TRACKING THE KIMBERLEY
The main route through the heart of the Kimberley, the Gibb River Road, runs north-east from Derby on the coast for 660km to the Victoria Highway junction between Kununurra and Wyndham.
Well maintained and in much better shape than its reputation as a destroyer of machinery suggests, the Gibb’s hilliest sections, including the King Leopold Range crossing, are now sealed. Natural creek crossings are being replaced by causeways and for most of its length the surface, though still unsealed, is wide and relatively smooth.
However, the Gibb still has its fair share of hazards, including rocky patches, a few corrugations, wandering beasts, dust clouds kicked up by the ever-increasing traffic and, at the top end of the route, west of the Pentecost River, a tight, tricky, unsealed roller coaster section through beautiful jump-up country that is the ruin of several careless caravanners every year.
The 60–70m-wide Pentecost River crossing looks more daunting than it actually is.
