Posts From Western Australia

Today was about Tingle trees, another form of eucalyptus that is unique to South West Western Australia. There are three forms of this tree, Red Tingle, Yellow Tingle (named after the color of the wood) and Rake Tingle, named after the person who recognized that there was a third form. Like all Eucalypts Tingles are hard wood. The word Tingle is the aboriginal name.

The sign shown in the first photo below is encountered a little way East of Balladonia, and as advertised for the next 90 miles, all the way to the road house at Caiguna, the road is absolutely straight. A little while with google will soon determine that this is NOT the longest straight section of road in the world, that title belongs to a section of road in Saudi Arabia that is 60 miles (approx) longer. It is worth noting however that the railway line from Perth to South Australia does have the longest straight section of rail line in the world at 478 km (298 miles).

Our day started with a retracing of the Baxter Cliffs route back to Caiguna Roadhouse; no navigation issues this time. A bit less than an hour East of Caiguna we found Cocklebiddy Road house and got some details of the route to the Eyre Bird Observatory (see below for a few details).

We took an early morning hike before leaving Limestone Gorge and captured a few more pictures of Boab trees (which we learned from a nearby plaque probably arrived in Australia from Madagascar on ocean currents). Then retraced our route over the rough entry track.

We spent most of the day cruising Lake Argyle. The cruise started at 11:30 and did not finish until 5:30 about 30 minutes after sunset. In terms of what we saw; rock wallabies clinging to the red cliffs, archer fish bombarding our hands to get the bread we were holding, lots of birds, and a few fresh water crocodiles. The cruise was topped off with a swim at sunset and the novel experience of trying to drink champagne while swimming.

We declared today a rest day and hung around the Argyle Resort. For me that meant a chat with neighbours, catching up on my audible novel and coffee (and cake) at the Resort restaurant. For Nina it was a walk on one of the resort hiking trails and some photos of the resort Infinity Pool.

We were up well before sunrise this morning as we had decided to undertake the Jarnem Loop hike and all the advice we had read suggested getting to the lookout for the sunrise. Well we did not quite manage a sunrise at the lookout but we did get some photos of the rising suns rays on the sandstone cliffs. Towards the end of the loop we came to Nigli Gap; a series of cliffs which show signs of aboriginal habitation.

Before getting underway this morning we took a few photos around our campground, and around the town of Kununurra. In particular we wanted to demonstrate the relative lushness of the area as the Ord River Valley around Kununurra is the region that is irrigated by the water released from Lake Argyle.

We spent the day exploring some of El Questro's attractions. In particular we took the hike into El Questro Gorge and while the walking was difficult for us the lush vegetation and crystal clear pools were very attractive. To add a bit of excitement the vehicle track to the start of the El Questro Gorge walk had a long water crossing.

We started the day with a little bit of a 4x4 adventure on an El Questro track called Saddle Back Ridge. A long steep climb with lots of "steps" and a few off camber hairpins before arriving at a lookout that gave a good 360 degree view of the property. That seemed like a good note on which to take our leave from El Questro and start the "famous" Gibb River road.

Before leaving Ellenbrae this morning we drove back to the homestead to try their coffee and scones. This seems to be a feature they are trying to cultivate as a "differentiator" for their tourist business. While sitting in the quirky but attractive cafe devouring said coffee and scones we started reading an information sheet that is provided at each table. From it we learned some interesting facts.

It's a bit hard to put into words the contradictions that today brings. On the one hand we are in an incredibly remote place and on the other hand tonights campground will have quite a population (maybe 100 people), we will see a number of offroad tourist buses at the campground, and there will be a helicopter base at the campground. Our starting point for today is already 500km (310miles) from the last town we passed through (Kununurra), it is the only fuel stop we have seen since that town, and today we are going to drive another 185 km (110miles) north and west from Drysdale.

Today is one of the big days for this trip. This region, known as The Kimberley, is one of the remotest and least populated parts of Australia and the Mitchell Falls is perhaps its most iconic tourist attraction. It is also the attraction that stretched this particular adventure for us to 6 months from its original conception of half that much time (originally we were planning a 3 month trip to Australia and then Nina found Destination Kimberley and the plan got extended to 6 months). So its a big day.

The route between Drysdale Station and the Mitchell campground consists of two road segments. From Drysdale one follows the Kalumburra Road north for 100km and then turns west onto the Mitchell Plateau track for 80km. So of course todays return journey to Drysdale reversed that route. As mentioned previously much of tne Mitchell Plateau track travels through Livistona Palm forest which we both really enjoyed. Just west of the junction of the Mitchell track and Kalumburra Road is an Aboriginal Art Site that we missed on the way up but called in on todays return.

With our Mitchell excursion done today we returned to the Gibb River Road and continued our westward journey. The first leg of the days journey was 60km south from Drysdale to the Gibb River Rest area and then 110 west to Mount Barnett Road House and the nearby Manning Gorge Campground. There was not much of note on todays drive, lots of road corrugations, a surprising number of fellow travellers, maybe 50 other cars most towing a camper of some form and two notable river crossings where we took a few photos. We crossed the Gibb River just before rejoining the Gibb River Road and the Barnett River just before the similarly named road house.

We made a start before sunrise this morning and walked from the campground to Manning Gorge. The start of the walk is quite interesting as one has to cross a large waterhole, and a small aluminium boat with rope tow is provided for the purpose. By the time we returned from the walk the kids staying in the campground were up and playing in the waterhole and a couple of them offered to be our ferrymen. The walk to the Gorge was hot and a bit tedious but the gorge provided some nice photos of cliffs reflected in the clear water.

This morning we visited another attraction of the Napier Range, Tunnel Creek about 35km south of Windjana. The "tunnel" which is about 750 meters long is nothing more than a small limestone cave carved out by a wet season river/creek. The thing that sets this cave apart from other limestone caves are the resident fresh water crocodiles. The one in picture 8 is real. This cave was once the hideout of an aboriginal outlaw or freedom fighter (depending on your perspective) name Pigeon or Jandamarra. See Tunnell Creek

Today turned into a long day, at least by our standards. We got an early start from Windjana, eventually the paved road arrived and we made good time into the coastal town of Derby on King Sound at the mouth of the Fitzroy River. We found the place a little crowded (with tourists), and the single campground seemed packed so we decided to push on to Broome.

We have a few things planned in Broome next week but the thought of hanging around in one place for over a week was more than Nina could tolerate so we decided to take a little excursion to Cape Leveque about 200km north of Broome. The peninsula that is tipped by Cape Leveque is all aboriginal land and hence is very lightly inhabited but non the less is a very popular tourist destination.

Before returning to Broome this morning we wanted to visit Kooljaman, an aboriginal owned tourist resort that provides accommodation ranging from luxury cabins through to unpowered campsites. They were fully booked so we could not camp there last night. Also this property is the only place where one can access the beach front at Cape Leveque. Photo 2 is the access road to Kooljaman. We spent a couple of hours at Kooljaman exploring their beaches and facilities before starting the return trip to Broome.

One of the big events in Broome is called Stairway to the Moon. This takes place whenever a low tide and new moon coincide. Since the downtown beach area of Broome face East one can watch the new full moon rise over the sea, and when the tide is low the moon light reflects off the sand/mud to give the impression of stairs leading to the rising moon. This is now a big event and attracts thousands of spectators. So this evening about 6:17pm we were at the Town Beach to buy dinner from one of the many food stalls and watch the moon rise. Photos were difficult.

Today we visited and "rode" a tidal phenomena called The Horizontal Falls. These falls are located about 120 miles North and a little East of Broome and to visit them we took a 1 hour flight in a small plane to Cockatoo Island, followed by a 4 hour ride in a fast and powerful boat (3 x 250 Yamaha outboard engines) with 18 other people, and then a return flight (passing over the Horizontal Falls) back to Broome.

Today we leave the coast heading towards Fitzroy Crossing and then Halls Creek eventually. Todays route retraces part of the route we followed from Derby to Broome and then branches onto the Great Northern Highway. When researching this leg of our journey we noted that camping places were few and so todays leg is a longer one than usual and ended at the unusually named RAAF Boab Quarry. For non Australian readers RAAF is an acronym for the Royal Australian Air Force. There were few scenic attractions on todays route, the Boab Rest Area (photo 1) being an exception, otherwise the day was an easy drive on good paved roads with light traffic.

In contrast to yesterday today was a very short drive, less than 100 km, into Fitzroy Crossing and then north about 20km to a small National Park containing Geike Gorge. The gorge is formed by the Fitzroy River cutting through the Napier Range. You might recall we visited another part of the Napier Range at Windjana where we saw lots of "freshies" and observed fruit bats trying to avoid those same crocs while taking a drink. At Geike we took a boat tour of the Gorge. The photos tell that story well.

The main accommodation building at Fitzroy Crossing Lodge (photo 1) was quite interesting as the entire structure seems to be corrugated metal, and surrounds the swimming pool.

The access road to Purnululu National Park and the Bungle Bungle range is about 100km north of Halls Creek and it was an easy drive on paved road to that access road. From there to the Park Visitors Center is another 56km and we had heard all kinds of horror stories about how bad this twisty gravel road was. But to our surprise the road generally was in ok shape and had some very interesting scenery though we did not get any views of the Bungle Bungle Range at this time.

The main activity today was our 30 minute helicopter tour of the Bungle Range, and as with our previous heli tours we both were well satisfied with the experience. The ariel view gives an entirely different perspective. I won't make any other comment about the flight but rather let the photos tell the story.

In her inimitable style Nina had another hike on the agenda this morning as a last taste of the Bungles before we made the trek back to Halls Creek. This one was called Echidna. We had no idea why that name was chosen, nor what we would see. The guide to the hike suggested there might be some climbing at the end of the hike but that was all. Unlike our earlier hikes this one was in the North West of the park so we could be certain that there would be no beehive domes.

Today we started our traverse of the Tanami Road which will take us back to Alice Springs 1057 km from last nights camp at Halls Creek. Historically the Tanami Track (as it was called) was a cattle droving route along which pastoralists in the Kimberley moved their cattle to market. In the 1960s (after overland droving ceased, and there was no need to detour to find water for the cattle) the track was rerouted and shortened to approximately its current route. Today it is still a remote 80% gravel road that is almost devoid of services. At the North West end it starts 16km from Halls Creek (at a junction with the Great Northern Highway) and to the South Eastern end it joins the Stuart Highway 20km north of Alice.

We made it to Billiluna this morning during their operating hours and bought 30.77 liters of fuel. Why such a strange amount? Well the rules for buying fuel at Billiluna are, you tell them how many liters you want, they will work out the price of that and round it to the nearest A$10, then give you a fuel card for that amount for which you must lodge a $5 deposit, you take the card out to the pump and dispense the fuel, then return the card and get your $5 deposit back. It turned out that 30.77 liters was almost too much I had to dribble the last 0.77 liters into both tanks to get it all in. But, non the less, we now definitely had enough fuel.

Another day, more kilometers, more red dust and surprisingly few additional creatures. We spotted the dingo at our morning tea break and the snake was crossing the road just a little later. The aeroplane needs some explanation. Roughly mid way along the Tanami Road there is a gold mine called the Granites Gold Mine run by Newmont Gold Mine. While passing this mine we spotted this passenger jet getting ready to takeoff. It was a little mind blowing. Here we are in what feels like the middle of nowhere and we see a jet plane just off to our left!

While out for her morning walk Nina found these ants nests (see photo 1) positioned in the middle of a spinifex plant and with their entrance mound covered in spinifex "leaves"; we could not work out whether it was camouflage or some other form of protection.

Last night in camp some dark clouds accumulated and this morning they pretty much covered the sky, and of course we thought rain, possibly. This could be a problem because outback roads are definitely NOT all-weather. With even modest amounts of rain that red sand/dirt turns to mud and the roads either become impassable or get closed by the local police. So we did not want to get caught in that situation. Hence an early start was called for and an extra effort throughout the day to get as close to the end of the dirt as possible.

Another beautiful sunrise, more camels, lots more dirt road and dust clouds from oncoming vehicles and we are finally in Laverton; the end of the Great Central Road. Laverton turned out to be a very nice looking tidy town, which surprised us a bit as we have seen it described as "uninteresting". There was a nice new information center in the town that had the best maps and info sheets on The Great Central Road we have seen. Pity we could not have got those maps and sheets in Alice Springs or Yulara before we drove the road.

Our first stop today was only a few kilometers south of Leonora at the Sons of Gwalia Gold Mine. Anyone who was associated with share trading in Australia (like me) would have heard this name before, and maybe unlike me knew the origin and meaning of the name. The discovery of the gold deposits and starting of the original mine was undertaken by some Welsh immigrants. Gwalia is the Welsh name for Wales. Today the mine still operates, though now as an underground mine, rather than the original open cut. Next to the present day mine site is a museum and a collection of old equipment and old buildings including the mine managers house (called Hoover House). That house is now a Bed and Breakfast and a cafe. Interestingly Herbert Hoover (eventually 31st president of the USA) took over as Mine Manager in 1898 at the age of 23 and had the managers house built; hence the name.

Before departing Lake Ballard this morning we could not resist a few more photos of these strange little statues by the light of the rising sun.

About 100km north of last nights camp we came to the town of Wiluna. This is yet another Western Australian town that was once a major gold mining town and in the 1930s had a population of around 9000. Today the population is around 700 and is probably most well know as the southern entrance to the Canning Stock Route and the Western end of the Gunbarrel Highway. It is interesting to us that one of the motivations for the Gunbarrel was to place instruments as part of rocket development at Woomera. While at Woomera earlier in this trip we heard from an Airforce Officer just how valuable the Woomera Rocket Range is because of the length of flight path over un-inhabited territory it offers.

There is not much to say about today. Just another day traveling North on the Great Northern Highway with many road trains, mines and not much else. Just to illustrate the point; the app we are using to find camping places (and other places of interest) noted that near 25 Mile Well was a sight of interest called Sponge Bob mail Box. This is nothing more than the mail box for one of the local pastoral stations decorated up a bit. Other wise we just recorded some of the heavy vehicles we encoutered.

Today was really about getting to and finding a camping spot close to Karijini National Park so that tomorrow we would have an entire day to commit to exploration of the park. This is because we could only get one night in either of the campgrounds at the park. Todays photo record, starts with a few photos of Kumarin roadhouse and a few "along the way" shots as well.

We were at Karijini and starting our first "hike" by 8:30 thereby facilitating what turned out to be a very full day.

After yesterdays achievements, and in light of the fact that we could not camp at Karijini tonight, todays plan was to "do it all"; or at least our version of that. We would "do" Dales Gorge and hit all the high points. See below.

As you can see from the date of this entry we spent three nights in Tom Price dealing with some family business. This morning when we departed our plan was to head west towards Millstream-Chichester National Park. But we quickly discovered that all roads in that direction were unpaved and had a lot of mine traffic, particularly 4 trailer road trains. Now we dont mind dirt roads but in conjunction with road trains they are tedious and dangerous, and we are a bit weary of dirt roads anyway. So we changed plans late morning and returned to Tom Price with the intent of going towards the town of Marble Bar.

The first half of the drive into Marble Bar was on paved road with a good deal of road train traffic servicing local mines. The second half was a good quality gravel road with almost no traffic. Along both sections the scenery was interesting with striking red rock and soil covered in "buttons" of spinifex, some bright green patches presumably from recent rain and a few creek crossings with some water still present.

Port Hedland is a major shipping port for iron ore mined in the Pilbara Area of Western Australia as well as being a major service center for such mines and having a major salt mining operation right on the outskirts of the town. With a population of 14,000+ it feels like a small city.

We took a little tour around the Dampier area this morning including stopping at the information display at the town entrance where we read about the Red Dog. It seems a red dog named, among other names, Tally Ho became a well known figure around the Pilbara region as it traveled the region by getting rides with and adopting as temporary owner a bus driver and other travelers. It is said that the dog was made a member of the Dampier Salts Sport and Social Club and the Transport Workers' Union.

The little town of Exmouth sits towards the top east corner of North West Cape, and is surrounded by Cape Range National Park and is the gateway to Ningaloo Marine Park with its coral reefs, colourful fish and migratory whale sharks. Not surprisingly then Exmouth is definitely a tourist town and the population swells from 2200 to over 6000 during the height of the tourist season. In addition North West Cape is the sight of an RAAF base and a Naval Communications base.

We set out today to get a small taste of the sights of the North West Cape. Yesterday we discovered that there were a myriad of boat tours of the Ningalo Reef all included swimming and snorkeling and offered the chance to swim with whale sharks or some other exotic sea creature. Since we are not really into snorkeling at the current temperatures we opted for the glass bottom boat tour so that we could see some of the coral and sea life without getting wet. Unfortunately as we approached the pickup point for that tour we got a phone call telling us the tour had been cancelled due to high winds. Thus our chance to see the reef at anything like close quarters was gone. We contented ourselves with viewing it from afar, the bright turquoise water and the surf breaking over the reef some hundreds of yards off shore.

There is not much to say about today. It rained lightly off and on all day and we stayed inside our temporary appartment taking care of chores like washing and planning the final leg of the "troopy" part of our trip into Perth.

Today was mostly a travel day, we needed to take a big slice out of the distance to Carnarvon. However we did make a couple of scenic stops. The first, Shot Hole Canyon just a few kilometers south of Exmouth and around lunch time we dropped into the village of Coral Bay a very popular spot on the Ningaloo Coast.

A few hundred kilometers of the coastal highway with its red soil and low scrub brought us to the town of Carnarvon. Originally a shipping port for the local wool industry, the town is now perhaps more well known for its role as a major tracking station for NASA's Gemini and Apollo Programs and of course there is an extensive museum of paraphernalia from that era. In addition to visiting the Tracking Station Museum we spent a little time exploring the towns beach front and its now closed but impressive "mile long jetty".

After retracing yesterdays drive from Carnarvon to Quobba our day came to an unexpectedly quick end. For some reason we were both feeling sleepy, and even took the unprecedented step of stopping at a rest area, putting up the tent and having a sleep. This convinced us that rather than continuing with the our original plan of spending the night at Hamelin Pool (a day of about 300km) we should stop early. As luck would have it we were not far from Wooramel River Retreat when this decision was made so that became our nights stopping place.

While packing up this morning I noticed that the solar panel was coming adrift from its mounting. The panel had been afixed to some aluminum L sections on the roof with pop-rivets and all the vibration from the rough roads we have travelled have worn the heads off the rivets. As a result one entire side of the panel was no longer fastened to the L section. A few kilometers after leaving Wooramel we stopped at Wooramel Roadhouse and borrowed an electric drill and got some self-tapping screws to re-fasten the panel. That first photo is yours-truly demostrating his balancing skills while installing the new self-tappers.

This morning we finished our exploration of Francois Peron NP by driving the remainder of the sandy track to Cape Peron where we spent some time trying to get the "perfect" photo contrasting the red soil against the white beaches and blue ocean. It was a lovely morning and in addition to the great scenery, the great luck of spotting a goanna sunning itself under a bush we enjoyed the bouncing bucking ride along the sandy tracks.

This morning we spent our time attending the Dolpin Feeding Experience, the reason we came to this place. Each morning starting at about 8:15 the rangers invite guests to stand on the beach front and watch a feeding "experience". After about 15 minutes during which one of the rangers does a monologue about the dolphins of the area a small number of members of the audience are invited to feed the dolphins with fish provided by the rangers. Each dolphin is limited to three fish at each experience. So this morning only three guests got to feed a dolpin as there was only one adult dolphin lining up for food. The "experience" is repeated 2 more times if the dolphins show interest.

Today was spent in the Kalbarri National Park which has the Murchison River and its associated gorges as its key attraction. Somewhat to our surprise the Murchison had flowing water, we found out from talking to a park worker that this is a result of 6 inches of rain in June. In addition a lot of flowers were blooming including the red flowered flame trees in the photos.

We spent a little time this morning in the town of Kalbarri. This gave Nina a chance to complete her daily walk (and achieve the necessary 10,000 steps) and allowed me to do my morning physio exercises. There after we travelled down the coast south of Kalbarri, which has some nice coastal scenery and is part of the Kalbarri National Park.

It finally dawned on us this morning that the countryside has changed over the past two days and we are now back in green country where there are wide farm fields of green and flowing water. The deserts and the dry salty coastal plains are no more. Unfortunately this change also signals that our adventure is winding down.

As we left our camping spot this morning we happened to see this Sea Eagle sitting atop a post. The scenic highight of today was a visit to The Pinnacles at Nambung National Park where one can walk and/or drive amongst these strange limestone blocks poking up out of the yellow sand.

Today was the last driving day of this adventure. Tonight we camped in a caravan park in Fremantle just south of Perth City. We will be in this caravan park or a nearby hotel until Sunday 11th when the next short non-driving leg of this adventure starts. Our time in Fremantle will be mostly chores such as cleaning our faithful troopy and catching up on family business. But we do plan one sightseeing day while in this area and will report on that when it happens.

The one last sighseeing adventure we had always planned to undertake during our wind-down in Fremantle was a visit to Rottnest Island. It is about 30 minutes from downtown Perth on a fast ferry and is famous for its population of Quokkas. These are small macropods (like mini kangaroos, approximately) about the size of a family cat and are the reason the island got its name. In 1696 Dutch captain Willem de Vlamingh spent 6 days on the island and mistaking the Quokkas for large rats named the island 't Eylandt 't Rottenest ("Rats' Nest Island"). The current population of Quokkas is estimated at around 10-12,000 and they appear to be everywhere on the island; particularly where human visitors are likely to be consuming food. You will notice in the last few photos below that Nina had some difficulty eating her lunch without sharing it with a quokka. There is a $150 fine for feeding the animals.

The driving part of our adventure came to an end today when we returned our faithful 'troopy' to the guys at Waexperts.com.au. We were sad to say goodbye to the trusty vehicle, pleased to get it back to them without any last minute accidents or problems, pleased to share some of our adventure with the guys and sorry to say good bye to Taia and the team that have supported us so well.

It was a very peacful night and we were up early to watch the sun rise on the nearby escarpment, we could not resist one last shot. We have encountered this sign in photo 2 in many places. They seem to be cast them about when ever there is slight or major road damage. We have guessed that they signal "danger". Nina finally caught a photo of one for us this morning.

Today may turn out to be the highlight of the trip as we accompanied the cyclists along the King River Road and then onto the Kurunjie Track (which was once called the Bedford Stock Route). In order to give the cyclists a bit of a start Nina and I started the day with a return visit to Parry's Lagoon and the nearby Telegraph Hill which once was a wireless radio relay station but is now just a set of foundations with no buildings.

The final 8km of the Kurunjie Track proved to be quite rough. This is probably because it is close to the Gibb River Road and gets more traffic with travelers on the Gibb doing some exploring. Again the cyclists out paced our 4wd vehicle on this rough track and we arrived at the Gibb River and its crossing of the Pentacost River behind.

It has been great to have a couple of days traveling with Bredon and Daniel, but today we go our separate ways. They will stay another day at El Questra while we (Nina and I) will start West along the Gibb River Road with the aim of being in Broome in about 4 days. So after a big cookup this morning we said our goodbyes and were on the road by about 10:30.

It was a surprisingly cool night, so cool I got up during the night to find my down jacket. But as we were about to find out the day would be a counterpoint to the night. Today the temperature would top out at 37°C making every stop a hunt for shade.

At the start of the day we were focused on our role in a geo-location game we had agreed to play with brendon. We were to hide some small treasure in the bush along the Gibb River Road and send him the GPS coordinates. The game was whether he could find what we hid. So for the first few hours of todays drive we were on the lookouot for a suitable location. We eventually sellected Bells Creek.

We started today with a tour of Broome, the port and some of the beaches. The seaside and blue ocean are really beautiful. Maybe not so much the town. This was in some sense a final goodbye to Broome as I cannot imagine we will be back here again.

We were keen to get to Mount Barnett this morning so were on the road by 7:30 and arrived there about 10:30. Brendon and Daniel of course had nothing to do while waiting for us so they had walked the 5km round trip to Manning Gorge one of the prime attractions of a trip on the Gibb River Road and hence were not at the campground when we arrived but turned up looking refreshed from swimming in the Gorge about lunchtime.

With the tyre repaired yesterday we all decided we would spend today taking the hike to Manning Gorge. The first obstacle on the hike is a river which requires about 100m of swimming and then a 2-3km walk over rocky ground and up and down through a number of sharp creek beds. Brendon took on the job of being guide and assistant to Nina and did a splendid job.

This morning we again said goodbye to the cyclists even though our routes coincide for the next 200km or so. We will almost cetrtainly not see them again on this trip. We will travel West to the Lennard River (200km) and then South while the cyclists will probably do the 300+km West into Derby.

The highlight of the day was finding that RAAF Boab Quarry was still operating as an informal campground, and that the quarry was full of water offering good swimming opportunities. There was no water in the quarry in 2019 when we camped there.