Do we have to go?

Regretfully, we finally pulled the pin on camping at King Edward.  The camp hosts that had been looking after the place had finished their month’s stint, and had left before us, so we felt like the place was ours!  It was time to move on though.

We braved the Kalumburu road again (not that we had any choice at all), and headed down.  It didn’t seem quite as rough this time, but this was only perception because there’d been no magic grader!  We finally got to dump alllllll our rubbish at the dump point, which was a god sent, especially given a certain little one is still in nappies!! Erk.  From there, we rejoined the Gibb, and made for Mt Barnett Roadstop and Manning Gorge. 

This was the location for our second birthday celebrate, Matt & Deb’s son Rory who was 9 yo.  This saw another camp oven cake being produced by Matt, he was getting good at this by now!  The Barnett River also provided a great swimming hole, which was well appreciated given the hot days.

We chose to stay and swim rather than do the 2km walk

From Barnett, we kept on driving east, dropping in on some great little waterholes, Galvan’s and Adcock.  We made for Silent Grove, a campground used to access Bells Gorge.  Bells would have to be one of the top gorges in the Gibb, and the next day we all trekked off together, reasonably early to beat the heat, to swim at the gorge. 

So hard to get everyone looking at the camera - Galvans Gorge

A well deserved morning tea at Bells Gorge

The girls did amazingly well, particularly Savannah.  She handled the scrambling and steep track without issue.  She enjoyed walking with the Toomey kids.  Jessica swapped between wanting to walk by herself, wanting to be in the kid carrying backpack Glenn had, and wanting to hold onto Amy’s hand.  Predictably within 2 minutes of being in the backpack she was chirping in Glenn’s ear about wanting to get down.  This is where the food bribes were put into action for as long as we could manage.

The waterfall was spectacular, wide, layered and with adequate water still flowing this time of year.  The swimming at the foot of the falls were well worth the walk, with the gorge walls rising on both sides of you.  We were all a little hesitant to put our heads right under the falls, they were all a bit daunting when up close.  Definately not interested in getting pulled under here either.

The walk back was hot, but when we finally got back to camp, it was all topped off nicely with a cuppa!!  Glenn also tried cooking popcorn in the camp over for the first time.  A total success, with camp smelling like Hoyts.