Ipod game: on hold / more likely cancelled due to technical difficulties. Unfortunately the world shall now never know if my music collection, when played a-z, would last 4 months on the road
Stop 35, Cable Beach Caravan Park, Broome
So after the trauma of catching and eating our own fish we arrived the next day at the sprawling metropolis of Broome – at a population of 14'000 it's the biggest town we've seen since Adelaide.
You hear a lot about Broome on the road, everyone travelling WA seems to be heading there. It has to be said it's hard not to like it when you get there, it's a chilled out little seaside town where the main activity is making your way down to Cable Beach with a few cold beers to watch the sunset.
The main event at Cable Beach
"Muddy" the croc at the park. In case you can't read the sign behind it says "extremely dangerous, stay away from the fence"
Our neighbours friendly eclectus parrot
We treated to ourselves to a visit to the pub, a film at the open air cinema ( accompanied by special sound effects when the low flying aircraft come over mid film, great place , shame about the film – 10'000 BC) and a trip to the Malcolm Douglas Crocodile park. We getting into Croc territory now so we thought it prudent to go and learn a little more about them. It's worth a trip as they got a couple of big 5m fellas in there. It's amazing how well even a croc of that size can conceal itself in a small pool of muddy water.
This one was giving us some lip so I had to slap the noogie on him, teach him a bit of respect etc...
mini croc's
Broome's a cool little place, it's got a vibrant social scene going on and is chocka full of backpackers. We checked out the cheap(er) campsite (24 bucks - nothings cheap in Broome) but declined after deciding it looked more like glastonbury than the kind of quieter family & older folks places we were used to. Given our average bedtime has developed into half eight or somewhere around there we didn't r really fancy having to put up with bad drunken guitar playing at two in the morning form the tent next to us.
Travelling in style - check out the converted bus
Stop 36 Windjana Gorge National Park, Gibb River Road
So suitably refreshed and croc educated we headed out onto the Gibb River Road, the 700k unsealed road cutting right through the heart of the Kimberley Savannah Region.
It's probably one of the most travelled dirt roads in Oz, by tourists and road trains like, so we'd heard it get's cut up pretty bad. However a couple of calls to the local council made us realise mid May the perfect time to be doing this, grading work had just been completed, the road had just been fully opened a couple of weeks ago(it's closed during the whole wet season) and the many creeks and rivers it crosses were down to a civilised level.
The Boab tree - used as a prison cell when they used to trek aboriginal prisoners across the kimberley
Stopped up heading into the kimberley
Our first stop is was camping at the Windjana Gorge National Park site. We walked into the Gorge late afternoon and it is a simply magical sight. Scores of little freshwater croc's line the banks of the river and float about soaking up the afternoon sun, the gorge was also home to hundreds of white corrella's (parrots) flying all around with the noise of their cries echoing off the gorge walls.
Windjana Gorge (possibly the best photo we've taken to date), can you spot the croc head ?
Croc Mania
Stop 37 Bell Creek National Park
The next day we drove 20k down the road to do the well known “Tunnel Creek” walk – a 1k walk following a creek through a long, dark croc and bat infested cave. In all fairness I don't think any croc's were inhabiting it at the time but it makes it sound more exciting.
Heading into tunnel creek
The Bell Gorge National Park was another pleasant camping spot with a croc free pool to swim in at the end of the Gorge. We ended up sitting round a campfire with a couple of Ozzie families till the grand old time of half nine in the evening! We feel pleased with ourselves as everyone here has their 4x4's and off-road camper trailers etc.. but after what we've done we held our own in the campfire conversation about touring tips and locations! We've definitely picked up a bit of respect for having taken on the Gunbarrel !
Swimming in the pool at the top of the falls - Bell Creek
Stop 38 & 39 Random Bushcamp and the El Questro Wilderness Resort
Leaving Bell Gorge we stopped at the magical Galvens gorge for a morning swim ( and then continued East along the Gibb River Road taking a short detour into Barnett River Gorge is there a theme developing here?) where we contemplated driving the truck over some serious boulders and across the river but satisfied ourselves with a sit, rest and cheese and crackers instead. Overnight was a rest area which we had to ourselves.
Galveins Gorge
The next day we set off early with the scenery staying rough and rugged but we made reasonable progress despite the numerous creek crossings (graded by us from puddle to river) with the Durack and Pentecost rivers definitely being at the more serious end, we went through the wrong side of the Durack and got water in through our passenger door – forgetting our own golden rule of clear everything out the passenger footwell as it tends to be a bit leaky as soon as we're passing through a foot or so. The Pentecost was low but at a good 2oom it was by far the longest crossing we'd done to date.
Checking out the pentecost crossing
We kept bumping into this old german couple who obviously had no idea how to use their shiny new patrol and would shout 'Vat gear ja?” at us from the other side of the creek. “Four high oder four low” - we found it hilarious. We safely helped them through and they arrived shortly after us at the El Questro Wilderness Resort.
Above - Gorge walking at El Questro
More resort than wilderness it was clear who their target market was by reading the steakhouse restaurant menu however they were well set with numerous self guided walking trails, 4wd treks, hot springs and a really pleasant camping ground. There was plenty to do so we set up camp for a couple of nights. I tend to object to any place that wants to charge us thirty bucks to put a tent up but you gotta hand it to them here, they've made the “wilderness” a nice place to stay for a while.
Above - 4wd trek to some stunning views
It was at El Questro that our funniest (for me – Simon) incident to date happened. We were crossing a particularly scenic creek, not deep but a long rocky crossing protected form the main river by tree's and rocks. I suggested Charl nipped out the car to take a photo as I thought is looked pretty cool, needless to say this met some crocodile inspired resistance, “go on” I said “it's only 20cm deep or so - there's nowhere for a big croc to hide”. Anyway Charl reluctantly left the motor and got a couple of metres before there was a big splash in the water in front of her, coincidentally there was actually a croc in front of us – only a little fella but enough to make a splash. I've never ever seen Charl move so fast, she was back in the car without seeming to move! The croc has stopped just under my car window, he was probably just under a metre so not huge but certainly enough to give Charl the fright of her life. I was laughing for the rest of the day.
Above - the "croc incident" in pics
Stop 40 Keep River National Park
After an exhilarating swim in the icy plunge pool at the end of Emma Gorge we headed towards Kunnunurra – a chance to drop a quick note home & get some supplies
About 40km out of Kunnunura we hit the NT (Northern Territory) border and jumped forward 1.5hours as we made our way to the Keep River NP. Just off the highway it was a spot chosen for its convenience and cheap camping more than anything but we arrived and it was a little gem. We just shared the campsite with a German family (Germans - you can't get away from them out here!) and some mega sized ants, it had good camp fires with clean hot plates and non-stinky toilets. The little things that become important on the road.
Above - scenes from the Keep River
More than any of that though we were surrounded by the most incredible sandstone rock formations. Almost resembling some ancient lost city, fallen into disrepair it was different to anything else we'd seen. A short circular walk from the campsite was one of the most scenic and interesting walks we've done on the trip.
Stop 50 Bullita Campground, Gregory National Park
Now this place is a huge, huge expanse of rugged limestone country that has been turned into a venue for remote and difficult 4x4 touring. The access track in is relatively easy gravel track which ends in a restored homestead that gives you a good impression of the tough lives that people led out here 100 years ago or so. Even by local standards this was considered a tough place to farm.
Just to prove I can do arty photo's as well - mangroves on the bank of east baines
The campground nearby is a lovely spot in it's own right and worth a trip in. The emerald waters of east baines river runs by, lined with mangroves and palms. I tried chucking a line in but as per usual had forgot to buy bait and the no one seem interested in the tuna flakes I subbed in.
The plan was to take on the well known and difficult Bullita Stock Route, an 90k but 8 hour drive involving a couple of pretty serious river crossings and 10k section of seriously steep limestone steps. Luckily, as with most of my sillier ideas, Charlotte managed to talk me out of this one. Some routes are just better done in convoy (or at least with a satphone – we'd given ours back by now) and this is probably one of them.
Fritz following us over the rough stuff
The following day though we took the Tawa something route back out the park, a 30k trip taking a mere 2 ½ hours. We invited this German guy who was also at the campground with us along, travelling by himself in a hire 4x4 he probably had to take less chances than we did on these routes so it was good to have another car in tow. The route turned of into the forest and following barely discernible tracks we drove off until we hit several large limestone boulder fields. This turned into very slow going with charl out in front of the car guiding my wheels so I didn't end up tonking my underside too hard. All technical exciting stuff although when we got to the end we found the razor sharp limestone had put a two inch gash into one of our tires so we didn't quite make it through without casualties.
This is what driving over limestone flakes does to your tires!
Stop 51 Katherine
Then to Katherine (well named eh mum, & charlotte's mum!), the Northern Territory's third biggest town at the lofty population of 9000 or something similar. I love the NT – it's real cowboy hat stuff and if you haven't got a dog in your ute you simply don't fit in!
In all fairness it's a pleasant little town with some nice hot springs to relax in. Largely populated by the local indigenous folks it, like a lot of the small regional towns, has alcohol restrictions in place to stop people drinking themselves off the face of the planet. (Charlotte: more seriously: the whole indigenous 'situation' has only really hit home whilst being in northern WA, NT and on into parts of Queensland. A personal view is that while people have to want to help themselves these guys have been seriously let down and mistreated in the past and we don't really know enough about what is and isn't being done at the moment to comment any further – although we have seen a lot of individuals and couples running roadhouses and community facilities and obviously trying in their own small way to improve life in these remote communities, much respect).
The main thing to do here is visit the Nitmilulk or Katherine Gorge National Park. I know, another gorge, yawn.. to be honest we were quite gorged out ourselves by this stage. Katherine Gorge however is a much bigger landmark then anything else we'd been to. To mix it up a bit and try and get a bit of exercise we took the option of seeing the first part of the gorge by kayak, much better then sitting on a tour boat with fifty other people.
We picked up a copy of the Northern Territory Daily in Katherine. Front page headline “Croc vs. Shark”, sheer journalistic brilliance. A 3 m Croc had been spotted with a small shark in its mouth in an estuary. It caught it, brought it out the water, bashed it about a bit then left it out to suffocate on the bank. Might have a brain the size of a pea and not be much good at calculus but they sure know how to kill stuff. They pulled a 33ft croc out the gulf in 1999, 33ft! That's bigger than the boat eh Dad ? You wouldn't want that popping up behind you when you're out in your dinghy.
No comments:
Post a Comment