishing so he set up the rods ready to catch the elusive Barra.

The sunset was spectacular, it made us all stop doing what we were doing and just take in the beauty of it. The colours changing on the escarpment was awe inspiring.

The following day some of the local aboriginals came down to do some fishing and we had a talk to them. They had a cast net so we watched them to see if we could learn a few techniques. One thing we did learn was to look where you put your feet as one of the young men nearly stepped on a 2 metre saltwater croc that was basking in front of the ccamping area. This certainly made me decide not to go walking around at night as we were camping about 10 metres away. Thankfully we were up on the bank which was a few metres high. The boys caught a shark and asked Ross could they eat it and he told them yes, but luckily for them they caught a Barra a little while later, they lit a fire and proceeded to cook it. They weren't kind to us and didn't offer us any.

Home Valley Station is owned by the local aboriginal people and is a tourist destination as well as as a cattle statiion. They train some of the locals in many facets of the orgination. I was surprised at the amount of people who flew in and stayed up in the expensive part where it costs a fortune to do anything.

Ross helped a lady with her car as she was travelling the Gibb River Road on her own. She also did not hav a fridge with her or an esky. She was living on dried meat and vegetables and sleeping in a little tent, she is a better woman than me.