Why this ride
A one-way ride of 473 km, Derby to the finish - roughly 6 h 32 in the saddle. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Gibb River Road: Derby to Bell Gorge
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 473 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 6 h 32
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Derby
Derby sits on a flat peninsula of mud and mangroves at the edge of King Sound, in the far north-west of Western Australia, and it is where the Gibb River Road starts. The tides here are among the biggest in the country, rising and falling about eleven metres, so the shoreline retreats for hundreds of metres twice a day and the water runs fast and brown. The town is small, with around four thousand people, and it has the dusty, relaxed air of a place that does a bit of everything: cattle, mining services, Aboriginal art and tourism.
Read the complete Derby write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Derby is where the day begins. Next is Windjana Gorge.
2. Windjana Gorge
Windjana Gorge is where the Lennard River slices through the Napier Range in the west Kimberley, and the gorge walls are the remains of a Devonian reef, built by algae and corals when this country lay under a warm sea about 350 million years ago. Walking beside those cliffs you can see fossils in the limestone, shells and marine creatures, and the sheer scale of the place is humbling. The walls rise some thirty metres or more above a sandy river bed, which in the dry season shrinks to a chain of green pools.
Read the complete Windjana Gorge write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Windjana Gorge comes up about 348 km into the recorded legs. Next is Bell Gorge.
3. Bell Gorge
Bell Gorge is one of the best-known swimming holes of the Kimberley, a series of falls tumbling over red sandstone into a deep green pool in the King Leopold Ranges in the north of Western Australia. It sits well off the Gibb River Road, reached by a rough track of around thirty kilometres from the main road to the Silent Grove campground, and then a walk of about a kilometre or so over rocks to the top of the falls. The dry season, roughly May to October, is the only time you can sensibly get here; in the wet, the road is cut by floods and closed.
Read the complete Bell Gorge write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 473 km.
Leg by leg
Derby to Windjana Gorge
Derby → Windjana Gorge is 348 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Windjana Gorge to Bell Gorge
Windjana Gorge → Bell Gorge is 125 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.