Driving Around Australia in 80 Days in 2004.
A science fiction (well, travel this time around) fanzine from Eric Lindsay whose address is now fijagh2006 (changed due to spammers).
This is under construction, currently on day 62 of an 80 day trip. We are adding bits from our notes, even for earlier days, all the time. Photos of the trip will be added later (I have 2985 on my computer to date)
Airlie Beach, 11452 km, latitude 20.15S, longitude 148.43E.
For the past four or five years Jean and I had been attempting to get away in winter for a driving tour around Australia. It was for this reason we bought the motorhome we formerly owned. Each time we started, something went wrong, including a death in the family, plus the multiple mechanical problems with the motorhome reported in my fanzine. We also usually had prior commitments that ensured we started late in winter.
This time we have a new car, Jean's Subaru Forester, and no prior commitments. We are also starting far earlier than ever before, only a few days into winter.
So were there problems? Packing a quart in a pint bottle, of course. An unseasonable cyclone in the Indian Ocean brought late rain across northern and inland Australia, and thus potential flooding outside the rainy season.
The major problem so far was on the day before we planned to leave. While we were walking around Airlie, I dropped my prescription sunglasses. Given our sunny climate, these are also my driving glasses. With choreography usually seen only in the movies, I moved my left foot into the path of the falling glasses, thus saving them from a shattering fall straight onto the bricks of the sidewalk. The intact glasses then made a short trip sideways, directly under Jean's descending shoe. This resulted in a snapped frame.
We rushed into the local optometrist, who alas could no longer get a replacement frame, nor manage a repair. We decided I would have to get along with a pair of normal sunglasses. Later that day I managed a temporary repair with Araldite two part glue. Guess I'll report later how well that lasts during the trip. [A year later, the Araldite repair is still fine - good glue!]
The first day of driving north is on the Bruce Highway, the main road. A good road, one lane each way, mostly through lush coastal fields of sugar cane. Very familiar to us from trips to Townsville. We refuelled a little before midday, when we passed Bowen. We expected that might be the last time we saw fuel at less than $1 a litre.
We stopped as usual at Inkerman for lunch, since the service station shop there has the best chicken salad sandwiches on the run to Townsville. A little further along at Ayr we noticed the indigenous opening ceremony was being held in the park with the giant snake. Looked like lots of people attending. We were pleased to have had a chance to view it on a previous trip before it became better known.
About 40 km from Townsville. we turned off the main highway and took the back road to Woodstock. No music, no rock, just a road that sometimes dropped to a single lane of bitumen. The 30 km stretch has about 6 bridges that are under water when it gets too wet. The road reports suggest delays then of between 12 and 48 hours. However this lets us avoid going into Townsville, and cuts a lot of kilometres off by the time we join the main road west, the Flinders Highway. There were carefully tended farms along the back road, mostly stocked with what appeared to be macadamia nut trees.
We stopped at a service station after a good run up the great dividing range (here little more than low hills) in a 110kph zone. This is road train territory, as are most of the rest of the places we will reach once away from the coast. We soon got stuck behind a three trailer road train. The countryside varied from native trees to scrubby grassland, some still dry looking despite being relatively close to the coast.
We stopped pretty early for the day, since we wanted an easy day. I'd been hoping to push through to Torrens Creek, but Charters Towers gave a much wider range of motels (that is, more than one). Charters Towers (11810 km, latitude 20.04S, longitude 146.15E) is 135 kilometers inland southwest from Townsville, on the Overlander's Way.
We settled into Charters Towers Motel, and after unpacking walked the half km to the shopping areas of the town. We always try to get a little walk in several times a day, and usually fail unless we need to walk to the shops.
There was a pretty park with a modern fountain, and a restored rotunda. Several of the older hotels had been restored and changed to restaurants for modern motels adjoining the old hotels. We noticed the Park hotel was offering a discount for seniors.
Charters Towers was once the second largest town in Queensland, back in the gold rush days of the 1880's, and even had its own stock exchange in the nearly square mile of city centre. Cattle country now. although there is still some highly mechnised mining for the last of the economical gold and other minerals, plus tourism.
Woolworths closed at 5, so we just missed that. Most country towns roll up the sidewalks even earlier on a weekend. Luckily a Fresh Express was open for items like milk for our breakfast. At the very pretty main street, with its restored buildings, we found a Red Rooster (an Australian francise somewhat like KFC).
Jean discovered she could get a Seniors discount on the half chicken that made up most of our evening meal. She liked having a discount card, but we often forget discounts might be available. We walked back to the motel past attractive renovated buildings housing police, post office and tourist information. The local council office was a modern open construction with an arch leading through to the main areas.
Apart from some reading, we didn't get much done before collapsing for the evening. As tourists, we are real wimps.
Leaving Charters Towers, latitude 20.04S, longitude 146.15E.
Jean tried the Charter Towers motel phone, but her computer couldn't connect via it. This isn't an unusual problem with motel switchboards, especially in motels with a digital phone system. Jean had to use her CDMA cell phone to collect her email.
The motel room had a tiny fridge and a microwave oven, plus the usual tea making facilities. Airconditioning and a ceiling fan. Lacking were paper handkerchiefs and soap. Instead of soap they had dispensers for a cleaning liquid that smelled to me just like hospital antiseptic. Luckily we had soap with us.
We packed and repacked the car, and finally became convinced that just rearranging it wouldn't give us any more luggage space. I worked out we had actually discarded precisely one item, a very small cardboard box originally containing some extra plastic bags.
As we drove along the Flinders Highway, we saw more bicycles with panniers, and I marvelled as always at the people who would attempt long distance rides.
There were gentle rolling hills with low scrub and what looked like small gidgee trees. Outside Charters Towers the Flinders Highway was excellent, and zoned for 110kph.
Once out of the hills near Charters Towers, we had a dead straight stretch of road alongside the railway, disappearing into the horizon.
We stopped an hour down the road at a rest area for a midmorning snack from our cooler. We were a little surprised to find that the rest area actually had a toilet block. Mostly they are just a place to pull off, with maybe a picnic table.
The road took us through small towns with names like Balfes Creek (pop 12), where the railhead once was in 1884. Past the turnoff to Thalanga Mine, then Homestead (pop 100), Pentland (pop 300), established by the railway in 1884. Another stop for photos was at Burra Range lonkout, near the peak of the Great Dividing Range, at an altitude of a little over 500 metres.
We also stopped at the Exchange pub (ph (07) 4741 7342) at Torrens Creek (pop 18) where we had stopped several times before when in the motorhome. We found they had 9 hotel rooms upstairs and 5 motel units. The owners, Les and Denise Newland, told us it is up for sale, and they were planning to move to Bloomsbury. Best grafiti was encountered there "Australians think 100 years is a long time, Europeans think 100 kilometres is a long distance."
Grass plains, passing the start of the longest fence in the world, the dingo fence, which goes to South Australia. The Flinders grass was looking drier and drier as we passed through Prairie (pop 50), once a Cobb and Co stop before the railway came in 1884.
Once past the Great Dividing Range, we were in one of the flatest, oldest lands. Although only a few hundred kilometres inland, from this point pretty much all the rainfall in Queensland flows sluggishly inland, to Coopers Creek and if it hasn't evaporated, to Lake Eyre. None of the water flows to the sea. The water flow is slow, with land slopes of as little as six inches per mile, so rainwater can take the best part of a year to make its way down to Lake Eyre.
We stopped at Hughenden for fuel and lunch, leaving at 12:45 after taking some dinosaur photos. Lots of photos of Jean with weird giant animals, like Hughie the Mattaburrasaurus. One of the tourist revival themes here comes from the various dinosaur bones found in the area. Hughenden is typical of the larger towns in the area, with a population around 700.
We continued on to Richmond, on the Flinders, the longest river in Queensland. The shire has an area of about 27,000 square kilometres, about the size of Belgium. The town has a population of about 1000. It was originally a gold rush town, with 12 hotels. Then a sheep and cattle town, with the old Cobb and Co coaches, before the railway came through. Like most towns inland, Richmond depends on artesian water, with the first bore sunk in 1900.
We took a look at the Kronosaurus Korner fossil museum, and got more photos of Jean with dinosaur models. These included Minmi, one of the best preserved dinosaur specimens in Australia, which even had skin fossils. It also has a pliosaur.
We continued through ever flatter, ever drier mostly treeless country, covered in yellow Mitchell and Flinders grasses. A 360 degree view to the horizon in all directions, with only the road and the rail track to show humans had ever been here.
We stayed the night at Julia Creek (12310 km, latitude 20.39S longitude 141.44E), after a bit of a walk around the town (population of the area about 500). The pub had new motel units behind it. Nothing was open in town on a Sunday, of course, but the pub had a roast pork and vegetable meal available, and by then the temperature was down a little. A big feature of the town is the bi-annual Dirt and Dust Festival, which I guess says something. An associated event is the Kynuna surf carnival (no surf anywhere near that town of 18 people).
Despite it being winter, the outside temperature was about 32 degrees C for much of the day.
Leaving Julia Creek, latitude 20.39S longitude 141.44E.
We set off from Julia Creek around 8:30, after paying for our phone calls. Luckily the Telstra Big Pond ISP number is a local call throughout Australia. Jean also had a phone card for calling her mother in the USA, so that also wasn't a problem.
The dead straight road took us through a flat terrain covered in yellow Mitchell grass. Every ten or so kilometres we would sight a farmhouse.
Cloncurry (pop about 4000) was our next town. We had been through before, and it is a handy historic town with a good range of modern facilities, and some real Art Deco buildings like the Shire Hall and Library complex. It also has the dubious distinction of recording Australia's highest temperature in 1889 (53.1C or 127.5F). Perhaps appropriately, it is also known for being the birthplace of the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
We knew where the Woolworths supermarket was here, so we searched for a few breakfast items we hadn't been able to get prior to leaving home.
Between Cloncurry and the major mining town of Mt Isa on the Barkly Highway the country got hilly and much more interesting. There had obviously been recent rain, so there was a lot more greenery than usual.
We had originally planned to reach Mt Isa in two days, but our late start made that difficult. We had thought to have a rest day there, and perhaps check out a mine tour.
Instead we stopped at the Riversleigh fossil museum in central Mt Isa for lunch, followed by a museum tour. We had seen the D field at Riversleigh last year, but the museum places the fossils in more of a context. It also make it a lot easier to see them. I enjoyed the museum. It had some well done walkthrough dioramas. The film of extracting the fossils was a little out of focus, and the sound seemed muddy. Despite this it did help somewhat when we were actually in the fossil laboratory tour.
We did visit the lookout above town, and got a fine panorama of the town, although naturally a quarter of the horizon is dominated by the mine.
After the tour we decided to continue on to Camooweal for the night. Once past there towns are scarce, and not reaching Camooweal would make driving distances too much for us for comfort on the next leg. Also, we figured we would often be passing through Mt Isa.
There was a lot of road construction taking place, following the late close of the wet season.
A rest area between Mt Isa and Camooweal, commemorating the WWII road construction.
Mind you, once past the construction zone the road conditions were more interesting, although not single lane (unless the other vehicle was a road train, in which case we got out of their way).
We reached Camooweal (12789 km, latitude 19.55S, longitude 138.07E) around 4:30, getting the last of the six motel rooms at the Shell service station. This is nearly 200 km from Mt Isa, and well over 400km from Tennant Creek, so it is often the first or last chance to take break from driving. It is also only 12 km from the Northern Territory border, so we were finally leaving our home state. Took a walk around the town, which didn't take real long, given the population of the area is about 250.
We went down the road to the Post Office hotel for our evening meal. It was noisy and friendly, and the meat in the steak sandwich was still stringy. They came with chips (fries), and despite my diet I ate the chips. This hotel camping area was where we had stayed in the truck when passing through a couple of years ago, however it now appeared to be much expanded.
Leaving Camooweal 12789 km, latitude 19.55S, longitude 138.07E.
We got away around 8 a.m. I had a minor panic attack when my car key wouldn't work with the keyless system, thinking the battery in the key had failed. However it turned out just to be an unclosed door blocking the key system (I couldn't see the warning light in the sunlight). We refuelled here, since there is only one fuel stop before the Sturt Highway, and places do run out of fuel out here.
We crossed the new bridge across the Georgina River just outside town. This was being worked on when we were through two years ago. Now it stands high above the old low level bridge. The angle of the sun was such that we couldn't get a decent photo.
We stopped at the Northern Territory border to photograph the signs. There isn't much else to see in this tableland, unless we came across an eagle squatting at a roadkill carcass.
About 65 km along the road we came across Avon Downs, an isolated police station in the middle of nowhere. There was a parking area, with a brand new pit toilet, replacing the dilapidated one we saw two years ago. The Territory government had a driver reviver station, an electric urn on a table, with tea, coffee and sugar. Bring your own mug. Plus the often present donation box for the Royal Flying Doctor service.
The next rest area was after Soudan station, another 65km along, past the Rankin River.
We needed to turn our clocks back a half hour for Northern Territory time.
We reached Barkly Homestead (13053 km), 1600 km from home, before 11. We each had a chicken and salad sandwich too large to hold. Great prices too. Jean was keen to get some photographs of road trains, as they are larger in the Northern Territory than in any other state.
The road was pretty boring, and we stopped at each and every one of them. At 41 Mile bore I recorded the mournful screeching sound of the windmill using my Psion. By then we were only 70 km east of the Threeways, where we intercept the Sturt Highway, the main north south road between Adelaide and Darwin. We had to refuel at Threeways, at $1.31.5 a litre (that is A$4.98 a US gallon, or US$3.50).
We decided to skip backtracking 35 km to Tennant Creek (pop 4000) for the evening, as it was only a little after 1 p.m. Instead we headed north on the Sturt Highway to Renner Springs.
The countryside was lush and green, unlike any other time I've been through. The recent unseasonable rain in the centre of the country had really made a difference, and the desert was blooming.
There was one small plateau formation called Lubra's Lookout along the roadside, where tribal women were said to watch the approach of tribes from a considerable distance.
Renner Springs (13381 km latitude 18.19S, longitude 133.48E) is a little oasis on the Sturt Highway, in the Ashburton Ranges. A natural spring, a small lagoon, and bird life. Nothing else is around. We reached it a little before 3 p.m., giving us an easy following day. The place was named after Dr Frederick Renner, who tended to workers on the Overland Telegraph line, who noticed a variety of bird life and found the spring that drew them.
We didn't see a great variety of bird life during our walks around the spring. A darter drying its feathers. The usual geese, who aren't native, and didn't attack Jean, who was careful to stay well back. Still, it was a pretty place to stop for the day.
We had steak sandwiches again for dinner. This time we ordered them with salad, and got a giant meal out of it. Pretty typical for country pub meals.
Leaving Renner Springs, 13381 km, latitude 18.19S, longitude 133.48E.
We awoke at dawn, to a chorus of bird cries, however the loudest was a pretty standard rooster, nothing exotic at all.
By the time we were ready to leave at 8 a.m., everyone else had already left, often long before. Shows how inactive we are compared to all these 80 year olds.
We came upon a light plane parked alongside the main road. Obviously it would soon use the main road as a runway. Not unusual in more remote areas.
We stopped at Elliott (pop 600, Kulumindini to the Jingili people), the next town along. The outskirts seemed devoted to a dead car dump. It had at least three service stations, and the big feature is a 9 hole golf course. The town was developed during WWII, as No 7 Australian Personnel staging area for 1500 men on the third day of the run up from Alice Springs, and was named after Captain R.D. (Snow) Elliott. We didn't stop a little further along at historic Newcastle Waters, as there is basically nothing there except the 1936 museum.
One of the scenes Jean wanted to collect on photo was a road train. Not just any road train, but the supersize four trailer variety. We found one at Dunmarra roadhouse, but couldn't see all the road train for the trees. Near here is a tree with an S for Sturt carved in it. This was where Sturt's expedition found the water that saved them. Dunmarra is reputed to be named for Dan O'Mara, whose body was never found.
We stopped for lunch at HiWay Inn, wanting to see how the new owners of two years ago had developed it. Pretty impressive. We can report the chicken salad sandwiches are still large.
While we were there, a large tilt loader arrived with a giant diesel fuel tank. This was unloaded over a 30 minute period by sliding it onto an existing concrete slab, while we watched and photographed it.
This reminded us we needed fuel, only $1.27 a litre this time.
We didn't stop this time at historic 1938 Daly Waters pub, as we had visited there by motorhome in 2002. We had actually flown into the disused ex-Qantas airfield in 2003. This tiny, isolated spot, not used by commercial aircraft since 1965, was once Australia's first international airfield.
Further up the road, the caravan park and store at Larrima (pop 20) looked much the same, still with the large alligator out front. There is a free museum nearby, as well as the historic pub that was once a WWII officer's mess across the road.
On the way into Mataranka we diverted to the old Elsey homestead graveyard, to photograph the graves of the real historical people who became the characters in Jeannie Gunn's famous story of outback life, We of the Never Never.
Mataranka N.T. pop 250, 13811 km, latitude 14.54S, longitude 133.05E.
We stopped around 3 p.m. for the evening at Mataranka, at Bruce Ross's very small Mataranka Cabins (ph (08) 8975 4838) camping area on on his farm and orchard on the Little Roper River, on a old WWII army site. This is very near Bitter Springs, a part of the 13,840 hectare Elsey National Park, which feeds the Roper River. Mataranka Cabins had a total of two self contained cabins. This seemed a sufficiently rustic site for us, so we booked into one of the cabins. I'll add that they had air conditioning, a microwave, a TV and radio, a hotplate, ensuite, and a nice verandah. Like most of the country accommodation, what they lacked was a phone connection for the internet!
As soon as we had unpacked, we rushed the three kilometres back into Mataranka to try to get a dinner. I had been lusting after one of the great meat pies we had two years ago. However we were told the place making them had fallen upon hard times. I figured everthing closed at five, but there was a supermarket, so we got some frozen dinners (chicken kiev), for lack of anything better. We got some crackers to go with the brie we had in our cooler, and figured this would be a good place to open the bottle of Clancy's red we were carrying.
Back at the cabins we changed into swimming costumes and walked into the National Park. About a half kilometre brought us past the Little Roper River to Bitter Spring. Although it is winter, being at 14 degrees south means the days are still warm, peaking at about 32 degrees C. The natural spring water was about bath temperature, emerging from underground at a reported 34C. It was very pleasant, although you had to keep swimming against the current to avoid being swept a few hundred metres downstream to the next access point. That I wouldn't mind, but the walk back barefoot over sharp stones I could do without.
Back at the cabin. I thought we had a stove in the cabin, but it was only a grill top. We investigated the cooking implements included, and finally micro waved the chicken kiev. Since by then we had broached the now fridge cooled wine (32 degrees C is not the room temperature required by red wine), we thought the chicken kiev tasted fine.
Meanwhile, Jean needed to check her email. Like most places we had stayed in the past week, it didn't extend to a telephone. Fridge, grill, microwave, utensils, fans, airconditioner, TV yes, but no phone. Jean had to connect to the internet to collect email via her cell phone, which is both slow and expensive.
Staying at Mataranka.
Jean's phone messages included one that involved working to a very close deadline, in only a few weeks. Since she didn't need internet access except for email, we decided she could work best in an isolated place like Mataranka. One other option was to waste a day or more driving to Darwin, where we could get internet access, but where there were a lot of distractions. So we booked the cabin through to Tuesday morning, in the hope Jean could get most of the new book revised by then.
I went shopping at the local supermarket, and got supplies for our breakfasts, plus a couple of dinners and a bottle of wine. We had a choice of two low end chardonnay (Banrock Station or Nottage Hill) if we wanted white. One service station was closed. The Stockyard Gallery was closed. Didn't have much luck with sandwiches for lunch, and eventually reluctantly went back to the Shell station and raided their fridge for premade sandwiches. They were not as listed on the outside.
The Rural Transaction Centre (a government initiative to provide services to small towns like Mataranka, population 250) desk person told me that they had internet available via satellite at $2 for 15 minutes. I checked the room, and it seemed to have a bunch of RJ45 ethernet sockets, as well as their own computers. I asked about using our own laptops, but the desk person didn't know how we would do it, but raised no objection to us trying when we were next in with our computers.
I sat out on the balcony, and watched the cattle going home. Watched birds in a nearby nest. Watched insects, like the emerald green flying bug that inspected us several days in a row. Watched agile wallabies crossing the road to reach the water.
Each day when Jean finished work we walked down to Bitter Springs and went swimming at round 4 p.m.
Thanks to Veronica, the caretaker here, I was able to do laundry in a decent washing machine. The washing machine in the Shell station laundry, the only suggested alternative, is infested with geckos,
When I tried to use my laptop at the Rural Transaction Agency I was told by a (different) staff member that I coudn't possibly do that. Couldn't even try it. The staff member seemed deathly afraid of computers, and in fear something would break. So that was a dead loss. I can't really blame staff for being afraid to let us use our own computers. They can't really be expected to understand whether it will harm their network. However it is decidedly annoying.
Trying to get reasonable internet access via your own computer in country Australia is a disaster, if you can't get your hands on a standard analog phone line. When you have CDMA phone access you can use the cell phone. but that is both slow and expensive. GSM cell phones would also be fine, if they worked away from major towns, but they don't in Queensland or the Northern Territory. Anyway they are just as expensive as CDMA and even slower.
The search for food continued, with restocks at the supermarket. I got the last one of several items, like bacon. Stockyard Gallery was now open, so I got us some home made pies for lunch.
For dinner we headed to Homestead, about 10 km away near the splendid Mataranka thermal pool and Rainbow Spring, where we had stayed several years ago. The food service then had been pretty amateur, but we didn't mind that. They had an obvious bat problem this time. The smaller kitchen was closed. The menu in the main dining area didn't thrill us, and we couldn't get take away to evade the smell of the bats. We left.
Found an extra service station in town, but they were closed. We went on to Territory Manor, a larger caravan park in town. They had an excellent barramundi meal available. A slab of barra large enough that Jean coudn't finish eating it (not after all the salad she ate). That was pretty good stuff, although service was a bit slow (but very cheerful). We didn't manage to see them feeding their barramundi.
Much as previous days. Jean working furiously over a hot keyboard. The search for food continues. The Stockyard Gallery gave by far the best results, with chicken and salad sandwiches.
The Stockyard Gallery again for Jean's lunch sandwich.
At 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. I went out to take photographs with different light angles.
See previous day.
Leaving Mataranka 13875 km, latitude 14.54S longitude 133.05E.
We headed back south briefly, for the 12 km drive up John Hauser Drive to the Roper River. This led us through a half dozen or so minor water hazards, where the high water table had left the road flooded after minor rain. We did eventually get to Roper River, and saw the river cruise boat used for the afternoon tours. Some more adventurous people were canoeing. Here also were the old 12 Mile Yards used for cattle in the past.
At Roper River Jean had a problem with her camera, which was failing to work. As I'd recently recharged her camera batteries we were at a loss to identify the cause. I finally thought to loan her my spare batteries, and that worked. Meanwhile, I found that I had filled my main compact flash camera memory card with photos, and had to move over to a tiny spare memory card. I'll get back to the cameras later.
We stopped at the Stockyard Gallery in Mataranka so Jean could see the range of aboriginal art available.
Then we finally headed north again for the short drive to Katherine. We didn't bother to stop at Cutta Cutta Caves, as we had seen these tropical caves on a previous trip. About 20 kms from Katherine we came to a sign for some store saying turn at the traffic lights. Our first traffic lights on this trip, and only the one set in town.
We needed to stay in Katherine (pop 11,000, 14022 km, latitude 14.28S, longitude 133.17E) as this was where we could get a motel room with a phone. We stayed at the Mercure, just out of town, and it was very comfortable. I was suffering from a cold, although I don't know how I picked it up in the tropics.
We did some food shopping, of which Jean ate most. Although there was both a bookshop and a newsagent in town, I couldn't find anything I wanted in them. Tuesday was a day early to get the Tuesday newspaper, which arrives on Wednesday. A day old newspaper is a lot better than the past week, where no newspapers were available.
We were both able to catch up on email, however the best speed we got over the phone line was 28 kbps. This was my first chance at a phone line during this trip.
Staying at Katherine.
The Katherine area was first used by the Jawoyn and Dagoman people, whose territory includes the Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge) National Park we visited in 2002. Ludwig Leichhardt came through in his 1844 expedition, but the river was named after his daughter Catherine by explorer John McDowell Sturt in 1862. Like many towns along the Sturt highway, it developed after the Overland Telegraph came through at Knott's Crossing. At 11,000 people, Katherine is the third largest town in the Northern Territory.
Jean had managed to send her revised OpenOffice book off to O'Reilly, so she went off food and wine shopping.
Later in the day, when the Ghan arrived at Katherine railway station, she went off to see that during its four hour stop. She managed to talk her way onboard, and take photographs inside the various dining and standard cars.
XXX Jean to add more material about the Ghan.
Later evidence showed she had done more food shopping, and brought back six little Magnum ice creams. Well, they won't keep. We finished the last as a finale for breakfast next day.
Leaving Katherine, 14072 km, latitude 14.28S, longitude 133.17E.
We were fairly late, around 9 a.m., heading off from the Mercure motel.
Jean's Kodak digital camera had again failed, with the batteries I'd recharged showing half full. Alkaline batteries didn't work at all. Jean also thought she had dropped the camera. We decided to try new batteries from Tandy in Katherine, since she wanted a replacement long life Lithium battery in any case (we have had great results with these, despite the high cost). Luckily in the store it became obvious that the battery compartment catch was too flimsy, and just wouldn't latch correctly. In the car park we made a temporary repair with duct tape, but alas it won't last. Too many controls on the camera are in the way of where we need the tape to stick.
Jean drove the 200 km along the Victoria Highway to Victora River Crossing, in the eastern (Victoria River) section of Gregory National Park (13,000 sq km). We stopped pretty frequently to take landscape photos, however many of the better spots were where pulling over was a problem. The landscape changed from flat to weathered hills and plateaus, all much greener and lush than we had expected. Some of the rivers still even had water in them.
We stopped early for the day, at the roadhouse at Victoria River Crossing (14274 km, latitude 15.37S, longitude 131.08E), now apparently under new management (well, it was new three years ago, but who needs to take signs down?) Had a nice chicken and salad sandwich lunch, and booked a room for the night. After a rest we went for a walk along an overgrown path down to the river. Obviously we didn't go in the water, as saltwater crocodiles might like a meal. Victoria River is one of the longest rivers in the Northern Territory.
Our next walk was down the highway to the bridge across the river, where the water was about eight metres below the roadway. We noticed flood depth signs all the way back along the road to the roadhouse, where the flood depth sign showed the 26 metre level.
We hoped morning will bring better lighting on some of the surrounding cliff walls, and indeed it did.
Leaving Victoria River Crossing, 14274 km, latitude 15.37S, longitude 131.08E.
No hot water in the morning. Indeed, no water at all from the hot taps. I was not impressed. Still, there were some nice views of the cliffs in the morning.
We drove to the river to see where the boat tours leave from. The last of the track looked a bit too rough. We also located the Gregory National Park escarpment walk access point. Next we went down a rough trail to the old road crossing for a walk plus photos of the original low level crossing where the river is very shallow. We could see lots of Telecom signs from where communication cables were run. Our next stop along the Victoria Highway in the Gregory National Park area was the Joe Creek walk area, which gave a very different view of cliffs.
About 57 km down the road was Kuwang lookout, showing the Aboriginal names given to various parts of the distant escarpment.
We reached Timber Creek (pop 300, latitude 15.40S, longitude 130.29E) in time for lunch. This is a small township within what is now the lands of the Ngaliwurru and Nangali people, after a 1984 land claim. I still hadn't recovered from my cold, so I wasn't paying attention to much. We booked a room anyway, because Jean had a good signal on her cell phone, and could collect her email from here.
The major tourism things seem to be scenic flights and boat tours, crocodiles, plus ever present barramundi fishing. Some of the scenic flights seemed good value, with a very reasonable Bungle Bungles and Argyle Mine flight by Northern Air Charter at under $300.
Explorer Augustus Gregory named Timber Creek in 1855, when he stopped to repair his boat with local timber. The town was however just known as the Depot in early days, when it was a distribution point for supplies shipped in for remote cattle stations.
We took a Heritage walk later in the afternoon, on a trail devised by the local community, the NT tourist commission, and the parks and wildlife commission. It was warm out, and there wasn't a lot of interest happening on that walk given the distance involved. More suited to the young and fit than to more sedentary types. I figured we could reach much of it by car at some stage.
Jean managed to find a good lunch, but I didn't feel like eating anything. I mentioned that Jean had managed to get a decent hamburger for lunch. She wanted to try a different establishment (there are two in town), and set off to bring dinner back to the room. I got a poor meat substitute in my dinner hamburger, unlike the good one she had for lunch. Same cook, working at two different establishment (both hotels, and both caravan parks in town appear to be owned by the same people). I thought Jean avoided any food problems for herself by getting a barra burger. Jean however says her barra burger wasn't much better than my hamburger.
Leaving Timber Creek, N.T. latitude 15.40S, longitude 130.29E.
I was still not well, but feeling better than I had for most of the week.
We set off from Timber Creek for the Heritage Trail, where we were able to inspect the old police station from 1908, now a museum. From 1898, Constable O'Keffe was basically camped in a bough hut, so I'd imagine the permanent station was a great advance. A replacement police station was built on stilts in 1935, and both are preserved as historic buildings. Nearby were graves and a very enlightened comment about the wake.
We continued six km west of town to the turnoff to various lookouts above the river, giving a spectacular view of the countryside. One included a humorous and cynical poem from WWII. Further along was a lookout showing the entire town. A monument celebrated the activities of the Nackeroos, the North Australian Observer Unit, a horseback force in the outback in WWII. The road in to the lookouts was much better than we expected, with most of the uphill sections fully paved under a Federal and local road scheme. One feature I found fascinating was the orange coloured trees in this area. I have no idea of the species, and have not seen them anywhere else.
Further along the main road we came to an impressive military bridge across the river. Although the road was closed, this led to a defence firing range on what was probably once Bradshaw station.
We diverted 16 km west of Timber Creek to view the Gregory Tree, a boab vandalised by carving in 1855-56 by Augustus Gregory, one of the better Australian explorers (he didn't kill himself while exploring). This was a permanent camp for Gregory's expedition, and is situated on the banks of the creek. Like most of the previous tourist sites, it is in Gregory National Park.
I must mention one of the niche businesses we noted. This was Gibb River Express, who run a three times a week in each direction transit service (in the dry season) over the Gibb River Road from Kununurra to Derby, with the 700 km trip taking about 12 hours. The bus naturally enough is a robust four wheel drive vehicle, since anything less can't handle the road conditions. In the wet season, nothing goes over the road!
Entry to the Keep River National Park (750 sq km) was to the north, just 3 km before the N.T. and W.A. border. Formed gravel roads with (alas) the usual corrugations make for reasonable dry season entry by conventional cars. The drive in was about 25 km of dirt road. There are picnic tables and pit toilets in the park. The park is in the tribal lands of the Mirriwung and Gadjerong people, and includes a Nganalam (cockatoo dreaming) tribal art site of around 2500 drawings, as well as secret sacred sites to which entry is not permitted. There are several Aboriginal communities within the park boundaries.
We went for a walk in the Keep River gorge, and the late rain had left some pools of water in the gorge floor. You wouldn't want to go swimming even in the river, due to crocodiles. The Keep River National Park features a 250 million year old Palaeozoic volcanic landscape, as well as limestone cliffs. Boabs trees dot the landscape and march up steep hillsides like lonely sentinels.
At the West Australian border we encountered plant quarantine. We had previously either used up or discarded all our fruit and vegetables, and discarded our remaining honey. We weren't likely to have anything else of interest to the quarantine authorities.
It was interesting to note that just after the border we encountered gently rising country. Where we had previously had scenic plateau, now the landscape was seriously tilted and twisted, looking like a set of children's bricks in collision.
When further along the road, we diverted to Lake Argyle for a visit. The Ord River dam was an impressive 335 metres long, and 98 metres high. There was a wonderful picnic area below the dam, which was built as an impervious clay core, earth fill dam in 1972, rather than as the original concrete design. The construction cost was $22 million in 1972, and Ord irrigation area crop output is now $70 million a year. We took many photos of the dam, and the impressive Lake Argyle, which covers 1000 sq km. It is a bit of a pity so many interesting geological formations have disappeared under the waters of the largest constructed lake in the Southern hemisphere. Lake Argyle is so large that it is considered an inland sea, and is the eighth largest artificial lake in the world.
The small 30 megawatt hydro electric power station at Lake Argyle now also supplies the Ord River irrigation area support town of Kununurra, which we were surprised to learn had a population of around 7,000 people. The population of Kununurra approximately doubles during the tourist and fruit picking season. The same hydro electric plant supplies the Argyle diamond mine, and also Wyndham, from its 220 gigawatt hour annual output. These sites all used diesel power plants until relatively recently, although the hydro electric plant was installed when the dam was built.
pop 6000, 14749 km, latitude 15.46S, longitude 128.44E.
It was about a 35 km drive back to the highway, and then another 35 km into Kununurra. We soon located the Hotel Kununurra. We were somewhat shocked by the room prices (around twice what the RAC accommodation guide suggested), but it was still almost the cheapest place in town, especially as we wanted phone access. Jean negotiated a bit of a discount with Sa, the very active receptionist, who also seemed to organising part of the dinner area and the Zebra Rock bar. The name gave me pause. I hate rock music. However it turned out to have an entirely different meaning.
Jean had a great dinner barramundi, while I couldn't manage more than soup. We did manage to get a very nice Evans and Tate chardonnay to go with the meal. Our plans for a possible (cheap) air tour on Sunday fell through.
I took a walk after dinner through some of town business centre. In the dark a loud looming drunk startled me, and I loomed right back. This distracted me from discovering there actually was a Coles store open in the tiny mall.
We took a long walk through lots of the business area. There were many signs that outback tourism was a major activity of the town.
We visited the extensive and helpful Kununurra Visitors Centre tourist information area in the Kimberley Tourism House building, and were able to get details of more areas to see.
In part of the same building was the local Telecentre network. This community owned and operated internet access area was originally state government funded around 11 years ago, with a $30,000 startup grant, and is one of nearly 100 in West Australia. Funding from the West Australian Department of Local Government and Regional Development is only given to communities that have sufficient enthusiasts who want to do this sort of work, and also have a plan of how they will maintain the facilities. The government department provides the network connection, however the community has to fund the computers and their replacements, and also provide the space to accommodate the centre. As each Telecentre is autonomous, the facilities and rules vary considerably in each community. For example, this one had space for you to use your own laptop with a network connection. It also had a service to burn digital photos to a CD. Whatever the services available, all Telecentres co-operate in solving problems faced in common, by use of internal forums.
I was much more impressed by the attitude of the Telecentre co-ordinator here in Kununurra than I was by the internet access at the Rural Transaction Centre in Mataranka in the Northern Territory. There they were afraid of computers, and couldn't imagine allowing travellers to connect to the network. This made the Mataranka system of little use except perhaps for looking at web pages.
This being a major town, it had a newsagent, and the newsagent was open. However newspapers arrive midmorning the day after their cover date. This is distinctly better than no newspaper at all, so were able to get the Weekend Australian
Found the Coles entrance finally, and since it was open seven days, we restocked our food box. We also got a takeaway lunch.
We took a drive around the extensive flat Ord River irrigation area surrounding the town, set up in the 1970s. Kununurra (a local Aboriginal term said to mean meeting of big waters) is the service town set up in 1958 and gazetted in 1961 for the area before the irrigation area was established. It is thus one of the newest towns in West Australia, and is fairly large, with a population of around 7,000.
We went out Ivanhoe Road, then diverted a short distance along River Farm Road to Barra Barra and Top Rockz. Then back to Ivanhoe Road past many crops, including sugar cane, to Ivanhoe Crossing, where the water flows freely over the causeway. Next was an unnamed road past the Melon Farm.
We visited The Hoochery rum distillery outside Kununurra on Weaber Plains Road. This is the only pot still rum distillery in W.A. They make their rum from Ord River sugar cane molasses, using wet season rainwater. This isn't a large operation. The labels were even originally hand signed (they said they found 1000 labels a week a bit of a chore, and now use a rubber stamp). After sampling their two year oak barrel matured rum and the less mature cane spirit, we bought a bottle of their Ord River Rum to use with mixers, and then didn't mix it. This is the finest Australian sipping rum we have ever tasted! Not as flavourful and forceful as the somewhat harsh Bundaberg, but with lots more flavour than the too genteel Beenleigh.
Back to town past the small sugar mill (I estimate a half million tons a season) and on out past Diversion Dam and Packsaddlers Road to Zebra Rock gallery. This was a wonderful place for rockhounds. The soft 600 million year old striped zebra rock is unique to small reefs of stratified shale in a pastoral area near Kununurra. The stone is a fine grained siliceous argillite siltstone, in which the red bands or spots are coloured by ferric oxide. We bought a bag of samples, to turn into paperweights (about the only extra item we can allow into our apartment). The open air workshop lets you see exactly how the stone is worked.
Sunday was roast night at our hotel, so we had roast lamb with local vegetables. Cooking quality was a bit amateur hour, but it still tasted OK to me.
Jean left at 8:30 for a light plane flight to view Mitchell Falls and the Mitchell Plateau. She had a stop at Drysdale station. I guess Jean better add something to these notes.
Her tour was with Kerry and Pat Slingby's Slingair, one of the most successful W.A. air tour operators, a family company now running 50 aircraft from their base at Kununurra airport.
I still had a cold, and stayed behind to do our laundry. I took some photos around town, looked at Argyle diamonds, did some shopping, dumped surplus books we had read in the free book bin at the Telecentre, and (probably to Jean's disgust) discovered Boab Books so I could restock. There are a number of Aboriginal art outlets, including Red Rock Gallery in Coolibah Drive.
We got takeaway salads for dinner, and then spoiled our economy by visiting the hotel bottle shop for another bottle of the Evans and Tate (it did however last us two nights this time). Of course, we did have the Hoochery rum to supplement the wine.
Jean had to work on her books, doing appendices for her book about online help somewhat in advance of the publisher's deadlines. The rest of the book is complete, but we fear too many deadlines crowding in on her at one time now that there is also the O'Reilly OpenOffice Writer book to complete.
We picked up a packed lunch at the Coles complex, and drove to the tiny 2,068 hectare Mirima National Park, the entrance to whose Hidden Valley section was within walking distance of town, and only a kilometre from the Victoria Highway. The name Mirima was given to the area by the Miriwoong people of East Kimberley. Although less clear, some of the rocks have some of the same characteristic black and gold bands as the Bungle Bungles, and have led to some claiming the area is a miniature Bungle Bungle park.
Hidden Valley had some stunning rock and sandstone cliff views for such a small park. I actually ran my camera batteries flat taking photos. We did the 800 metre Derdbe-gerring banan lookout hike to the top of the escarpment. As well as the colourful cliffs, we also had a view over Kununurra and over part of the Ord Valley irrigation area. We returned via the short trail that showed and described many of the plants of the area. We also did the easy 500 metre Demboong banan gap valley floor walk. We didn't spot any of the rock wallaby or wallaroo that live in the park, but did come upon an interesting looking lizard. Take plenty of film to this compact park.
Our next stop was a return visit to the The Hoochery rum distillery where we were this time able to take their fine tour. It was interesting to see the modern, stainless steel approach to what is actually a very traditional craft. Rum can be a fairly high turnover product, since it matures only for two years. A working family farm, their other spirit products are Cane Royale chocolate and coffee liquor, and Aguardiente, an attractive Australian ouzo produced from their farm grown aniseed.
We completed our visit by sampling their fine chocolate rum cake and rum flavoured cream. Very nice it was too, and a more than suitable substitute for the Devonshire tea I'd desired.
Reversing the direction we drove on Sunday, we visited Top Rockz for a better looks at their collection of local semiprecious stones. As with Zebra, it was pretty neat. They didn't however offer the chance of seeing the actual open air workshop of Zebra.
I spent much of the early morning organising and annotating the 532 photos I've taken to date on the trip. I'm very thankful that Apple included some organising features in their iPhoto film viewing package, although it could do with a more robust and flexible search feature.
We were collected from the Hotel Kununurra around 10 by our Slingair pilot Benn. The bus also stopped at Kona Lakeside caravan park to collect another couple, who had forgotten their video camera. We waited for them to collect it. They said Kona was a very nice park.
As we took off, our air tour in a Cessna 207 with Slingair today from Kununurra airport gave views of the 1963 Diversion Dam which formed Kununurra Lake, just outside Kununurra. The Ord River construction scheme started in 1958. There was an experimental government farm in the area in 1941, and Kimberley Durack, grandson of the pioneering family, was instrumental in getting that established. In 1946, the Kimberley Research Station (renamed Frank Wise Institute in 1985, after the agricultural advisor who examined the area in 1928, and became West Australian premier in 1945) was established on Ivanhoe Plain. The 15,000 hectares of the Ord River irrigation area spread all about us. By 2010 the irrigated areas will extend to nearly 65,000 hectares.
We saw areas like the market gardens on Packsaddle Plains clearly from the air, whereas when we drove there we could not really see how extensive they were. The area supplies about 40% of the rockmelons in Australia. We also saw sugarcane, bananas and mangoes. The Ord earlier grew rice, cotton and sorghum. Birds got the rice and and to some extent the sorghum, and insecticide resistant pests killed off cotton crops by 1974. Around 480,000 tons of sugar cane is now grown annually. Much of the vegetable and fruit is out of season in other areas when it is grown, and thus commands premium prices.
We flew a short distance for views of the extensive Lake Argyle, largest artificial lake in the Southern hemisphere (8th largest worldwide), and the Carr Boyd range in which it is set. Lake Argyle was created because the storage capacity of Lake Kununurra was insufficient for the planned agricultural activity of the Ord River area. In contrast, Lake Argyle could irrigate the region for several years even if no more rain fell. The lake filled to capacity in 1973, and the spillway flowed until 1984. Since then wet season rainfall has been insufficient to bring the lake above its design capacity of ten times the volume in Sydney Harbour. The normal area of the lake is 980 square kilometres, holding 5672 million cubic metres. The flood surface area is 2072 square kilometres, holding six time the normal capacity, or 34655 million cubic metres of water.
We had a clear view of Spillway Creek, the overflow for the lake. We also got an excellent view of the actual dam, some 8 km away from Spillway Creek. We could see the old Durack family Argyle Downs homestead, moved in 1971 from its original position in what is now lake bed. We could also see the Lake Argyle tourist village, which was originally the dam construction site village.
We landed at the excellent airfield at Rio Tinto's Argyle diamond mine, which commenced in 1983, with the plant complete in December 1985. We were initially astonished at the quality of the work facilities for staff. The 750 staff mostly work 12 hour shifts for two weeks, and then face one of the longest commutes in the world, 3200 km back to Perth on a Boeing 727, for their two weeks off. They are housed in individual motel style units with full facilities. They also have an impresive safety record, especially for such a large operation. We had lunch in their mess hall, and had a fine cafeteria meal, better than any similar meals we have encountered so far on this trip. I was most impressed, especially when I even managed to get ice cream.
The mine tour was mostly within the bus, as security at the mine do not want people walking around looking for rough diamonds. Our Slingair driver Chris explained the process.
The ore body is 1.6 kilometres long, 250 metres wide, and covers 80 hectares. It is presently operated as an open pit mine. First remove 80 millions tons of rock covering a year by blasting it out in 3000 ton chunks using anfo explosive. Excavators eat at the blasted rock in 45 ton bites, and then haul it 2.5 kilometres away to the main crusher plant in 200 ton dump trucks. From this is extracted ten million tons of the black lamproite diamond bearing ore. That is crushed, scrubbed and screened down in size with various massive stages of crushing, until everything is between certain sizes (I think they said 3 mm to 15 mm). This does mean a certain number of larger diamonds would be crushed.
Separate the rocks in a gravity settling tank, with an admixture of an easily identifiable middle density layer, and the denser stuff is what needs to be checked for diamonds. Traditional methods were a drum with a layer of fat, to which the diamond was intended to stick. Argyle couldn't get details of how to make that work, and instead use a cone over which the ore cascades down. An X-ray source make diamonds fluoresce. Photocells detect the glow, and compressed air jets automatically blast such specimens out of the falling rock. The ore goes through this sorting process three times, to ensure maximum return. The plant can process 11 million tons a year, and operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. From all this they extract 30-35 million carets (about 5-6 tonnes) of diamonds, mostly for industrial use.
We were shown the highly automated control room overlooking the plant. Lots of computer screens and closed circuit TV cameras (which are separate from the over 300 security cameras). The entire plant floor could be felt to be vibrating from the crushers.
After takeoff we overflew the massive Argyle diamond mine main pit and workings. This open-cut site is now almost exhausted, and is expected to run out in 2007. There is an experimental shaft deep under the site, as the mine tests to see whether deeper mining is justified.
Argyle are covering the exposed and mined areas with rock, and re-vegetating the entire area.
We flew off to view the 209,000 hectare Bungle Bungles (Purnululu) National Park. Partly due to the heavy tourist air traffic in the area, we don't get as low as we might like (2500 feet), but do clearly see and overfly the characteristic beehive domes. An alternative is to drive in to the Kurrjong or Walardi camping areas 50 km from a made road, if you have the time, but the 4WD track through Mabel Downs Station is reported to be very rough, and we got a good view from the air in any case. The remote Bungle Bungle massif has been part of the World Heritage listed (2003) Purnululu National Park since 1987. Prior to that it had aboriginal cultural significance to the Kija people, but was largely unknown to those outside the area. The Bungle Bungle name is said to be a corruption, referring to the Aboriginal name for local bundle bundle grass.
The range was formed from sand and gravel deposited 360 million years ago in the Devonian period by rivers flowing from the north east. Prevailing south easterly winds helped form sand dunes, and eventually forming sandstone. Sandstone seven kilometres deep was formed over 60 million years. Uplift and mountain building raised the sandstone into a flat surface 600 metres above the present sea level. Then erosion over the past 20 million years exposed the alternating several metre wide tiger stripes we see today. The dark bands where moisture was present contain cyanobacteria (blue green algae) which help protect the sandstone from erosion. The orange bands contain iron oxide, which also forms a protective film over the soft sandstone. The orange layers apparently dried out too quickly for the cyanobacteria to grow.
The park contains a number of unique plants, including the Livistonia or Fan Palm, seen clinging to crevices within the range. I also noted many boab trees, especially along water courses.
We flew past Echidna Chasm and the north west tip, got a good view of Horseshoe Valley before going over the Eastern Bungles. We saw Piccaninny Gorge and Deep Gorge, almost 800 feet of narrow vertical cliffs, and finally the western wall as we left. We had at least 20 minutes in the air over the range. On this trip I went through about 250 photos.
Rather than drive in (about four hours by 4WD), an easy way to see the park is to fly in, and take a local tour from the airstrip near one of the campsites. Walkers can't climb the beehive domes because the rock is very fragile. All walks are done in the stream beds.
During our return flight we overflew the Osmond range, Texasdowns cattle station (70,000 hectares), the abandoned Bow River alluvial diamond mine, on part of the Lissadell pastoral lease. Bow River used to get 20% gem diamonds, against 5% at Argyle. The Lissadell cattle station covers 200,000 hectares and supports 20,000 Brahman cattle. Operations mostly move to cooler areas during the wet, when you can't muster cattle in any case.
Other flying tours from Kununurra are run by Alligator Airways, who have operated in the area for around 20 years. It is pure chance who we took for our flight. Alligator do sponsor an environmental project at Kachana Station.
I got sent out late to locate a snack for dinner, and found cooked chicken at Coles.
Diamonds are an interesting industry, in that De Beers have had a monopoly of rough stones for over half a century. The diamond jewellery industry sells US$60 billion a year. De Beers (45% of the market) run the mines in Botswana (number 1), South Africa (number 4) and Namibia (number 7), and delivered stable incomes to the governments of these countries, which are among the richest and least unstable in Africa. Rivals in Russia (number 2), Canada (number 3) and Australia (number 8) such as Alrosa, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto have been challenging De Beers over the last decade or so. The central clearing system has been holding prices high, and has been very secretive. The Kimberley Process is designed to ensure that governments issue certificates of origin for the diamonds they export, so diamonds can be tracked. The Congo was recently under fire for failing to prove the origin of diamonds.
Leaving Kununurra, 14879 km, latitude 15.46S, longitude 128.44E.
Settling our bill at the Hotel Kununurra took some time as the new staff didn't know how to set phone calls to BigPond for internet access to local calls. Luckily Sa was there to help train the receptionist.
We visited the post office to post our mail out. Calendars to the USA, plus zebra stone sample wrapped in neoprene beer coolers. Jean somehow lost her sunglasses, but luckily we eventually found them back in the post office.
Then we were finally off on the Great Northern Highway, which leads towards Wyndham.
We took some photos at a rest area near the turnoff to Halls Creek, that we would later need to return to.
Latitude 15.55S, longitude 128.08E.
About 60 km north of Kununurra we turned off the Great Northern Highway onto the Gibb River Road for El Questro, a private pastoral lease wilderness park of around a million acres owned by Will and Celia Burrell. This was established around 1991 when the Burrell's bought 400,000 hectares of failing cattle station land along the Gibb River Road. El Questro extends some 80 kilometres, and includes parts of four river systems.
The name El Questro is said to have come from the original owners after a hard night of drinking prior to registering the property. They had a Spanish name, devised by a Spanish speaker, and intended to describe the countryside. Not being able to recall that name in the morning, they came up with a name that sounds Spanish, but means nothing.
El Questro has a range of facilities that range from the fully conducted tours and luxury to camping. The Homestead on the Chamberlain River takes only 12 guests, and prices range from $800 per person up.
The 25 km section of the Gibb River Road leading to El Questro at least was well formed gravel, admittedly with some corrugations when we were there. As with any road in the tropical north not rated as all weather, road conditions can change dramatically over a remarkably short time. Tour drivers tell us that buses are getting through.
The Emma Gorge resort in the Cockburn ranges was only a few kilometres off the Gibb River Road, just past a dirt airstrip that terminated at the road. The trail continued, and it had a minor water hazard where you cross the creek.
We booked into a shared facilities cabin (raised solid floor, short walls, and a tent roof), the last one still available. Emma Gorge is a new resort in El Questro, and it ranges from $135 to $220 a night for a room. The resorts in El Questro are managed by Accor.
As soon as we had collected maps and unpacked a few things we drove off again to explore the area.
It was about 11 km further along the Gibb River Road to the trail turnoff to the Station Township, with a well graded dirt road the whole way. There were a number of shallow stream crossings, with the only long water hazard the Pentecost River about 16 km along, just prior to Station Township. We had lunch there, just take away sandwiches and fruit juice, which cost $17. Little here is cheap, as is common in remote areas where transport costs can be a major concern. We noticed helicopter tours leaving from just in front of the station. There is bungalow accommodation with private facilities here at around $220. A very small store adjoints the Swinging Arm Bar, which has live entertainment on some evenings. The Steakhouse Restaurant has a fine menu. Riverside camping is available nearby, plus there are private camping sites spread out over 6 km of the Pentecost River bank.
We continued along the dirt road past the airstrip and past private camping areas along the river to Chamberlain Gorge. A bit of a steep descent, but great views from the jetty on Chamberlain River. A boat is certainly the best way to see the gorge, and the resorts can organise one for you. There is rock art at a end of the boat trip, and you can also arrange barramundi fishing. Other activities include horse riding, however about 21 different guided tours are offered. Luckily none of the 7,000 crossbred Brahman cattle on the property are very near the tourist facilities, which doubtless helps cut down blowfly problems in tourist areas.
From one spot on this trail you can see the Homestead, situated in an isolated spot on the Chamberlain River.
Back via Station Township, with a stop for an ice cream, and back across the very shallow Pentecost River again.
We got back to our tented cabin, found our Hoochery Ord River rum, and settled down for a quiet drink and to read our books in the rapidly waning, tree filtered sunlight. Lots of bird life appeared around us in this bush setting. Luckily there were not many insects at this time of year. The electric light in the tent is yellow anti-insect, but don't give all that much light for reading inside. By then we had unpacked our own battery fluorescent light, so we could have read.
When we checked at the restaurant, we found that they had several bus tours staying that evening. In fact, we were the only two regular guests. So they didn't really want to cope with an al la carte dinner for us (their chef was assisting at one of the other restaurants). They asked if we would consider the buffet dinner they were doing for one of the tour groups. That was actually better for me, and Jean was also happy with it. They also gave us a pretty reasonable price, considering the buffet included dessert.
In the parking lot I noted an Outback Spirit high chassis bus (I'm always interested in spirits in the outback). This was one of the bus tours with whom we were sharing the Emma Gorge resort. They were on a 12 or 13 day Darwin to Broome trip, with the bus driving in to places like the Bungle Bungles (4 hours for the 60 kilometres of dirt road once they left the highway). We noticed that all these adventure tours (which we thought would contain youthful backpackers) seemed packed with people our own age, many of them obviously bringing along a surviving parent of even greater age! They seemed to be in high spirits.
We celebrated with pre-dinner glasses of a Conti cabernet sauvignon and a Leaping Lizard shiraz. Both Margaret River, both very tasty. The buffet was splendid, and as we went through after the tour group, I overate (there was plenty left). Barramundi with a lemon and something sauce, a nice little exceedingly tender Kimberley beef steak, tasty fat free sausages, lots of vegetables, plentiful salads, cheese platter, fresh fruit, desserts, chocolate cake, fresh baked bread, the food just kept appearing. Jean attacked the whipped cream and custard and jello and fruit dish (we don't know its name) twice. Actually, I overate something fierce.
A great buffet breakfast, where I astonished Jean with how much of my favourite foods I could put away. I did groan a lot for a long time afterwards. The quality of the food was astonishing. Sausages that were almost fat free, to go with the bacon and scrambled eggs (or perhaps pseudo eggs) and tomato and baked beans. Many varieties of cereals. Delicious fresh tasting fruits. Grapes the size of plums. Hot chocolate drinks. Fruit juice. The staff were all exceedingly helpful. I overate again.
Drive about 20 km to Zebedee Springs, which was named by Will Burrell after a character in The Magic Roundabout, a children's TV show. After a fairly easy (yellow) walk in through tropical vegetation, we came to a thermal spring set among towering cliffs, with livistonia palms around. Jean sat in the warm water for a considerable time. The springs are only open to visitors from 6 a.m. until midday.
We headed a further 25 km along the Gibb River Road to the Pentecost River crossing. I waded across the clear water above the shallow causeway, naturally keeping a very careful eye out for crocodiles (no swimming in this river), so I could photograph Jean driving the Subaru across the river against the backdrop of the Kimberleys.
Splendid views of the walls in the sunlight as we returned, so we stopped often for photographs.
We collapsed on our return, despite not having walked very far.
I quote. Walking trails in El Questro vary from rugged to challenging and difficult.
Many of the trails are rated blue, and are difficult for older people. For example, Emma Gorge has large boulders, and the guide warns you will need to use both your arms and your legs to negotiate many sections of the walk. Other sections have steep and slippery boulders. It is suitable only for fit and able walkers, and not after 2 p.m. El Questro Gorge longer walk is rated as very difficult and challenging, including climbing large boulders. It must not be attempted after 1 p.m. and only by physically fit and capable walkers.
I went off around 4 p.m. to do their easy green trail nature walk, with 31 plants or trees marked. This took only about 20 minutes, and apart from a creek crossing, is all level.
I returned from the nature walk seeking sunset views, which I thought were from the other cabin area. Couldn't find Jean at our tent, nor in the other area. Soon after I gave up and returned to the tent, Jean arrived. She had been at the entrance to the resort, waiting for me.
We visited Boab Gully seeking sunset views, however the walk is very rocky along the shaded creek bed, and although there are numerous boabs, we didn't see a suitable spot from which to view the sunset. Also, it takes long enough that returning at dusk would be dangerous. This is marked as a yellow trail.
I was too full (from dinner the previous night, and breakfast) to try the fine al la carte dinner selection (I had also skipped lunch). We did have a glass of Leaping Lizard cabernet sauvignon and shiraz that evening. They were fine Margaret River wines.
Jean recovered her appetite later in the evening, and had kangaroo for her evening meal. The chef at the Homestead, Marcus van Clute, formerly of the Como Hotel in Melbourne, appears to supervise what is available at the other restaurants. I asked the chef how they managed to prepare tender kangaroo (it normally isn't a meat I think of as tender), and was told they marinated it in milk for 24 hours before cooking. I have to mention that all the El Questro restaurant food I tried was of excellent quality. This particularly appeared in little things, where we were not dining al la carte. The sausages were almost fat free, lightly spiced, and very tasty. The barbecue steak was the best I've had on this trip. The fresh fruit at breakfast was superb, not something that is easy to manage in remote areas. This sort of quality doesn't happen by accident, especially when it appears in buffet style meals.
Leaving Emma Gorge, 15133 km, latitude 15.55S, longitude 128.08E.
We drove off in the very early morning, before breakfast. We carry breakfast cereal, but we couldn't get milk in the park, and unlike most accommodation in Australia, didn't have a fridge in the tented cabin.
So, back over the Gibb River Road 25 km to the Great Northern Highway, then 50 km further north to Wyndham (pop 1000, 15222 km). It was very obviously low tide, and so you could see extensive tidal flats, and a wide range of mosquitos.
Despite the port town not being all that large, we counted no less than four cemeteries. The Afghan cemetery dating from the 1890's camel drivers. The Pioneer cemetery from 1886 to 1922, which covered the meatworks period. The Gully cemetery from 1922 to 1968, plus the present cemetery. I guess it was an unhealthy place to be in the early days.
Being on the coast, Wyndham was visited early by Europeans, with the first landing at View Hill in 1819. However the port was not established until 1885, and named by John Forrest after Lady Barker's (wife of Sir Frederick Napier Broome, governor of West Australia) eldest son. Gold discoveries at Halls Creek in 1884, and development of cattle stations by the Duraks in the 1880's helped push the population up to a peak of 5,000, but by 1906 it was down to 50 Europeans. The port is now used for live cattle transport, export of live goats, and export of Ord River sugar to Indonesia. The population of about 1200 is about half Aboriginal.
Just near the modern and extensive police station, we found the town hotel, where we got a filling cooked breakfast, but not near as much as we would have eaten had we attempted another El Questro meal. The person on duty told us they were very busy with tourists, and had 14 breakfasts that morning.
When I paid our breakfast bill, I was told that the community club we had passed on the way into Wyndham had been broken into 14 times in that number of weeks. There had been a slight delay in entering the bar area to pay, as the owner taken to keeping his two bull mastiff dogs in the bar area overnight. They hadn't had any break ins. Being next door to the police station may have helped also.
Our main purpose in driving all the way to Wyndham (apart from breakfast) was to refuel, it being a slightly shorter distance from El Questro than back to Kununurra.
Before we left town, we stopped to again take photographs of Jean with large animals. This time a 20 metre crocodile made from 5.5 km of steel rod, weldec with 50 kg of welding rod, lots of bird mesh, and covered with 5 cubic metres of concrete.
We decided not to visit Parry Lagoon Nature Reserve, on a dirt road, starting some 15 km south of Wyndham. Marlgu billabong is reported to be a great bird watching spot, with boardwalk and some hides near the car park, but we really aren't bird watchers. The nearby Parry Creek Farm offers private cabins and rooms, and specialises in powered sites for caravans and campers by a billabong.
However there were a few sights we couldn't resist, like a location along the main road marked as good for photographs of the ranges.
We stopped about 40 km along the Great Northern Highway to go the few kilometres to the Grotto. This is a large sinkhole in rocky country leading down to a deep waterhole. Apart from the views from the top, there are around 100 steps built in the rocks to assist in reaching the mostly shaded bottom.
It was about 60 km south from Wyndham to the Broome turnoff on the Great Northern Highway. We did lots of fast kilometres on this good road.
We stopped at Doon Doon road house (15344 km), where they are busy building an amenity block for a caravan park, and hope to someday include motel units. I couldn't resist an icecream. We again saw the retired bicyclist we had seen at Victoria River Crossing some considerable time before. He was from Townsville, and was headed for Broome and Perth. He told of being stuck by the road for several hours with a broken wheel, and with his tools being unable to shift his gear cluster so he could make repairs. He ended up staying at a caravan park in Kununurra for several days, even after the local garage used an air tool to undo his gear cluster so he could repair his wheel.
We next stopped at the Turkey Creek roadhouse, where there were artistic drawings on the rocks outside the roadhouse. To my considerable amusement, the Turkey Creek roadhouse has game burgers with crocodile, emu, kangaroo, camel, but no turkey! You can take helicopter flights to the Bungle Bungles from here. This area is the site of the Warmun aboriginal community, who have an art centre open to visitors.
At Leicester's Rest, 100 km from Halls Creek, there was a 24 hour stopover area, which had pit loos and lots of isolated camping areas. Although there are no other facilities, this is for 24 hour stops by self contained caravans and campers. It was on what appeared to be the old highway, and was close to some pleasant looking river areas.
We reached Halls Creek (pop 4000, 15603 km, latitude 18.13S, 127.40E) around 3 p.m. The Comfort Inn motel on a side street looked somewhat the worse for wear, with a broken sign, and large savage looking fences. We thought it might even be derelict, but a lot of other places were stoutly barricaded and appeared very thoroughly locked up. We went back to the main street, and took a room at a Best Western.
Not much food to be found in Halls Creek when we arrived mid afternoon on a Saturday. The various supermarkets were mostly closed. Some that were open, like the Coles Express at the Shell garage, had a range you could fit inside a Volkswagon. I got milk and orange juice for the morning at a garage store.
I talked to a long distance woman cyclist, around our age, who was seeking a public phone that would accept an 800 number (public phones are not always easy to locate in these towns). She had set out from Gympie in south east Queensland last year, and gotten a job and stayed over in Alice Springs when the weather got too hot. She had set off again in May this year, and was headed for Broome. I'm collecting examples of these cyclists so I can email details to Erika, who is also considering a long bicycle trip.
We had a splendid dinner at the motel at Halls Creek. Great steak, with the best meat we have had this trip (except at El Questro), excellent correctly cooked vegetables, and I really enjoyed my potato wedges. Plus a cleanskin cabernet merlot at a very reasonable $4 a glass price. We liked it so much we bought a $15 one litre bottle for Ron (late 'R on). Jean apparently hadn't heard that expression previously.
Jean was able to collect her email via her CDMA cell phone, but again the motel had no phones in the rooms. To my considerable surprise I had a GSM cell phone connection in Halls Creek, so I imagine that technically I could also have collected email.
We decided we were taking a rest day, so Jean could catch up somewhat with her various book deadlines while we had a desk for the computers, and lots of power points. We also did laundry and similar catch up tasks, like expanding these notes. Luckily our walking around the town didn't include buying apple pies from the bakery, but did we each had a slice of pizza for lunch, instead of something sensible. When I returned to the bakery just prior to them closing at 1 p.m., they were out of apple pies, so we were saved from ourselves. Mind you, we later went out to the Coles Express service station and bought a Magnum chocolate obsession ice cream each, which rather ruined our show of self restraint. I noted bonus FlyBuys points for Magnum ice creams, so I produced my card. I've never seen much visible advertising for bonus points, so I guess this is a result of Coles trying to expand their rather new service station empire.
Leaving Halls Creek, 15603 km, latitude 18.13S, 127.40E.
Since my GSM cell phone worked in this town, I phoned Lea, who is staying at at our home, from the hotel car park. First time we had got through to her so far this trip. She reported on all the things she is tidying up at home. I hope we can find things again when we get home. We are not good at tidy. Mind you, I'm also not all that good at finding things I haven't tidied up.
We took Duncan Road, which rapidly became the 16 kilometre dirt road to Old Halls Creek, where scant remains of building sites are on both sides of the creek. In 1885, this was the site of the first gold mining town in West Australia. The old post office building is partly protected by a new roof, covering much the area of the old one, plus wire mesh to reduce vandalism. There is a small, antique appearing caravan park here, and even a restaurant, in an area for those seeking something off the main routes.
About six kilometres from town we diverted through a gate to another dirt road leading to the China Wall. This stretches over considerable lengths of the countryside, and the better examples look very like the ruins of an artificial wall, rather than a natural quartz vein formation.
We viewed various statues in Hall Creek upon our return. These included Russian Jack, who wheeled a companion in a wheelbarrow many kilometres to help.
Also in this area is the Yarliyil community based art centre, which originally opened in 1992 in a woman's safe house, but now has more space. Another local initiative at Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing is the Kimberley Language Resource Centre, which has worked since 1985 to preserve some indigenous languages. They produce interactive CDs about some traditional crafts, in some of the 30 original languages of the area (Nyikina, Katatja, Bunuba, Walmajarri, Kija
One thing I did miss doing was taking a scenic flight over the 850 metre wide 300,000 year old Wolfe Creek meteorite crater on the edge of the Tanami Desert. The Jaru and Walmajarri people know the crater as Gandimalal. The crater walls still extend 35 metres high, while the floor is 20 metres below the surrounding countryside, filled in by sand from its estimated 120 metre original depth. Driving there means a 132 km drive down the Tanami track, and we thought that would be a bit too rough for us. Oasis Air and Northwest Regional Airlines both have light plane flights.
Very helpful and talkative information centre staff at the tourist centre, who have an excellent kit of flyers prepared for visitors to the area. Being shortly before the end of the financial year, there were discounts on stuff. We got yet another stubby cooler for Jean.
Jean located a really nice eatery in the same building, and we get home made chicken salad rolls with home baked rolls. We needed to stock up because there are no roadhouses until the next town, and that was too far to reach before lunch.
The Telecentre is in the library, where much work is happening. They don't have a way to allow us to plug our laptops into their network, but would let us connect to a phone line. Except the phone lines are at present just bare wires!
I must mention that the toilets were the fully automated, singing variety with push button doors and integrated liquid soap, water and hot air dispenser over the wash basin. We had encountered these before at Ayr (a country town 200 km north of our home), and also in that cultural centre for high tech, San Jose in Silicon Valley. However the San Jose one didn't sing, and I had to feed it a quarter (dollar) before it would open its door.
We refuelled at the Shell (Coles Express), and I remembered to get FlyBuy points.
Good stretch of wide, well marked road as we headed for Fitzroy Crossing. There are no towns or roadhouses, only a few rest areas. We stopped at both of the rest areas, and had a half roll at each.
The Mary Pool rest area 110 km down the road (latitude 18.43S, longitude 126.52E) was beside the river, and was very pleasant looking. Caravans could stop for 24 hours, although the only facilities are pit toilets and barbecue areas.
Along the road we saw the woman bicyclist I had spoken to in Halls Creek. She was making a steady pace.
Ngumban Cliff rest area (15843 km) gave a wonderful view of the road and the surrounding countryside. It was less distant from Mary Pool than we had expected.
We had heard the town of Fitzroy Crossing (pop 1500, 15942 km, latitude 18.12S, longitude 125.34E) has one fancy and expensive resort with rooms overlooking the river, and one caravan park also overlooking the river, where the pub is popular with the aboriginal population.
We took a self contained cabin on stilts, set close by the Tarunda supermarket caravan park. High flood water here in town, hence the need to build things up off the ground. The room was comfortable enough, the beds especially, but had few convenient power points, the lights were not bright, and the room had nothing that could be effectively used as a typing table. We would love to have some way to carry a typing table for such situations. We are already forced to carry our own chairs.
To my surprise, we were able to get the Weekend Australian, plus a frozen microwave dinner for Jean before the supermarket closed at 5:30. I later went to the local Shell (now a Coles Express) service station to collect a sandwich for dinner. That was a busy place, for with the supermarket closed for the night, many locals were shopping. The one counter staff man was always dealing with two or three people at a time, and being cheerful about it all, even with people who didn't have sufficient mponey
We collapsed early, so I didn't write any notes up.
We were up before 6 a.m., drove off 18 km (on what is now a paved road) to Geikie Gorge National Park (15942 km) a little after 7 a.m. on our earliest departure of the trip. This was for an 8 a.m. Conservation and Land Management (CALM) boat ride through the narrow rocky section of the Fitzroy River. There were eventually about 42 people on the flat bottom punts the ranger used, many of them from the various adventure tour buses that arrived. We noticed the Outback Spirit bus we saw at El Questro had arrived.
The flood height there through the ancient coral reefs is impressive. The cliffs showed white marks far above us, where wet season waters rushed and scoured the rocks clean each year. We were told the wet season current flow in the Fitzroy was second only to the Amazon. The rock walls are carved into fantastic shapes, and look like they should fall at any moment.
Usual crocodiles and birds. The crocodiles are (mostly harmless) freshwater types, as at over 300 kilometres from the sea, estuarine crocodiles have not been sighted.
We once again noted the Outback Spirit bus (12 day trip from Darwin), as these people were on the river punt tour with us. They must have been staying at the fancier resort overlooking the river.
There is also a more expensive half day Darngku (pronounced darn-goo) heritage trip, including walks. The stories about the gorge mostly come from Darngku family of the Bunuba tribe.
Back in town we sought the original Fitzroy Crossing location. Somewhat worse for wear, the Crossing Inn by the river, with aboriginal art all over the walls, seems near the original site. One chap there asked us the time, and not having watches, we guessed something after 9:30. We soon noticed a number of aboriginals, awaiting the 10 a.m. opening of the pub.
Jean reports this is the pub she saw on her 1979 Alice Springs, Tanami, Gibb River Road, to Darwin bus tour. Their tour vehicle was being worked on that day, so I gather they may have had a longer look than usual.
We visited the Pioneer cemetery by the riverside. This is so close to the river that I'm surprised it hadn't flooded at times. Some graves were marked with elaborate metal work made from old tools. We recognised animal traps on one, but couldn't identify the antique tools on another.
We too some photos from the present bridge to the town, since they showed the river size to good effect.
At the Shell (Coles Express) service station the very active and talkative female staff member was the only person serving a crowd only half the size of that on the previous night. When I paid for the fuel, she made sure I produced my FlyBuys card (I already had it out, having encountered a Coles Express at Halls Creek). She was also telling giving everyone about FlyBuys (which I imagine from the reactions must be a new concept in some country areas), and about the fuel discounts if you had a Coles store cash register receipt. Another staff member brought her a bunch of Coles cash register receipts, and she was using these to give fuel discounts to those of us who were getting fuel, and reminding us we could get our own discount receipts from the nearest Coles store (in Broome, well over 300 kilometres away).
We also got sandwiches to take with us for lunch, as there are no roadhouses before you go (the other way) past the turnoff to Derby. After gazing at them admiringly, Jean waited until my back was turned, and then quickly ordered a meat pie. I was impressed.
We took a few brief stops at rest areas during the drive. Our lunch stop was under an ancient boab tree, at the second rest area we encountered. The only facilities there were some picnic tables, and the shade of the enormous boab.
It seemed a long, boring drive to Derby (pop 5000, 16254 km, latitude 17.19S, longitude 123.39E). We booked into a fancy room (one with a phone) at tourist prices, at the King Sound resort hotel. Room facilities included a box of tissues (seconf time this trip), but no shampoo or any washing consumables apart from soap. The bathroom also lacked any hooks for clothes. Luckily we are used to this, and carry our own hooks to go over the door. This grand hotel alas lacks direct access from car to rooms, so we had to make several trips from the car carrying our various bags. We carry a tucker (food) box with our breakfast cereal and some plates and utensils, plus wine glasses and something with which to fill them in the evening. The computers and their bits and pieces take us another bag each.
Search for the Derby Visitor Centre, plainly marked on our map, but neither of us could see it despite signage. On the second pass we managed to park right in front of it, and get details of tide times for today and tomorrow. Derby has the second highest tides in the world, and on Wednesday, the times were right for seeing both the high and the low tide. It was also close to a full moon, which gives the best tide results (we were aiming to be in Broome on the night of the full moon). We are not sure we want to spend the money for an air flight over the Buccaneer Archipelago, and see the horizontal waterfall (where tides pile up behind a narrow gap in the cliffs).
We had asked the location of the news agency, so we asked the real character behind the news agency counter which day the Tuesday Australian would arrive. To our astonishment, she said Derby was the last place this far north where the papers arrived on their day of issue. She explained how she remonstrated with the delivery people. I could certainly see them being intimidated into making sure her delivery arrived on the right day. As the papers were due at 4 p.m. we decided to check the shop for books and magazines. I found some scientific magazines. Jean found some souvenirs. By the time we had selected these all, the papers had indeed arrived. Unfortunately the newsagent couldn't accept credit cards, so we had to use up some of our cash supply.
We were later amused to hear the newsagent arguing with a customer about it being cold (the customer said it wasn't). We asked. The newsagent thinks below 25C in the daytime is low, and below 15C at night is cold. She had been getting 13.6C on her veranda the previous night. We agreed that 13.6C is cold.
We crossed Clarendon Street to visit the Telecentre, which shared premises with a regular computer shop called RB69. They said we could connect our notebook computers to their network, for $9 an hour.
Back at the hotel, Jean started working on her computer, including getting her email. I thought she had used the hotel phone line, but she later said it didn't work, and she had therefore used her CDMA mobile phone to get email.
Jean researched the hotel menu, and dead upon the six o'clock opening we turned up with Jean seeking barramundi. No such luck. Today they had a bus group in, so they were serving a buffet meal. Wasn't a bad meal at all, just not what either of us had planned for.
At 6:30 the bus group arrived, and we recognised people from the Outback Spirit bus we had seen at El Questro, and Geikie Gorge. I also heard them as they prepared to leave between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. You wouldn't think a group of old people could wield fire axes with such enthusiasm at that hour. Mind you, good soundproofing is not a feature of this hotel. Jean slept through it all.
We both spent most of the morning on our computers, with Jean needing to catch up on her book revisions. I tried the hotel phone. No luck with my computer either. After I saw reception again they switched the phone through, and it worked correctly when I next tried it.
We visited the jetty and bulk lead and zinc ore loading facility, timing our visit just prior to midday for high tide. Muddy water, and a tide over 9 metres. We returned just before sunset to take comparison photos with the tide on the way down to the 3 metre mark.
There was a small botanical garden in the grounds of the local library. It seemed to have suffered somewhat since it was installed a few decades ago, and nothing was marked. The library seemed a pretty reasonable community resource, especially given how hard it sometimes is to get resources in any remote area.
There are reef flights over the Buccaneer Archipelago and the horizontal waterfall (a thirty metre gorge where the tide squeezes through at 30 knots) by Reef Flight and by King Leopold Air.
After refuelling in Derby (16281 km) we visited the Boab Prison Tree and nearby artifacts from the early 20th Century like a water trough and windmill, a few kilometres outside Derby.
Then 40 km back to the Great Northern Highway, which continues through Broome towards the south.
Willare Bridge Roadhouse about 30 km from the Derby turnoff, had air conditioned rooms in the older style main building. Good prices, but with shared facilities. That was the first roadhouse we saw since Derby.
I should mention that all the way along the Great Northern Highway we kept encountering single lane bridges. First would come an 80 kph speed sign, then a warning that a single lane bridge was ahead, then a No passing or overtaking sign. Since only a bicycle could fit alongside a car, this was more like a law of nature than a road rule.
We stopped briefly at the Nillibubbica rest area, about 40 km past Willare Bridge. This is another rest area with pit loos, and picnic tables, but nothing much else. All set in vivid green bushland, showing the seasonal tropical rainfall of this close to coastal area.
We reached 5000 (16453) km travelled from home just before midday, still with 60 km to go to Broome. So that is the crossing from the Pacific Ocean to Indian Ocean.
We stopped at the Roebuck Plains roadhouse (16472 km), 30 km from Broome, on the Broome Highway, just past the turnoff to the south. Although we stopped to collect a few sandwiches for lunch (in case we were delayed locating an eating place in Broome itself), we again couldn't resist buying a Magnum chocolate addiction ice cream. Bad, bad!
The road into Broome (latitude 17.58S, longitude 122.14E) led us right past an extensive Broome visitor's centre. We stopped to check on maps and accommodation, the latter of which in the tourist season and with school holidays about to start was in rather short supply. After some confusion on the roads, we found ourselves at the Tropicana Inn, where we booked in for a week.
Across Robinson Street from the Tropicana Inn motel at which we stayed was a small Coles store. Very handy. Next to it was Pindar Blue, a nice looking cafe open from around 7 a.m. On the cultural side across the parking lot was the Broome museum. Just down the road was Town Beach, where there are weekend markets. The staircase to the moon (reflection of the moon) appears across the exposed mudflats on nights when the full moon corresponds with a very low tide. We had timed our visit to correspond with this event.
Broome, 2200 kilometres from Perth, is a spread out town, with a population of around 14,000 residents, a little over 4,000 of whom are indigenous. At this time of year there are usually well over 5,000 tourists in town. The town was originally a centre for pearling in the 1880, and pearling is still an important industry. The shire covers 56,000 square kilometres and extends north as far as Cape Leveque, and includes over 900 kilometres of coastline.
As we drove through Broome, we totally failed to locate a traffic light (although there were rather a lot of roundabouts). We see this as yet another reason why Airlie Beach should continue to resist traffic lights, if a larger town with heavy traffic doesn't need them.
After we settled into our room, Jean sent me to the nearby Coles to get preliminary groceries for our stay, and later we both visited the Coles Liquorland for wine. We got three bottles (perhaps a little more than we will need for our stay), so as to get another fuel discount voucher.
We walked up to Town Beach and caravan park, just to survey the location. By then it was dark, but we walked a little inland to a fast food place called Maccas for fish and chips for dinner. Service on grilled fish was a little slow, and Jean thought they were a bit overcooked. We shouldn't have ordered the chips, naturally, even with the excuse of being on holidays.
Jean needed to work on revising her books. I set off for a walk around the town.
Nearby was spacious and tidy Bedford Park, with memorial to war casualties, and to explorer William Dampier, and other early explorers of the coastline.
Across the road was Matso's cafe and brewery on Carnarvon Street, previously the Union Bank and then a general store. This is a classic older style building built in 1900. You can watch the brewery at work, and they brew ales as well as lagers. They did a Monsoonal Blonde wheat beer at 5.1% that Jean liked, their Pride of Blackwood bitter at 5.6% that I liked, Copperhead Kolsch ale at 5.5% which seemed a bit wimpy for an ale. They also had a very dangerous 3.5% brewed ginger beer that didn't taste alcoholic at all. We visited twice late in the afternoon so we could sample all their brews. Nice spot, apart from too many mosquitos.
Despite the hill, I walked up past some resort hotels built on sand dunes, and thus had better views of the bay.
The historic and small Old Cell Block building had been converted to an art gallery, and was showing an exhibition. The owner spoke of making access to working artists part of the features of the place, as they worked in the sunlit courtyard. He thought Broome would eventually develop two tourist areas, as Cable Beach became a resort and beach strip, with little connection to the old Chinatown and its pearling history.
There was a Cultured Pearling Monument, with statues of cultured pearl pioneers Tokuichi Kuribayashi, Hiroshi Iwaki and Keith Dureau. Just before I reached the statues I noted that the automated, singing toilet salesman had been through. This was right at the entrance to the revitalised and now very tourist oriented Chinatown area, where the Chinese influence is really minimal. The two street, two or three block area includes Paspaley Plaza, where there is a large Coles store and many other contemporary shops.
There were also a number of arcade and alleyways and the tiny Jimmy Chi lane lined with small shops. It was an interesting area, with many tourist trinket shops, and many tour booking places, just like at home in Airlie Beach. There were a surprising number of internet access places, perhaps a half dozen. I also found three bookshops or partial bookshops.
Upon my return to the motel, we had our usual chicken and whatever lunch at the Tropicana bar, since they had on hand suitable prepared rolls.
Back to Chinatown later that afternoon with Jean. I thought I had done enough walking for the day, but could at least guide her along easier routes.
We spent some time checking out Paspaley Plaza. Jean found the Country Target store I'd mentioned to her, and I think to the surprise of us both, was able to get replacement swimming costumes.
We looked briefly in the classic 1916 open air picture garden, with the old canvas deck chairs, at Sun Pictures. I think this is the oldest such open air cinema still operating in the world. I haven't seen many such places since I was a child, although there is one near us at Bowen.
We walked back to the motel past the Courthouse, a distinctive original Broome style building, formerly Cable House, back in the days when Broome was where the 1889 telegraphic cable went from Cable Beach to Java.
Early that evening we again checked Town Beach, although the moon rose too early to give the stairway effect. We still couldn't see anything of great interest at the fancy foreshore cafe. One interesting feature of a couple of foreshore areas were the steel poles, about power pole hight, with an open grid platform on top. These have been placed by the power company so that ospreys can build their nests on them, rather than on the more dangerous power poles. These are at the edge of roads and parking lots, so the birds wre very used to cars and humans being nearby.
As a result of not finding a meal on our walk, we had bits of stuff from Coles.
Alas, there were widespread clouds in the morning. First time we have had many clouds since the Queensland coast nearly a month ago.
Jean as usual spent the morning typing.
We drove off across town past the crocodile farm to Cable Beach, named for the telegraph cable to Java, and its surrounds, timing our arrival for high tide. By now the morning clouds were mostly gone.
The way north was blocked by rocks at high tide, as some 4WD drivers discovered as they attempted to drive down the access ramp to the beach. We scrambled past them to check the much longer stretch of beach further north. Here there were cars parked on the beach, presumably stuck along there until the tide went down. It looked very much like a smaller, less crowded version of Florida's Daytona Beach.
Cable Beach, even at high tide, is a fine looking beach. There was a well organised, patrolled swimming area, with small waves. Further along, surfers were out on their boards, catching waves. Despite the tourist publicity it gets, there were not a real lot of people on the beach, compared to any capitol city beach.
As we walked back along the beach path, past the lifesaving club, and the food kiosk, we decided to buy some sandwiches for lunch.
We drove around the general area for a while, looking at a mixture of caravan parks, older homes on large blocks, motels and accommodation, and the start of construction on what seemed to be new resorts. The land is much flatter than back home at Airlie, and there don't appear to be the same rigid constraints on how much is available. I could see it ending up like a miniature, low rise Gold Coast.
Back at the motel, I did the laundry at about 1 p.m., and we hung it out on some lines the motel had provided. I'd intended doing that much earlier, since we were running out of clean clothes.
Jean sent me off to get milk and the weekend Australian newspaper from Coles. Across the dunes I could see something fluttering in a small dead scrub. This proved to be an osprey, trying to keep its balance while clutching a largish fish in the other talon. I was able to walk to within ten metres without it seeming to be worried. I rushed off to get Jean, but by the time we returned, the osprey had finished killing its fish and had flown off.
I didn't manage to get the newspaper. Coles reported the truck had broken down at Newman, and they weren't expecting the weekend papers until 6 p.m. This is still a lot better than most towns we have been in of late, where there are no newspapers at all.
Naturally, having hung out the laundry at 1 p.m., the clouds returned. By 4 p.m. I had to get in the laundry, for fear of rain. Some was dry, but about half I had to run through the motel dryer. This cloud was not a good sign for us seeing the moon rise.
We again walked down to Town Beach foreshore as it got dark. Moonrise was scheduled for about 6:30. There was an astonishingly large crowd gathered awaiting the view. I thought if we went a fair way along the beach we might get a good spot. Eventually we risked sandfly and mosquito bites by walking down on the sand.
The cloud cover was almost complete, with only a tiny clear band of sky on the horizon. You could sort of see the staircase effect for a few minutes, and it looked good to the eye. However it was way to dark for photographs without long exposures. Neither of us had a tripod, which might have given us a chance. I tried different camera settings, but only the time exposures gave me enough light, and I couldn't hold still for a multi-second exposure. Jean's Kodak camera has turned out to be much more fragile than my Pentax, but probably takes better images, especially in poor light conditions.
Naturally we checked out the Saturday Town Beach markets. These were much like at home at Airlie Beach. Perhaps a higher proportion of fortune tellers and counter culture crap, but I didn't see any of the fresh fruit and vegetable sellers that are our major reason for attending the local markets. There were a lot more prepared food stalls. Thai, Indonesian, bratwurst, and two home made ice cream stalls.
Just before dawn I wandered off to Town Beach so I could see the sunrise over the exposed mudflats at low tide. Several other photographers were there. I was sort of hoping I could get a staircase effect in my photos, but again there was low cloud.
We did our major Coles shopping expedition at the big store in Chinatown today, getting supplies for the next stage down the coast, where store will be scarce and far between. Managed to get yet another fuel discount voucher, by counting the cost of what we bought until we had the required $30 of groceries.
Mostly we caught up on our notes, Jean typed her corrections, and we read our books. The low cloud made a lot of the tourist sites less attractive, and some places like museums were closed on Sunday. The tides were all wrong for others. We want to see cable Beach at low tide, for example, but it will be a few days before there is a low tide in decent daylight.
We did return to Town Beach that evening, when moonrise was expected at around 7:30. The crowds were nearly as large, and the markets about the same. We found a place to sit on the sand and waited, and waited. the only excitement was some kids flying a kite that had an LED flasher on it. Eventually it became obvious that cloud along the horizon would keep the moon invisible until it was rather high in the sky. We gave up, went and bought a bratwurst and some ice creams for dinner, and returned to the motel.
Jean continues hard at work correcting her books.
I visited the fascinating Broome Historical Society Museum. As well as an extensive range of paper records for the serious historian, it also gathers an fine range of items dating from the 19th Century through to items I (unfortunately) recall from my own childhood. I saw a switchboard for example just like the one at my old school (and doubtless obsolete even then). There is a lot of material from the war years, and even more from the pearly days.
We drove to Chinatown for lunch, and then wandered around the Johnny Chi lane historical walk, reading all the plaques. Jean spotted many typographical errors.
We also finally visited the Broome Telecentre, which had both phone line and Ethernet connections available for laptop users.
We got a decent view of the Stairway to the Moon, finally. Although moonrise was after 8:30 this evening, we were among the many people who again visited Town Beach to view the moon reflecting off the mudflats. At least some of our photographs show this surprising event. I'd really like to know who started using it as a tourist promotion.
We set out early for the tip of the peninsula on which Broome is situated. From the port area there we had some fine views back towards the old town. There are some fine rock formations at the entry to the beach here.
We continued along a dirt road mostly adjoining parkland, from which there were numerous 4WD and walking tracks to the beach. After what seemed like ten minutes of bumping along, we sighted the lighthouse, and a parking area.
We walked down the Lurujarri Heritage Trail tourist path past the lighthouse, noting an osprey had a nest on the platform below the lighthouse lens. At the end of the path was a replica of dinosaur footprint exposed at low tide at Gantheaume Point. Nearby is Anastasia's Pool, a rock pool made by a lighthouse keeper for his arthritic wife. Although the tide was reasonably low, we thought the scramble own for a close look was unwise. We did note a few younger people had managed to get down the rocks.
As well as the dinosaur print, there are some very pretty rock formations, some of which show the extent of the tidal variation (over 8 metres) in this area. There were also excellent views up Cable Beach.
As we had spotted an osprey nest a level below the light in the open steel frame lighthouse, we watched carefully on our return walk. A young bird was wandering about the nest, but mostly staying hidden. Then a large osprey carrying a large fish landed on a steel girder a level below the nest, and proceeded to eat the fish it had clutched in a talon. We managed some nice photos of all this. One of the few times I really would have liked better than a three times optical zoom.
We encountered road work as we continued along the dirt road to Cable Beach, near the Turf Club. Looks like the road will soon be bitumen at least as far as the race course. Broome has horse races most weekends during the dry season, so having a better road for access seems a nice addition to their tourist facilities.
We continued to Cable Beach, originally called Cosy Corner, now near low tide. We wanted some contrasting photos to our high tide photos of a few days ago. We basically wandered to the same spots, except when on the beach, we were 50 to 100 metres further out to get near the water. There is a lot of sand exposed when you have tides that can range over an eight metre rise and fall. We also noted where the 4WD vehicles went to get through the rocks and to the many other kilometres (22 in total) of mostly unoccupied beach.
The most unusual sight was a large convoy of camels plodding along the beach, one of several tour groups, and doubtless the least comfortable. I've ridden camels. Trust me, cars are much more pleasant (and smell marginally less vile - and I don't like cars).
We eventually had breakfast at Cable Beach Sandbar, after initially deciding they didn't have a breakfast menu. A very small cashier chased us and pressed menus into our hands just as we were about to leave. Had a great breakfast there, and it certainly has a fine view.
We drove back via the Japanese cemetery on Port Drive, where over 900 Japanese pearl divers are buried. The rank after rank of tidy graves of those who died gathering pearl shells is astonishing in its quantity. It is also astonishing that industries, even back a century ago, should be permitted to risk lives so readily. On the other hand, we still permit companies to legally supply tobacco and alcohol, so we are no better at curbing company irresponsibility.
There were actually several cemeteries here. What appeared to be a general one, although there was no overt label. There was a large area for Muslims, but relatively few graves. There was an elaborate Chinese cemetery. The Japanese headstones all faced Port Drive, the Chinese all pointed away, the Muslim ones mainly in another direction.
Jean sent me out for food in the evening, but we spent most of the evening just catching up on our computers. Too many mosquitos and sandflies to want to risk the outdoors very much. We both got bitten a lot during our stay in Broome.
Today we had to do our laundry, in heavy competition with a busload of tourists. It took me until nearly ten to get the two loads through the washing machine and hung out to dry. Mundane life is such a pain.
The tourists, from Dubbo, were on a 28 day drive around Australia. I am astonished at the rapidity with which some people can manage long trips. We are unsure when we will next have laundry facilities, just as we are unsure when we will next have access to a phone. Not that the phone here can provide better than 28 kbps.
We also needed to do wine shopping for the next week, as we will probably not find another reasonable wine shop for a while.
We basically wasted our time packing bags, again catching up on computer work, and reading our books. We did have to go out to refuel the car at the Coles express discount service station, and collect lunch, so we had a last walk around Chinatown.
One different event we didn't avail ourselves of is Greg Quicke's Astro Tours, viewing the moon and planets via telescopes in the clear unpolluted outback while learning basic astronomy.
Leaving Broome (16580 km, latitude 17.58S, longitude 122.14E)
We got away a little after 8 a.m. Our first stop was very early, at Roebuck Plains roadhouse (16618 km), just after Roebuck Plains Station, to collect sandwiches for later in the day. We didn't know what sort of food would be available when we did finally get to the next fuel stop.
It seemed a very long drive, to us, after a week of relaxing and being eaten by mosquitos in Broome. Jean has back problems, and doesn't like long days of driving, so we try to stop about once an hour, if there is any rest area available. We came upon the tourist bus from Dubbo at one rest stop.
We eventually got to Sandfire Roadhouse (16907 km, latitude S19.46, longitude E121.06), where we stopped for a little fuel. We weren't sure we had the range to get all the way to Port Hedland on the one tankful. Like many roadhouses, they had a small caravan park, and some cabins. These can be handy if you just need to stop for a rest, but there usually isn't a lot to do at a roadhouse.
Our aim was the Eighty Mile Beach caravan park (16962 km, latitude S19.45, longitude E120.40), run by Col and Jo Lewis. This is about 350 km down the coast from Broome, and about 10 km off the Great Northern Highway along a corrugated dirt road. We were anxious to get there not long after midday, because there is basically nothing else that sounded interesting in the 600 km between Broome and Port Hedland. There are certainly no towns. The caravan park has about 200 sites, a small bunkhouse for backpackers, and about 7 cabins, plus one self contained cabin with ensuite. They had already run out of powered sites, so we felt lucky to have arrived in time to get a cabin.
We were pretty happy with the cabin, since it had ample room, a fridge and a microwave plug crockery, plus a barbecue and tables outside. Of course, there was no phone, and we were out of range on our mobile phones. They did however have a coin operated internet machine. The major disadvantage of all these places is that you can invariably hear the generators from any place in the campground.
The beach was on the other side of the coastal sand dunes that protect the caravan park from the sea. It stretched as far as the eye could see in either direction. Also as far as the eye could see at high tide were fishermen, standing ankle deep in the water or on the sand, rods ready for a strike. They were spread out, about 20 metres apart, each with his own territory. Far up the beach were some 4WD vehicles, and every now and then another would drive slowly along the beach. The midwinter equatorial sun was still pretty hot, and the temperature must have been about 30C.
Later in the afternoon we took another walk on the beach. The happy fishermen were mostly packing up and walking back to the caravan park. We didn't actually notice many fish being carried. In fact, none. We asked a few, and discovered that all the ones we talked to had spent several hours feeding fish their baits, but not catching anything. They all seemed happy with their afternoon, despite this lack of catch.
This recalls a comment of Joseph Nicholas during his recent visit, about fit and happy retirees in Australia. No-one we saw here was ever going to get on the cover of some beautiful people magazine, showing lean, youthful and rich figures lazing on a tropical beach with a cocktail to hand and a waiter hovering respectfully. Most were in old clothes, most were about our age or older, most were a little overweight, most a touch sunburnt. However all seemed to have a cheerful word about their day.
We went fairly early to the caravan park store to buy dinner. They did old fashioned steak sandwiches and hamburgers with home made meat patties, lashings of salad, all on giant buns. Slowed us both right down, but it was one of the best hamburgers I've had this trip (and many country store hamburgers are really great).
I have to mention that the ablutions block here had some of the best designed showers I've seen. As well as the shower head pointing from the side (rather than out into the dry area as some do), the shower had real shower doors. The dressing area was thus kept mostly dry, and was well supplied with hooks for clothes, and a bench. The floor material was some sort of composite that seemed to dry very readily. There was a mop and squeege supplied in the ablutions block, so you could quickly dry the shower area. Well done, especially for a place so remote from any competition.
In the early morning, at low tide, the beach was stunning. The water was far away, and the wet sand was laden with myriad sea shells, many of them colourful. We went for a bit of a walk before we set out on the road again.
We again saw the lady bicycle tourist I had first seen way back in Halls Creek. Slow and steady was beating our lengthy stays at any interesting place.
The small Pardoo roadhouse (17067 km, latitude S20.03, longitude E119.50) and caravan park also has a few cabins. We stopped here mainly to check it out, and pick up a Pilbara area map.
Pardoo roadhouse is just before the turnoff to the 12 km dirt road to Cape Keraudren Nature Reserve and Coottenbrand Creek. Camping is available on the beach for those staying for the fishing.
About 30 km further along, Pardoo Station homestead, 13 km off the main road, has accommodation and camping facilities, and offers a chance to experience station life. You do need to book ahead for these station stay facilities.
Port Hedland Port Authority", (17238 km, latitude S20.19, longitude E118.36) is an iron ore export industrial centre for BHP Billiton and their Boodarie Iron. You can take a tour of the BHP Nelson Point iron ore facility, and also the Boodarie Iron hot briquette plant (by way of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and the School of the Air, plus the Cyclone Forecasting Centre). Dampier Salt produces sea salt for industrial purposes, and you can tour this plant also.
The town of Port Hedland supports the mining operations. The population of the area is about 15,000 people, and the spread out shire covers 11,844 square kilometres. We came across a shire Welcome sign on the highway 110 km from the town. Local roads are somewhat scarce, with 177 km of paved road, and 380 km of dirt road. Shortage of space around the port led to an additional residential area being constructed at South Hedland. The only cyclone forecasting centre the Bureau of Meteorology operates in West Australia is on the road into Port Hedland, which seems to frequently be in the path of cyclones.
Captain Peter Hedland discovered the harbour in 1829, and the town served as a port for the Marble Bar gold rush after Port Hedland was established in 1892.
After settling in at a Great Western Hotel (since we needed access to a phone line), we went seeking lunch at the nearby shopping centre. This wasn't totally successful, as Jean was concentrating on lunch, while I was concentrating on news stands and other stores. Regardless, we got some stuff to take back to the room.
After lunch we made a search for a map of the area (we latter discovered there was one in a directory in the hotel room). This led us into the port area, and to the Port Hedland Visitor Centre. We wandered around any historic buildings that had information signs on them, and also looked at the ships. You can see these from a small waterside parkland at the end of the main shopping street.
From any place along the shore you you see giant carrier ships out to see. There were several docked at the port, being loaded. These ships displaced over 200,000 tons, and several were over 300 metres long. Not a small port at all, it is the second largest iron ore port in the world. Ore comes from the Newman area, over 426 km of railroad.
There was red dust all over the town, only partly from the red soil. Every building, every roof, every piece of material in town had ingrained red. Even the pigeons wore red dust coats. I found my throat soon became sore from breathing the very air. Either that or my cold is returning.
The open air Dan Rhodes mining museum on Wilson Street is just next to the Coles Express service station where we were originally going to be seeking discounted fuel. The museum features three restored locomotives.
Jean was able to collect her email, which did include the editorial comments on her Open Office book. She was able to make the corrections and upload the revised PDF to O'Reilly during the evening. That was the main reason we needed a decent motel room this evening.
Leaving Port Hedland (17238 km).
Sunrise was a spectacular sight, since iron ore dust is scattered through the air. Nothing like particulates in the air to provide wonderful sunrise and sunsets.
Our room this time included a continental breakfast, so we had a touch more to eat than usual, and it perhaps took us longer than when we prepare our own breakfast.
At checkout time, I joined the Best Western club, in the hope of a better price at others of their motel chain. We are not seeking them out particularly, but have already spent several days with them so far this trip.
We tried to get on the road early, but it seemed to take a while to get moving. For a short while we were behind a large roadtrain. We stopped at the Coles Express service station outside South Hedland (17249) to refuel for the next leg. Got a good price, $1.08 a litre, at least for this far away from a major city.
Then there was the tedium of the drive, enlivened by incidents. We were behind a small truck with a barking dog in the tray, when something flew off the back of the truck. Jean swerved to avoid it (I thought it was a cushion), however we were unable to attract the attention of the driver to his loss.
We turned away from the coast after about 50 kilometres. We seemed to alternate between very flat land, broken by dry river beds, and worn down hills. The land got more and more red, with more rocks exposed. The piles of boulders were not unlike smaller, more frost shattered versions of the Devil's marbles of the Northern Territory. The road ran past rolling hills, partly covered by spinifex.
We were now in the Pilbara region, perhaps the largest shire area in the world, with around 500,000 square kilometres, and one of the least densely populated, with 45,000 inhabitants.
Around lunchtime we finally reached the first sign of any facilities. This was the Munjina (Auski) roadhouse (17504 km), where we bought sandwiches for lunch. Their cashier area included a small hand lettered sign, written on a paper bag, saying the boss needed a haircut. If anyone with hairdressing skills was passing through,