Munurru (King Edward River)

 20 – 21 August 2022

After delicious scones with jam and cream at Ellenbrae Station we rejoined the Gibb River Road and continued westwards. We stopped at the rest area at the Kalumburu Road junction and had a cuppa. Once again we chatted with fellow travellers and the main topic of conversation after “which way are you headed?” was the road condition.

We were heading to Ngauwudu (Mitchell Plateau) and Punamii Uunpuu (Mitchell Falls) so set off up the Kalumburu Road and stopped at Drysdale Homestead. We had intended to spend the night there, but it wasn’t even lunch time and the campground didn’t look very inviting at that time of day so we fuelled up and topped up the water tank and set off again. At the suggestion of some other travellers we stopped for lunch at the river crossing just a few kilometres down the road. We found a shady spot and sat on the sand, enjoying a break from the rough road. We had been told that it was better after about 20 kilometres but I think “better” is a very subjective term. There were some better sections, but in general it was still pretty rough – although not as bad as we had anticipated.

We had decided to spend a night at Munurru on the way to Mitchell Falls so turned into the campground, paid our camping fee and also our Uunguu Visitor Pass fee. This pass is needed to visit a number of spots along the Port Warrender Road, including Mitchell Falls. The UVP would be valid for 5 nights and we weren’t sure whether that would be enough. We had settled for one night at Munurru, with the possibility of staying again on our way back.

We found a nice camp spot with plenty of room and some shade. The camp sites at Munurru all look to be quite large and could easily accommodate groups travelling together. Once we had set up we went for a walk to try to find the swimming area but we were not successful. Before we left in the morning we drove down to the day use area and there was the swimming spot – it looked like a great place for a dip. There are also a couple of art sites nearby but we decided to leave these for the return journey.