El Questro Wilderness Park, 1 million acres and what a lovely place to stay. Beautiful accommodation and some lovely natural features to visit. Have a look at this.

Except with most suites over $2k per night we didn’t stay there – we were in the motorhome at the campground in a different area of the park…. We did get to these though:

Access to El Questro is via the Gibb River Road. Yes, we did the famed Gibb River rd in the motorhome! The full length of it too – the sealed section at the Kununurra end that is…. Heading west along the Gibb River Road, you see this ahead, and it is on the southern side of this plateau that Emma Gorge is located.

The Emma Gorge walk starts off in hot tough terrain, but as you head up the gorge and it narrows, the vegetation becomes lusher, and the air more damp and cooler. There was a reasonable amount of water running down the gorge, and the walk basically follows the creek up to the waterfall and plunge pool at the top. The walk is more technical (rock hopping etc) than you’d find in a typical national park walk.

Right up the gorge, at the waterfall, it is lovely and cool, with a mist of waterdroplets falling into the pool below. Not just from the waterfall itself, but from the moss and fern covered rock wall overhanging on the right hand side.

The best view of Emma Gorge is one that I didn’t capture with the camera. That’s being in the water on the right side (under the overhang), looking up at the moss and ferns overhead lit up by the early arvo sun, with the gentle shower of droplets falling from the ferns and moss glistening as they fall around you! It’s a pity I couldn’t capture this, as I don’t really like most of the other photos I took of this gorge – they don’t do it justice! Anyway, I also had Nicole telling me that I should sometimes just enjoy some things without having to photograph them…But I enjoy the photography too….

The water itself was either refreshing, or freezing, depending on how you choose to look at it! Given this it is not surprising that the boys favourite location here was at a spring flowing out of the rock wall on the very right side, as it was a thermal spring!

Here is a video of Emma Gorge.

A couple more pics from the trip back:

We stayed that night at The Stations campground. It was a bit of a drive on a dirt road, but it was pretty well looked after. They didn’t bother with bridges over the creek though, and this one really got Nicole concerned and pleading with me! We are of course in the motorhome now, having returned the hire 4wd.

The water was only about mid shin height (250mm they say, but perhaps up to 300mm deep), on a nice bed of rounded rocks. Well we made it to the other side, though on arrival at the campground I noticed we’d lost a hubcap at some point in the days journey. We noticed it soon the next morning, bright and shiny in that dreaded creek crossing, but busted (driven over)!

Zebedee Springs is only open from 7-12 in the morning, so it was the first stop on the agenda for Friday (5/9/14). On arrival at the carpark, it is immediately clear you are in for another lush creek experience, with masses of palms growing through and around the nearby flowing creek.

It is only a very short walk to the springs area, where there are a number of little waterfalls and crystal clear pools to relax within, in the pretty fast flowing stream. Water temp was around 32C, and it was an absolutely beautiful setting in which to sit back and relax.

We stayed at Zebedee Springs for a while as we didn’t want to leave, but had to pull our wrinkly bodies out eventually.

Amalia Gorge was the next planned walk for the day, and we knew this was going to be a longer hotter walk. This walk had some places that a national park safety officer would have a heart attack over. Well, perhaps not quite, but old frail grannies shouldn’t try this walk! There is a lot of rock hopping, along the dry creek bed, and some sections that require some ledge walking or dextrous climbing to get past.

Amalia gorge has a totally different feel to it. It is far more open, and as a result doesn’t get the cool damp air effect that Emma gorge does. The vegetation also remains more in keeping with the surrounding land – grasses and eucalyptus trees abound. The waterfall had recently stopped flowing, but the pool was still full and deep. It is more like the Obi Obi creek at Maleny, in terms of the algae coated rocks around the edges. Like Emma Gorge, and in deep contrast to Zebedee Springs, the water was freezing cold, so only a brief swim was in order.

I had already been in, and the boys were taking ages to get in due to the cold water. Daring each other, counting each other in and stuff like that, so I started the video. Missed most of the funny stuff though…

There is another decent sized swimmable pool at the half way (or so) mark.

El Questro Wilderness park has a number of other walks to other beautiful springs and gorges, but they mostly require a 4wd to access. We left having seen just those 3 features, but it would be lovely to go back some other time with a 4wd and view the rest. The contrast between the surrounding land, and some of these features is extreme, making me think back to one of the first places we visited – Blackdown Tableland National Park.