George River Gorge; Millstream 4WD free camping

If remote camping, 4WD tracks and stunning scenery tickles your fancy, George River Gorge might be right up your alley way.

When we planned our most recent trip we stumbled across a great looking camp site in Millstream National Park that you couldn’t book, and that you needed a 4WD to get to. Winner winner in both books, and we headed towards there from 40 Mile Beach camp.

Where is George River Gorge? 

You’ll find George River Gorge in the Chichester national park side of Millstream, not too far away from Python Pool. Its surrounded by stunning scenery and the drive in is nothing short of spectacular.

About Millstream National Park

We visited Deep Reach Pool a number of years ago, and despite enjoying it didn’t rate it as a truly epic place. It’s nice, but its not nearly as picturesque as the other side of the National Park.

Our visit to the northern part of Millstream National Park truly changed our perspective though, with the drive in to Python Pool being absolutely beautiful, and then the track to George River being even better.

Millstream National Park was originally two national parks that have since been joined together. The two sections are about 60km apart, and are worth a visit

What’s the track like to get to George River?

The track to George River is a lot of fun. Its nothing insane, but if you are a novice 4WD owner its probably going to push the friendship a bit. The track is narrow in sections, and has a number of smaller creek crossings, before getting to one main creek bed, and then the gorge.

There’s a heap of rocky sections, with it being sharper limestone style rock, and eventually moving to thousands of river rocks that move around as you drive over them.  Once you get to George River, the track deteriorates even more, and you are basically driving over big river rocks in search of further camp sites.

The track can be done with any smaller trailer, including soft floors, hard floors and hybrid camper trailers. We saw a couple of small caravans in, but if you are taking anything much wider or longer than your 4WD you are going to cop scratches and potentially even panel damage.

You need a vehicle with a decent amount of clearance, and this rules out any of the soft roaders (foresters, x trails etc).

We towed our Reconn R2 in and were pleasantly surprised at how well it handled. We did get a couple of smaller scratches, but were well and truly prepared to get this.

I did see on a YouTube video recently a couple saying its a hardcore track, who towed an imported hybrid in, but it really isn’t. If you’ve done much 4WDing, you’ll be fine even towing something larger and heavier in, but in the wet it could be a different story!

It is worth noting that the gravel road into Millstream Chichester National Park was pretty badly corrugated, and you’d be mad to do it without letting your tyres down.

It’s only a relatively short drive before you end up on bitumen as it winds its way through the ranges, but you need your tyres down to head into George River Gorge anyway.

Where does the track start?

You’ll find the start of the track on the southern side of Roebourne Wittenoom road, not far from Python Pool, around a couple of big corners.

There is no signage, and its basically just a well used 4WD track. Take the track, and if you get to a river bed, turn left and cross it, and you’ll arrive at the gorge 11km later.

Where can you camp at George River Gorge?

There are a number of places you can camp at. The most common is the first pool that you come to only a few minutes down the track. Some people camped inside the river bed (which is only OK if no rain has fallen or is coming) and others just camp on the river bed.

We actually spent a night at this pool on the way out, rather than going in and out again to get the camper trailers.

There’s probably a few places you could camp on the way to the gorge itself, but the main camp grounds are at the gorge.

The premium spots are just as you enter the gorge, but there are a number of other spots above the pool, and continuing along the track (roughly 4 more camp sites right on the river from the gorge).

You will eventually get to a dead end, where it drops steeply towards the water, and you’ll have a hard time turning around, like we did!

What do you need to bring?

You need to be fully self sufficient to camp here. That really means you should have a camping toilet, or at the very least you take your waste out with you as there is no way you’ll be digging holes anywhere; its just too rocky.

Take your food, water, and anything you need to sleep and stay comfortably.

Fires at George River Gorge

Fires at George River are not permitted, and yet there were a number of people who ignored it and grabbed timber from all over the place.

Whilst I have no issues with an appropriate fire, collecting timber from a national park and leaving a scar on the ground isn’t a good look for such a pristine place, and the blatant disregard of rules only ends up with places being locked up, which is good for no one.

Have you been to George River Gorge? What did you think of it?!

Here’s our YouTube video of our stay:

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