Saturday 29th June – Windjana Gorge to Silent Grove (Bell Gorge)

We were packed up and on the road fairly early.  Jill’s back is slightly better so hopefully she is on the improve.  It was easy to see that those that left yesterday had had some difficulty as the road was well churned up – lots of mud everywhere.  Fortunately there had been a few vehicles leave earlier than us and they had smoothed out the ruts pretty well.  Apart from one quite muddy floodway the road out to the Gibb River Road didn’t create too many problems.  Once on the Gibb the road was excellent.  Our first stop was to take some photos in the Napier Range (a continuation of the limestone of the Great Barrier Reef (including a rock shaped labelled ‘Queen Victoria’s Head’.  

From there we leave the Limestone and are back into the sandstone country and the Leopold Ranges.  Some quite good photo spots from Inglis Gap.  Also spotted some Kimberley Rose a small tree with quite large reddish-pink flowers.  Quite eye catching.

After Inglis Gap we turned off the Gibb for the 19 km drive to Silent Grove Camp Site (the camp site attached to Bell Gorge).  The track runs back along the north Eastern side of the King Leopold Range.  A few creek crossings on the way in but otherwise the road is quite good.  Met up with Neil and Julie (the camp hosts from Mount Augustus) who directed us to the ideal camping spot where we set up and had lunch.

After lunch it was off to Bell Gorge a further 10 km drive along the range.  The walk in (about 1 km) is quite rugged at first down a gentle slope thick with boulders until it reaches the bed of a small stream where it is a little gentler.  It’s a lovely walk but not all that kind to Jill’s back.

Bell Gorge (and its waterfall) is spectacular.  Such pretty rocks and lots of water tumbling over a 5 tier waterfall into the gorge below.  The path goes on further past the falls from where you can wind down a track to the bottom where there is a lovely swimming hole (with a snake swimming in it today).  This was as far as Jill could go so we had a swim at the top of the falls instead.  Fairly shallow but very refreshing just the same.  Saw a Merton’s Monitor sunning himself on a rock and lots of small brown rocks.

Back to camp for a pizza dinner (turned out quite well in the fry pans) where we were joined by a very nosy northern bandicoot who was not at all worried by our presence.