El Questro is one of the iconic camping sites in the East Kimberley region situated approximately 70kms from Kununurra. Its reputation has been gained through spectacular vision on Television and digital media, however for the prices you pay, you would hope that it lives up to its reputation.
On arrival we checked into our private camp site located on the banks of the Pentecost River and set up camp on a ridge looking over the river and our own private swimming area, with a view up to Saddleback Ridge. It is truly a beautiful camp spot.
Woke early on Saturday morning and went to Emma Gorge in the heart of the Cockburn Range and walked 2.5kms up the gorge to a spectacular shaded 65 metre waterfall with magnificent cliff faces on three sides. Since we are here early in the season there was still plenty of water flowing and the pool was deep and refreshing – according to Maurs – I reckon it was plain cold but it certainly brought down the core body temperature.
On Sunday, we drove to El Questro Gorge which included a rather long and deep river crossing! It was surprising that there were no depth indicators but it was close to half a metre deep , but the car handled it well. The gorge walk is a lovely walk along a shady creek bed which is running at this time of year. We only walked to the halfway point which made it a 4 km walk all up. We then drove a few kilometres to Zebedee Springs a lovely little oasis set amongst Livinstonia fan palms with water temperature that ranges between 28 and 32 degrees Celsius- extremely refreshing when you get out!
In the afternoon we adventured on the Explosion Gorge and Sunset tour, which was quite spectacular. The highlight was definitely the sunset from Branko lookout which gave us a much bigger view of the river systems with a full moon rising behind the Cockburn Ranges just as the sunset. You could see the barramundi exploding from the water and feeding about 50 metres below us.
Our final day at El Questro saw us walk up to Amalia Gorge to Ochre Falls which has a delightful swimming hole and then a quick drive back to Zebedee Springs were we lounged in the water for an hour. In the afternoon we starting our planning for the Pentecost River crossing on the Gibb River road, which is the longest water crossing planned on our trip where we have the trailer in tow. It is over according to the experts over 100 metres long and is inhabited by saltwater crocodiles. The Aussie Swag is water proof up to a height of 75 cms and we will need to attach plastic to inside the fridge vents to prevent water entering there. However, we do not anticipate attempting a crossing anywhere near that depth.
Camp site view
Explosion Gorge
Emma Gorge