Quobba Coast and Gnaraloo Station

North of Carnarvon, WA, the Quobba coast is a stunning coastline – very rugged with massive waves breaking over the rocky cliffs. The blowholes at Point Quobba were amazing – sometimes shooting water up to 10 metres. While we were there a few whales were frolicking about on their migration up north. 

We headed up to Gnaraloo Station to camp for a few days. The road in was absolutely atrocious! The campsite, however, was fantastic, and well worth the rough trip in. We had a view of the ocean – so we could “whale watch” from our campsite.  There was some interesting bike riding along the sand dunes. There was also a lagoon for snorkelling, but unfortunately, very strong winds came up the day after we got there – so our new snorkelling gear didn’t get used. 

Millstream-Chichester National Park

Millstream-Chichester NP is a small park in the Western Pilbara. We drove through from north to south where there are two vastly different landscapes. In the north are rocky, sparsely vegetated hills, which form the Chichester Ranges. In the south is the Fortescue River, which feeds deep gorges, and rock pools fringed by paperbarks and palms. 

Road in from the North

The campground was near the old Millstream Homestead. We did a ride of about 40kms - around Snappy Gum Drive and then ending at Deep Reach Pool, where we went for a swim. Snappy Gum Drive was hilly with wildflowers in abundance, spinifex clumps covering stony outcrops, and amazing views over to the Hamersley Ranges. The temperatures are milder now we are further down south – just right for riding, and making the swimming slightly chilly, but very refreshing. 

Broome to Cape Leveque

After leaving Broome we camped for a night at Quandong Point. We found a great spot right on the beach – and it was free camping! 

Beach ride at Quandong Point

Great view from our camp

The next day we drove up to Cape Leveque, 200kms north of Broome. The road was the worst we have experienced for the whole trip. The first 120kms is really badly corrugated and very sandy – then all of a sudden from Beagle Bay onwards it is a nice bitumen road. We stopped at Beagle Bay to check out the quaint church we had seen in the tourist brochure. It was quite amazing.

Then it was on to Cape Leveque. We had four glorious days there - swimming at the Eastern Beach in the morning, resting at camp during the day, then riding our bikes down to the Western Beach to look at the sunset and the stunning colours of the rocks (it was hard to capture the vividness of the colours on camera). We sighted quite a few whales as well on both beaches. It was a very hard place to leave.

Regular Camp Site Visitor

Whales

Gibb River Road

The Gibb River Road is an old stock route that runs from Kununurra to Broome. It is 660kms from end to end – and most of the surface is dirt. There were some really bad corrugations – but most of the road was OK to travel on. Very very dusty all the way. We drove almost half of it on the first day. The scenery was stunning, but there’s nowhere to camp except for resort style stays, such as El Questro.

Pentecost River

We found a great camp at Barnett River Gorge.  

The eastern part of the Kimberley was very different from the western part. The escarpments were more craggy, with a lot of black basalt, and some stunning gorges. We had a great bike ride from Silent Grove campground in King Leopold Conservation Park to Bells Gorge.

Our last stop was at Windjana Gorge – which was amazing. Huge basalt walls surrounded the gorge – and about 20 or so freshwater crocodiles were lazing on the banks, or floating about in the water. We walked in late in the afternoon, so the colours reflecting off the gorge walls were at their best. Even though the road was a great adventure, it was nice getting back to the bitumen and arriving in Broome.

Entrance to Windjana Gorgr