Friday, 28 June 2013

Sat 22nd, Home Valley to El Questro

Pack up time again, on the road by 8:10am. We have heard the road to the Pentecost River and El Questro is bad. Notging wrong with the road at 60 to 80km per hour, we make the El Questro turn off in 45 minutes, the only traffic we met going our way pulled over to let us pass.

Cockburn Ranges with Pentecost River in foreground.

While driving in we realise that the Pentecost River at El Questro is no longer tidal and should not be the muddy mess that confronted us at Home Valley. We cross the Pentecost again just before the station township and it looks quite pretty. A private campsite on the Penecost is back on the agenda. We pull into the El Questro reservation car park and just as we are getting out see Jeff and Helen pull in. They are camped on the Pentecost and confirm that it is lovely.

We register and pick up campsite 21 "Cormorant" which is bush camp with no facilities 7.6km from the township. Cost is $50 per night for two people plus the wilderness pass. There is a $10 a night discount if you book four nights which we did. We have to wait an hour before we go out to allow time for the previous occupants to leave. We go over and talk to Mike and Sue who are over in the camping ground with a very shady camp.

Get there and it takes a while to setup camp as none of the site is level and manouvering the CT is not easy amongst the trees. Nice camp though overlooking the river which is reduced to a small stream between two waterholes. Lots of bird life but overwhelmed by a flock of noisy Corellas.

Setup everything including porta potti and shower. Have a look for some live bait but can't see anything worth throwing the castnet over. Try flicking some soft plastics for a while with no result, there are some big swirls in the water though in relatively shallow places.

"Cormorant" campsite on the Pentecost River

Jeff and Helen plus Mike and Sue drop in just before 5pm after their 3 hr boat rental on the Chamberlain Gorge. Dinner is booked for all of us tomorrow night at 6pm at the steakhouse. The boat rental was a mixed success, the time starts when you icik up the electric motor from the township, you then have to drive out to the gorge or whatever, fit it etc, they also issue paddles that you will need to make any sort of headway.

The only thing wrong with our campsite is that we are close to the El Questro Homestead, the luxury $2,000 a night resort for the rich and famous. We get a few helicopter fly overs during the day but we also get the noise from their generator which presumably runs 24/7.

The 12V shower is cactus, motor won't run then when I get it running nothing is coming out. Wipe down tonight instead of a shower. Pizza in the Weber Q for dinner followed by drinks around the fire.

 

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