Sweet and Sour East Kimberley (..rant enclosed)

The next morning we dropped into the Grotto to look down into the gorge and the waterhole.  It would be impressive to see when the wet season rains turn it into a flooding waterway.  We then found the start of the Gibb again, and retraced our earlier steps.

This time the roadwork diversions were taken away, and we pretty much had either bitumen or prepared roadbase all the way to the El Questro turnoff.  A $2 million Government funded road (so we found out later) providing access to El Questro and Emma Gorge.

In our previous trip, the East Kimberley blew us away.  The countryside is beyond spectacular, with very rugged escarpments, big rivers & waterfalls, vivid colours in the rocks and vegetation, as well as our favoured Cockburn Ranges of course.  We did a huge number of the walks and sights last time, and were looking forward to some re-visits this trip.  That’s where it all went a bit sour.

El Questro is a privately owned ‘station’, based on it being a pastoral lease (under the guise of them running cattle on it), which also included Emma Gorge.  This property has some of the most outstanding country we have ever seen, but because it is a private ‘station’, owned by a huge multination tourism company (used to be Voyages last time), they appear to be able to charge whatever prices they feel like.  They have come up with a ‘Wilderness Pass’ which is an access fee to even get into the place (was something like $40 for us), and then camping fees (unpowered) were $40 - $50 a night.  For a 2 – 3 day stay, we would have paid a fortune.  Even to just drop into Emma Gorge and do the 1-2 hour walk, we would have had to have their Wilderness Pass.

Home Valley, the next big station down the track, wasn’t too much better.  Camping fees were huge, and if you wanted to do anything on the property, you pretty much had to mortgage your house and pay their fees to participate.  Obviously last time we paid these fees (although they weren’t quite as high 5 years ago), but this time, with the extra cost of kids, and not being able to do as much of the walks etc because of the kids, it all became untenable.  The most annoying thing about all of this is that the spectacular, NATURAL countryside is made inaccessible to people on any sort of a budget.  No problem in providing all the toff services like accommodation and restaurant / bars, people should pay for that, but to have to pay SOOO much just to see the natural countryside is ridiculous.

Have realised that this has turned into a major rant, but seriously, it sucks!