23 September 2022
It was time to visit the name sake of the place, El Questro Gorge. We had a few reservations about this one, but some risks are worth it.
Accessing the gorge requires a serious water crossing. At 800 to 1000mm deep and over 100m long it was more than the MU-X could handle. Our only option was to walk the crossing, hoping to find a shallower path and then walk the 1.2km to start of the gorge walk. The gorge walk itself would be our trickiest to date. Getting to the halfway pool was difficult enough. Reaching the end of the gorge would be longer and harder. Abby wasn’t sure but we agreed we’d attempt to go to Halfway Pool and retreat if we couldn’t do it.
We found a path around the water crossing, substituting 800mm of water for 300mm of mud. It was slow and careful rock hopping and creek crossing through the gorge to get to halfway pool. The walk was stunning, a cooler tropical rainforest that eventually found its way to one of the best mid-walk swims we’ve had.
Right until we turned around to walk out, we were debating if we could continue. It was that good. We realised though without water shoes, more food, more water and a dry bag we would likely get ourselves into trouble.
