Tea and Scones, No fuel and Rod can't stop laughing

Day 17 El Questro to Silent Grove

Another day another early wake up. We were getting a bit sick and tired of setting up camp then breaking it down again the next morning. Still we got on the road early again and took off down the Gibb. Forgot to do two things though 1) ring Mt Barnett Roadhouse to check if they had fuel, 2) fill the fuel bladders just in case. We rode for about 20 minutes before we hit the Pentecost River. We were a bit nervous about this crossing because it can be very deep, rocky and full of crocs. Luckily though it's a tidal river and we hit it at low tide. The deepest point was only about a foot deep. We cruised across with only a few bumps.

Mick Crosses the Pentecost

We then rode on and the road was bit surreal. It was in good condition at this point but as soon as you came to a hill the bitumen kicked in. Not what we were expecting at all.

Rest stop

We rode until about 10am when Rod spotted a fresh scone with jam and cream sign. Perplexed we turned into Ellenbre Station and sure enough we were served "The best Scones on the Gibb" by a group of elderly but very nice people. It was all a little surreal!

Mmmmmm

We pushed on and and the road got a lot worse. This was what we had been expecting all along. Deep rutts and a lot of washouts. It only lasted 100km though until we hit Mt Barnett Roadhouse. We pulled up to the bowser and my heart sank, no unleaded. Rod just started laughing so hard he was almost crying. I stomped into the roadhouse to find out what the go is. "Truck maybe here Wednesday (it was Monday), or next week even". Rod came in still laughing and managed to contain himself enough to convince the manager to turn the pump on and let us see what we could get out of the pumps. We managed to fill the bikes but that's it. I now only just had enough fuel to get to Derby without and side trips. And that was the drama, a lot of the gorges we 20-50km off the main road so we just couldn't make it out to them which was a bummer. Rod was still laughing, almost hysterically and I asked him why. Apparently just before the roadhouse he had just about had a huge off and was still a bit shaken, combine that with the "no fuel" and he just lost it.

hahahahahaha

We decided to push on 80km down the road to the Silent grove campsite by Bell Gorge. 60km down the road I came across Rod laughing again. This time he'd flown past a big REDUCE SPEED sign, ignored it and then found a flowing creek in front of him. Apparently his skipped the CRF right across it.

Opps!

We made the silent grove campsite at 3:30pm only to find the gorge was another 10km ride followed by a 1-2hours walk up to the gorge. We were pretty pissed as we didn't have the fuel or time to get up there. We made camp and started a fire instead.

I MAKE FIRE!