Thursday 30 August – What a beautiful day we have had today!  We were up very early and waiting with three other couples and two singles (Italian friends) outside the caravan park office well before 7.30 – the designated pick-up time for the full day tour of Karijini National Park.  And when the bus arrived with Lisa as our driver and tour leader, she told us that we ten were it for the day, so that was a nice small group.

We had about a one hour twenty minute drive to our first port of call where we stopped at a lookout where we had stunning views of Hancock Gorge.  The gorges here are very different as most of them are viewed from ground level, then there is a climb down into them, whereas others we have seen are where ground level is the base of the gorge and you need to climb up to the rim if you want to get a bird’s eye view.  And the colours here are just stunning, with the iron ore in the mix the reds are very dark and the rock formation is varied and usually layer upon layer.

Lisa, while only having lived in Tom Price for five months, was exceptionally good, but boy! did we  get a rough ride through all the corrugations in the road for the major part of the 354 km we travelled today.  Talk about Nature’s massage!!  From Hancock Gorge we drove a few kilometres to Oxer lookout which was the junction point of four gorges – all of which we were going to see. Words don’t do justice to these sights – the bottom of them (if you can see it) seems miles down, and the rocky walls are so rough and rugged. We were able to follow the routes of the other gorges by the gaping crevasses heading off in each direction.

From this vantage point we drove to Weano Gorge which again was just beautiful. A twenty five km drive further on saw us arrive at the Joffre Gorge, even more beautiful than the others if possible.  Here there were people swimming way below us, but we yelled comments to one another as they made their way into the water.  There was a waterfall here too, and a few people in the pool below that, with one bloke in particular climbing the rocky steps up beside the waterfall, then climbing back down again for another swim.

 From Joffre Gorge we went to Knox Gorge – also very beautiful.  Sometime during this time we had morning tea – cuppas, bikkies and lamingtons.  After leaving Knox Gorge we made our way to the Karijini Visitors Centre, an interesting building designed in the shape of a goanna, and made of steel – deliberately rusted to fit into the environment.  Here we enjoyed a packed lunch provided as part of the tour, containing miles more food than you could eat for lunch, so Lisa told us to save what we didn’t eat for afternoon tea or to take home.  We then went into the centre and had a good look around.  It was very well set up and the displays were very informative.

The rest of the afternoon we spent in the vicinity of Dales Gorge, which we had called and paid a quick visit to on our drive to Tom Price a couple of days ago.  First stop was at Circular Pool – where the pool isn’t actually circular, but the rocky cliffs which surround it are pretty much in a circle.  The after a short stop at the Dales Gorge lookout we went for the toughest walk of the day – the walk down the cliffs to Fortescue Falls and then on to Fern Pool.  This walk consisted largely of rock steps, built I think for very tall people as some of the steps were very deep, and it was almost back to the hands and feet method of getting down.  A couple of members of our group had a swim at Fern Pool, a beautiful oasis following a lovely shady walk – if a bit tough, where we hung around for the best part of an hour.  Here we had a talk with a fellow from Warragul and his two kids, who were having a swim in the pool.  

Us at Fern Pool.

The climb back to the top was hot, tough and steep, but we eventually made it to the shade of a tree at the lookout and rested there briefly before making the short walk to the bus.  Just as we were about to start that short walk a fellow came rushing over, shook hands with Grant, gave me a kiss and said something along the lines of: ’Fancy meeting you here!”  For a full minute I was wracking my brain trying to place this person, whose wife had now joined us and was greeting us too.  It was going through my mind that we must have met them at some earlier caravan park when it suddenly dawned on me who they were.  They were fellow Newboroughites Richard and Dianne Zupecki, whose daughter I had married back in March!!  So we had a five minute chat to them before we had to get on the bus and return to Tom Price.

It was almost twenty to six when we arrived back at the caravan park after a really good day.  While I went and had a shower, Grant went down to the town to get some bread and fill up with petrol for tomorrows drive – if we leave tomorrow.

While we were getting tea ready we realised that the fridge seems to be not as cold as it should be, so we have to get that looked at tomorrow if possible.  So our departure day/time/whatever depends on the fridge!

Wednesday 29 August – Happy Birthday Janine, and have a good one!  And two more anniversaries today – it is one year since I got my new shape (and lost the odd kilo or three as a result), and it is 20 years today since we lost Grant.  It’s very hard to believe that he has now been gone longer than he was with us.

This morning started off like the others, though I did sleep a little later than I have been.  By nine o’clock we were in town at the Visitors Centre, where we paid for this morning’s mine tour, were issued our goggles and hard hats, and waited with 51 fellow passengers for departure time.  Our driver/guide was Baz, who filled us in on the Rio Tinto Mining Company, its amazing safety record (because no one is allowed on site without hard hat and goggles!!) and provided us with another bit of trivia – Rio Tinto is 51% owned by the Queen.  I guess she must get together with Gina for a cuppa whenever she is here in Aussie.

The tour was most informative, filled with lots of facts and figures, most of which have got jumbled together as you can’t take it all in, and the driver had to continually get permission to go to specific areas within the mine area.  We saw two of four brand new vehicles which are just about assembled, and the height of the wheels on one of them was higher than the windows in the bus.  They certainly are massive. 

 

One of the brand new trucks costing well over $1 million.

The only time we got out of the bus was at the lookout spot, but only once we had our goggles and hardhats on and our closed in footwear.  As the lookout was way out in the open overlooking the mine, I’m not sure what was going to drop onto our heads, but we were ready!! 

 Modelling the latest look in hard hat and goggles.

The scale of everything has to be seen to be believed, as we all know it is big, and have seen pictures of it, but once you see it you really get the picture.  The tour went for over an hour and a half, so we got an excellent overview of the whole operation.

Once back in town we got our supplies (mostly meat and veggies) for the next few days before going back to camp for lunch. We had to stay around close in, as sometime this afternoon the fellow who was going to service the car said he would ring to tell Grant when to bring it to be done.  It is now 3.30, so Grant will wait till 4 and then ring him if he hasn’t heard.

(Later)  Well Grant rang the fellow at 4 and asked if the part had arrived and he said it had (don’t know if he was going to call Grant as he said he would), so Grant took the car and had the service done.  I did some washing, read, sat around, etc, and now tea is over – left over pasta for me and snags and salad for Grant.

This afternoon the lady in the van next door – I think she said her name was Kay – came and asked us whether we happened to have a Nikon camera as she had left her charger at home and they particularly came here to go to Karijini National Park, and they are going on tomorrow’s tour, as we are.  She didn’t realise till today that she had left the charger home, and now may miss out on photos.  We couldn’t help her, but I did hear her asking another new arrival at the park later and they were able to help out, so she was lucky.  I did offer to send her copies of any photos we take, as a last resort, but now she’ll be able to take her own.

I forgot to mention that yesterday just as we were getting into Tom Price, we saw a bird we hadn’t seen before.  So once we got set up I got out our Birds of Australia book to try to identify it.  Well we have reached an impasse – I think it was a bittern, but Grant reckons it didn’t have green legs.  With the red dust that covers everything here, I don’t think you could ever be sure of any colour here, as everything has a lovely burnt orangey-red hue.  I haven’t had normal coloured feet since we hit central Australia – I won’t know what hit me when I get home and see their real colour again.  They’re fine when you get out of the shower, but by the time you get back to the van wearing your sandals or thongs, your feet are red again!!  Very few of the caravan parks have grass, but they ALL have bulldust, so what hope do you have?

Tuesday 28 August – Well we have some phone and internet coverage today, so hopefully we can catch up with you all again.  We left Auski at about 8 this morning, and about 70 kms along the way we took the turnoff into Dales Gorge and drove 18 km to the carpark.  It was a short walk to a spot where we could look down on the Fortescue Falls which was lovely.  There wasn’t a lot of water coming over the falls, but it was still really nice.  The gorge itself is very deep.  Then we went for a reasonable walk along the rim till we came to a lookout spot where three gorges meet, so that was lovely too.

A bird’s eye view of Fortescue Falls.

We continued on the further distance to Tom Price, driving through beautiful hills/mountains in surprisingly bright and varied colours.  It was just lovely country to be driving through, and to my mind the prettiest of the national parks from that point of view. 

Some of the lovely drive today.

By midday we were here at the Tom Price Tourist Park, which is situated at the base of Mt Nameless – the highest mountain in Western Australia at a height of 1128 mtrs.  The park is very nice and has got very busy tonight.

Once here we got pretty well set up, and I was in the van just finishing up what has to be done there when a lizard scampered from behind something I moved and hurtled out of sight.  Of course I loudly alerted Grant (even the man in the next van came round to see what was going on), who simply said: ‘Just as well it wasn’t a snake!’  That was no help, so Grant came in and took everything off the spare bed (where it had taken refuge) while I waited outside waiting to see if it dropped out onto the ground from anywhere – but it didn’t.  Grant said it was darting around on the mattress of the spare bed, but he couldn’t get and it disappeared SOMEWHERE!  He’s telling me that I’ll probably wake up in the morning with it looking at me from the pillow!

After set up we went the couple of km into town for Grant’s latest bloodtest (all good), went to the visitors centre and got details of tomorrows mine tour, and we’ve also managed to get on the full day gorge tour on Thursday, so we are very happy about that.  We picked up a couple of things at the supermarket, then Grant was able to book the car in for a service tomorrow afternoon (we’ve hit the 10,000km for the trip yesterday).

As it was rather warm again today we spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the shade outside the van just being holiday makers, which is a pretty good thing to do.

Monday 27 August – Well as we have no phone coverage or internet connection here, I’m just basically writing my diary.  The days aren’t getting any cooler, but I guess they soon will and we’ll be whinging about the cold!

This morning we were away by about 8.30, and after a few detours (they’re doing massive roadworks in Port Hedland and South Hedland), we finally got away along the Great Northern Highway, southward into the Pilbara.  The countryside was very flat for quite some way, with nothing of interest to see really, so today’s activity was to count cattle roadkill, as there seemed to be nothing else that had wandered onto the road at the wrong time.  The strange thing was that over the first 150 – 200 km of the drive we counted 7 dead cattle, but in these vast flat expanses of land we hadn’t seen even one live one.  Then we saw a very small group (about 6 or 8) grazing, before reaching our total of 9 for the day dead.  The interesting thing was that none of them was on the sealed surface of the road, but on the gravel verge.  As they would have Buckley’s chance if they were hit by a road train, it almost seemed that there was an unwritten rule that they be moved off the road if they are killed.  But then that’s a stupid idea, too, as I can’t imagine the time it would take for the road train to actually pull up – they’d be kilometres past where it happened.

For the last hundred or so kilometres the scenery changed to what we were expecting the Pilbara to be – more mountainous, very red soil and quite rocky in parts.

 We stopped for a cuppa at a roadside stop and Grant talked to a bloke travelling back to Newman to work.  He was saying that the only ones to work for and get long term reliable work are BHP and Rio Tinto, as the subcontractors who are hired by those two main ones advertise, put piles of people on, get the job done quickly, then sack them.   

We arrived here at Auski Roadhouse at midday.  Auski is about 180 km from Newman and 155 from Tom Price, where we are going.  We turn off the Great Northern Highway just about 30km down the road from here.  It is right on the edge of Karijini National Park.

And that was really our day, because after that it was just the usual – lunch, cuppas, chatting to people, sitting out in the shade, embroidering, playing the odd game on the computer and simply sitting around and doing nothing.

Sunday 26 August – Well, as I tipped, there is very little to report today.

Travelled 291km to South Hedland where we are in the Black Rock Tourist Park.  The only bit of interest on the drive was the one specimen of roadkill today – a very big cow, which in itself is not unusual, but it was plumb in the middle of the road and was a definite road hazard.  The road traffic changed as we came south, what with the mines, we today saw several ore road trains with four trailers instead of the normal three, obviously delivering to the port here, and there are ore trains coming and going within earshot of the park.  We didn’t actually go into Port Hedland but came straight to South Hedland and managed to get an overflow spot at the park, so at least we have somewhere. In this park, overflow means that you get a spot on a square of grass which you share with (in our case) two other campers, and you need a very long power lead to connect to the one set of plugs on a wall a bit of a distance away.  No big deal.  And we’ve talked to our neighbours and they seem okay.

We were here by 12.30, so an hour later we’d set up, had lunch and were sitting outside in the shade with a nice breeze.  And that’s about it!!  I did a bit of hand washing, some embroidery, some research on what to see at Tom Price, Grant vegged out, we had numerous cuppas and basically just sat around.  After all, it is Sunday!  And no photos today.  We’ll see what eventuates tomorrow.

Saturday 25 August – Gosh this is a record!  Here it is 2.30 in the afternoon and we are set up at Sandfire Roadhouse and I’m starting on my blog!  And it isn’t going to be too long as nothing has really happened today. 

We left the park at about 8.30 and drove 320 odd kilometres to where we are now.  We had a cuppa at a roadside stop and chatted to another couple for a few minutes before making our way here for a one night stop.  This is another small caravan park behind the roadhouse, but this one has a couple of special features.  First the rainbow of about twenty or thirty peacocks strolling around the place, and a gaggle of geese in the paddock beside us.  We knew  about those, because when we went and paid for our site the lady asked us to be sure to close the door and put out the lights in the toilet block when we leave it otherwise the peacocks and geese get in.  Then the BIG feature is T-bone – a 14 year old, two tonne (well he looks that big anyway) bull and his sidekick Suzy the camel.

T-bone, who at the top of his shoulder would be taller than Grant.

Suzy the camel.

So there you have it for now.  We are sitting in the shade at the side of the van surrounded by red dirt, trying to catch a bit of the breeze, without a lot of luck.

(Later)  After going across to the roadhouse for an icecream and a cool drink we felt a bit cooler, and I spent an hour or so doing a bit of embroidery (I know …. typical old lady stuff), then had a lovely cooling shower before tea. 

We’ve spoken to our family this evening, and received a real surprise.  They would like to treat us to a night in a lovely hotel on the night of Rebecca and Steve’s wedding.  Amanda and Mark have stayed there and apparently it is just over the road from where the wedding is being held.  What a beautiful family we have.  Thanks very much Amanda, Mark, Lisa and Graham.

Well, as I said, nothing much happening on the holiday front today – just moving along.  It will probably be much the same tomorrow as we make for Port Hedland. 

Friday 24 August – Happy Birthday, Lisa!!  We hope you’ve had a good one.  We have certainly had another lovely day today, which started at a leisurely pace which continued for the majority of the day.

After brekky we set off to see a few more of the sights of Broome, first of all going to find the statue which was unveiled in 2010 as a tribute to the women involved in the pearling – particularly the aboriginal women who, along with children, were the preferred divers for the pearl shell in the early days.  More valued as divers were pregnant women, as apparently the hormonal changes at that time increased the oxygen in their blood, so they could stay underwater for longer periods of time, therefore gather more shell.  I think this is a very beautiful statue of a pregnant aboriginal woman emerging from waves with both arms outstretched in front of her and holding a pearl shell.   

From there we drove a short way and visited firstly the Japanese cemetery, which was most interesting – though with all the inscriptions in Japanese characters, it was a bit hard to know who was actually buried there.  The whole area was white gravel, with various shaped and sized slabs (generally of coloured rock) bearing the inscriptions.  It was extremely neat and orderly, with virtually no shade.

In contrast, the Chinese cemetery next door to it had a most impressive roofed entrance, not a lot of graves, but all facing away from the gate, whereas the Japanese ones all faced the gate, the rows were not at all regular, but there were lots of shady trees and a couple of covered areas also affording shade (I imagine for the funeral goers). And the inscriptions on these were mostly in English.  So they were very different to one another.

By this time it was getting pretty warm again, so we headed seawards, making our way to the westernmost point of the peninsula that Broome is situated on – Gantheaume Point.  This is the site of some 120 million year old dinosaur footprints which can only be seen at low tide, but there has been a plaster caste taken of the prints and it is embedded in the rocks at the top of the cliff.  The formation and colours in the rocks there are beautiful.  It is also the site of the lighthouse,  and a small pool that an early lighthousekeeper had had carved in the rocks so that his arthritic wife could bathe there and ease her pain.  So we walked down the rocks to where that was situated.  From this vantage point you get a full view of the extent of Cable Beach and the stunning blue water stretching what seems to be forever.

It was now close to midday so we called at the supermarket for some rolls and a chicken before coming back to the van for a bit of lunch and a cuppa.  At one o’clock we again were on our way, this time driving 38km to the Willie Creek Pearl farm for the tour which we had booked yesterday.  This road was unsealed for the last 14 km before you got to the creek, and that part of the road was pretty corrugated.  We got there with just a couple of minutes to spare and firstly had a most interesting talk and demo by Luke (a Pom here for another two weeks), then had afternoon tea of tea, coffee, cold drinks and plain and fruit damper before being taken onto a boat and cruising around the pearl racks and seeing a bit of the river and birdlife.  Again a very interesting and enjoyable tour. 

Once again (for about the fourth time) we caught up with the Queensland couple we were parked next to in Darwin.

That tour lasted 2 hours, so it was almost five o’clock when we got back to Broome.  Back at camp we had a text message from Amanda and a phone call from Alan both telling us why we didn’t see the camels last night!  Apparently they were further around to the right from where we were watching, and just round a little bend – near the nudist beach!  Tough luck about that, and there was no chance to go back and have another look tonight as we were going to the Sun Pictures (had bought the tickets yesterday).  So after a cuppa, I made up some chicken rolls (you can take your own food and we went to the 6.30 movie), and we drove into Chinatown and got ourselves a seat in the front row.

Now Sun Pictures is the oldest continually operating open air picture theatre in the world, and you go there for the experience as much as for the movie.  You sit on deckchairs – take your pillows, jackets, insect repellent, food, whatever, find yourselves a seat and enjoy the experience.  And what an experience it is.  Now tonight’s movie was ‘Salmon fishing in Yemen’ and turned out to be quite good.  You are laying back in your deckchair, and while the movie is playing there are geckos crawling on the screen, but there is something even more distracting.  You see Sun Pictures is situated in Chinatown, directly under the flight path of landing planes.  So twice tonight during the movie, planes came in to land,  just over your heads, very low and of course drowning out any sound coming from the film at that time.  It was quite funny.

So there you go – that was our day today.  Tomorrow we up stumps again and head south, with tomorrows destination the Sandfire Roadhouse, about 320 km down the road towards Port Hedland.

Thursday 23 August – Well it seems we are finally getting used to the time zone as this morning we slept till almost 7.30.  And though there was a bit of an early morning sea mist, it cleared quite quickly and stayed away all day.  So after a leisurely start to the day, our first port of call was the hospital where Grant had to have another blood test – this time a good number, so he has to have another one in 5 or so days to make sure the dosage is continuing to do the right thing.  From there we went to the Visitors Centre and booked a couple of tours – one for today and one for tomorrow, then went to Chinatown to have a look around.  This is a very old part of Broome, with old style, small shops, and a real Chinatown feel to it.  We strolled around, first going to the Sun Pictures building which you’ll hear more about tomorrow, then just wandering along the streets and down the laneways seeing what there was to see. 

The Sun Pictures building.

We found an ice-cream shop that sold mango smoothies, so of course that was a definite stopping point – and the smoothie was yummy.  We returned to the caravan at lunchtime and had some lunch, then sat out enjoying the beautiful afternoon until mid afternoon when we went back into the town (about 5 minutes drive) to do the pearl lugger tour.  They have two early pearl luggers fully restored right in the town, so we were there at the designated time and soon were under the spell of a delightful young Irishman Chris, who was conducting the tour.

He was very, very funny – in the way that only an Irishman can be funny, as well as extremely informative and kept everyone (20 of us) completely captivated as he told the story of the origins and development of the pearling industry in Broome.  It was a tough life, and it didn’t change until the 1970’s when technology started to have an impact.  At the end of the hour session, he invited us to take turns putting our head into the 25lb diver’s helmet and have our photo taken.  Well guess what!!  Grant had a go, I took the photo and then he couldn’t get his head out!  When we called to Chris that he was stuck he made a joke of it before coming over and giving Grant some ‘getting out’ strategies, which fortunately worked!!

From there we went into the showroom where he showed us what is believed to be the second biggest pearl in the world, and we had a hold of it, too.

Once the tour was over, Grant and I drove out to Cable beach to watch the sunset which was beautiful.  As I mentioned earlier, there was no sea mist tonight, so we saw the sun go down in all its glory.  The one thing that surprised us though, was that there was no camel train taking tourists along the beach.  I thought this was a nightly event, but apparently not.

We were back at the camp by about 6.15, after another day full of interest, heat and relaxation.

Wednesday 22 August – As I write this it is almost 8pm Broome time, I’m enjoying a cuppa, and Grant is over in the laundry waiting for the washing to get dry – in the drier!!  Yes!  I thought when I pegged it out at a bit after lunch that it would dry in no time at all, but today has been a very strange day in Broome, so it didn’t. 

We once again got away from the caravan park by 8am and were in Broome a bit before lunchtime.  We hadn’t been able to book anywhere here as I couldn’t find a camp which took bookings, so we took pot luck and called in at the Roebuck Bay Caravan Park on, would you believe - Roebuck Bay.  I went into the office to see if they had any sites available, and Grant stayed in the car in the temporary parking bay.  Well they had four we could choose from, so Pearl told me to take a walk around the park (she highlighted the route for me to take) and choose the site we preferred.  So I went and got Grant, and with me referring to the map, we set off to check out the sites.  Grant kept saying to me that we were in the unpowered site section, so eventually we stopped and I asked a man where we were on the map, and we were in totally the wrong end of the park.  So once we got that straightened out and pointed ourselves in the right direction, another old codger stopped us and got involved, telling us which of the four sites was the best, and giving us the rundown of the place.  And he was right!!  We’ve got a beautiful site only 50 mtrs from the water’s edge (when you can see it).

Which brings me to the ‘strange’ I mentioned before.  As we were approaching Broome, from a few kilometres out we could see a very dark cloudy sky which we dismissed as cloud, because it doesn’t get cloudy in Broome – and decided it must be smoke from the burning off that occurs everywhere up here.  Well as it turned out it was neither – it was just a very heavy sea mist that totally obliterated the sea from our view.  And the old codger mentioned that this was unusual, but had been happening a couple of times a week recently.

So, undeterred we set up the van, put our chairs and table on the grass between our van and the water, and had lunch, during which time the mist gradually cleared and we had the expanse of Roebuck Bay in the most magnificent shade of blue you could ever see. 

Grant lapping up the lifestyle.

After a quick lunch I went and did a couple of loads of washing, pegged it out, then we went for a drive to the Visitors Centre to book a couple of the tours we want to do while we are here.  We were chatting to our neighbours before we left and they said that the town tour is very good, so we first mentioned that to the fellow who was serving us.  He asked whether we wanted to do it this afternoon, but we said we’d prefer tomorrow, but it doesn’t run on a Thursday, and Friday there weren’t the required numbers for it at this stage, so there was no guarantee that it would go ahead.  So he said, why don’t you do it this afternoon – it leaves in half an hour.

After a quick consultation we said yes, and left the other tour bookings till tomorrow, as we had to dash back to the caravan park (which we weren’t sure how to find in a hurry to get Grant’s warfarin tablet which has to be taken at a specific time which would fall while we were mid tour!! Talk about being organised!  We made it there and back in time, and even had ten minutes to spare when we got back to the bus stop.  The tour was on a red double decker bus.

The tour was excellent – with one minor ‘less than excellent’ part.  And that was that the first spot he took us to was the famous Cable Beach, and the dreaded sea mist had come in again and it was like a pea-souper – no vision of the beach at all, so we’ll go back tomorrow and have a look for ourselves when the day is clear.  But apart from that I reckon we must have driven down every street in Broome – sometimes twice, while we got a fully detailed introduction to the town, its industry, it’s buildings, resorts, main features, beaches, wharf, cemeteries (pioneer, Chinese and Japanese}, pearling luggers, etc.  It took two hours and we returned to the starting point at about twenty to six this evening.

 The Broome wharf.

Pizza was the choice for tonight’s tea, so Grant found a pizza place, found our way back to the camp in the dark (he wanted to do it without Zola’s help, and I was totally bamboozled), and that’s where we are at now.  I can’t believe we are in Broome already.  When we started out on this trip, Broome seemed such a long way in the future, and now we are here.  The time is really flying.

Tuesday 21 August – Well today has been a fabulous day, and right up there on the growing list of trip highlights.  And it even started off well when I didn’t wake up until 6.30!  So we still had plenty of time for brekky, shower and pack our backpack and bag for the day’s outing.

We were out at the front of the park a little after eight, and three other people from the park were going on the trip.  Lucky we were out a bit early as the tour bus – a big off-road looking thing, was here five minutes earlier than scheduled time.  After picking up people at other accommodation places we were on our way by about twenty past eight, with a full complement of passengers – about 28 in total.

About 5 km out of town we turned onto the famous Gibb River Road, which was sealed for about 50 or 60 km of the 390km we travelled today, driven and guided by Steve who told me he works one week on, one week off at an underground mine, so in the off week he does the tours.  He was a bit of a character.  Our first stop was at Windjana Gorge, where we had morning tea before doing the fairly easy walk into and along the gorge which is formed by the Lennard River cutting its way through the limestone of the Napier Range. 

It was beautiful – a very narrow slit between the rocks to get through at first, then a lovely walk along the sand by the river.  Before we got off the bus, Steve sent the passenger list around and beside our name we had to write how many freshwater crocs we thought we would see in the gorge.  Grant put 14 and I put 27, but we were both way out as there were about 75 – most of them just on the edge of the water or just half in the water.  So we just took our time and walked around, with Steve pointing out some fossilised nautili (shells) from lots of millions of years ago when this area was under water.

A nice spot in the gorge.

Once we eventually made our way back to the bus we had lunch which was very nice – cold silverside and about four salads, with cool drinks and/or cuppas, then left for Tunnel Creek.  As we drove, Steve told us the story of Jandamarra, a local Bunuba tribesman from the late 1800’s who had a significant impact on early West Kimberley history.  Then we stopped at the ruins of the Lillimooloora Police Station, which tied in with the Jandamarra story.  Very interesting.  We also were fascinated to see the durability and resilience of the boab trees, many of which were growing on the rocky outcrops, apparently growing in rock.

Next stop was at Tunnel Creek where we all went and changed into our bathers or short shorts, changed our shoes, got ourselves equipped with our cameras and torches, and the Tunnel Creek walk was on!  Tunnel Creek is a tributary of the Lennard River and has carved a 750 mtr tunnel through a section of the limestone rock.  The entrance to the tunnel was a bit of a challenge – very rocky – but once we negotiated that successfully, we walked through the tunnel, wading through several mostly sand bottomed pools of varying depths, with the deepest coming halfway up my thigh, before emerging at the other end. 

Ready to face the perils of the deep!

Here we saw some very old aboriginal art high up on a rock wall, as well as a live goanna sitting on a rock in the river.  We spent a few minutes enjoying the scenery here before doing the return trip through the tunnel.  At a couple of spots through the walk there is daylight coming though, but otherwise it is pitch dark, and only our torches provided the light to walk by.  Our headlights were a bit of a dud, but I took another torch as standby, which helped a lot.

 Brave adventurers.

Steve pointed out a freshwater croc sitting on the rock beside the river in the tunnel, as well as some very interesting stalactite formations, and he also pointed out a group of ghost bats, the only carnivorous bats in Australia.  They were making some funny noises.  It was really fun – I felt like a bit of an explorer or adventurer.  It was really eerie when he gathered us all into a tight group and we all had to turn our torches off, he then wanted to see who could make the scariest noise.  It was nice and cool in there, compared to the heat when we re-emerged at the end of the walk and made our way back to change shoes, etc, and partake of afternoon tea.

At one stage through the day I established that one lady in the group was born in Longford, Tassie and actually knew my Uncle Fred when he coached and played football there in the 1950’s!!

We left the Tunnel Creek parking area at a bit before three this afternoon and were back here by 5.20, very satisfied with the day which was so much better than we had even imagined.  Thanks, Hull kids, for telling us we must go the Tunnel Creek – it was great advice.

So for now …… Broome, here we come.

Monday 20 August – Well we seem to have set ourselves a new level of organisation as again we were away by 8am!  We’re getting the hang of this touristy stuff.  Today we had a 260km drive to Derby which went without a hitch.  We stopped mid morning at one of the roadside stops for the ever welcome cuppa, and this stop featured a massive boab tree which was quite hollow, so that was something really weird to see.  We chatted to some people there and one of the couples is two years into a five year travel plan, so they’ve still got a way to go.  They’ve even bought a new caravan mid-stream.

That's a man standing to the right of the base.

We arrived in Derby by lunchtime, and Zola really ruined her reputation trying to locate the address of the caravan park we had thought we would stay at.  So much so that we ditched that idea and went to the one we could find!  So we are installed in the West Kimberley Lodge, which interestingly is an adult only caravan park.  It is quite small (only about 22 sites) and the couple running it are very nice.  When I was booking in I told the woman (whose name I don’t know) that we would stay two nights, as tomorrow we wanted to do the Tunnel Creek/Windjana Gorge full day tour – a return journey of 390km, quite a portion of it on the Gibb River Road.  Without me saying any more she got on the phone to the Information Office and then delivered the shattering news that tomorrows tour was fully booked and they only run every second day.  And we really didn’t feel that we could spare two extra nights here, given the dates we have to keep in mind.  I was very disappointed as the kids all told us this was a must do, and we were really looking forward to it.  So I only booked for the two nights and we set up and had some lunch, all the while trying to work out a way of wangling the extra time.

After lunch, first stop was the Derby Hospital for Grant’s blood check and again it was up the putt, so he rang his doctor, had the dosage changed and has to have another blood test and report back on Thursday.  It’s starting to get at Grant a bit – all these blood tests when he was going so well at home with his readings.  But it is what it is, so we just have to get on with things.  Then Grant suggested that we should go to the Information office and see if we could put our names down for any cancellations on tomorrows outing.  So around we went, and when I asked the girl whether there are ever any cancellations she said no, but as there had been another couple also enquiring, she would know at around three o’clock if they would put on a bigger bus, so she took our names and phone number and said she would ring us when she found out.

From there we went for a bit of a drive to the wharf and walked around it, watching the rapidly changing tide come in.  Today was an eleven metre rise – and it was coming in quickly.

From there we headed back into town to find a hole in the wall, when my phone rang and it was Kym from the Information office, and we were in luck!  So we called straight around there and paid our money, so we’re in!  And while we were doing that we happened to strike up a conversation with another couple who happened to come from Dixon’s Creek, and when they asked for our daughters name and I said Amanda Hull, the woman said ‘Oh! She taught our grandchildren to swim!’  Two of their grandchildren go to school with Samara and Brody, so fancy that – they actually know Amanda and the kids.

It was then time to stock up the pantry a bit, so we went to Woolies and did that before coming back, relaxing a bit, then getting tea.  It’s been 34 degrees today, and now (it’s almost ten o’clock pm), Grant is sitting outside the van and it is beautiful.  We’ve just checked our requirements list for tomorrows excursion and we need to take our bathers, a torch and a change of shoes, so hang on for the next exciting episode.

Sunday 19 August - Up at around six this morning – we’re getting worse!  But we broke all records and left the park just before 8 o’clock!!!  Again the trip was fairly uneventful – which of course is good.  However I did miss out on getting some really good photo/camcorder shots of eagles eating from the road.  One only took off a few seconds before we were on top of it and I would have got a great shot if I had been ready.

We stopped for a cuppa at about 11 o’clock at one of the roadside stops which are very frequent here in W.A. and very well signposted.  In some cases they are only 5 – 10 km apart, and the ones where you are welcome to spend the night are marked ’24 hour parking’.  As today’s drive was only about 289 km we were here by midday and set up in good time.  We had some lunch then sat and relaxed for a bit before going on a drive around Fitzroy Crossing.  It only has half a dozen streets and I got lost!!

We then drove the twenty km to Geike Gorge where we did a 4.4 km walk through the gorge, returning via the banks of the Fitzroy River.  It is a beautiful river, lovely and wide, and must be a sight to see in the ‘wet’ when the flow is so great.  The walk was pretty flat, but as a good two-thirds of it was in deep sand, it was hard going.  The cliffs of the gorge are partially sandstone, so while the gorge is not as high as some, therefore not as spectacular, the colours in the rocks were really lovely, especially one area of really orange rock.

Once we had done the walk we headed back into town, taking a turn off a few kilometres before we reached the metropolis of Fitzroy Crossing to check out the old site of the town and the original Fitzroy Crossing – a low level concrete road across the river.  The few houses in the old town were very evidently aborigines homes, and an information billboard there revealed that they were part of a project to provide housing for the indigenous community.

We were no sooner back at the van, and Grant had gone across to the toilet when I heard “Hello” at the door.  Now when we arrived at the camp at midday, we noticed an elderly aboriginal man sitting up near the camp kitchen, and he appeared to be carving something.  Well there he was at the door, offering to sell me his piece of work.  He had carved a design on a boab nut (almost as big as an emu egg) showing kangaroos, etc.  He told me he had done it at lunchtime.  It wasn’t too bad, but I really didn’t want it, and by now Grant had come back, so I passed the decision making buck to him, and he politely declined.

So now tea is over, the night is still very warm, and I think I’ll have an early night as my eyes are a bit tired tonight.  Tomorrow we will move on to Derby where Grant can have his blood checked, and we will probably have a couple of days there.

Saturday 18 August – Hard to believe but we actually left the caravan park before 9am and arrived at today’s destination (Halls Creek) at about 2pm after a 360km drive.  The day was fairly uneventful apart from a couple of things, but I’ll start at the beginning.

We left the camp and went into town to fill up with petrol, then pointed our noses west.   As we approached the Halls Creek turn off from the Victoria Highway (about 45 km out of Kununurra) we were pulled over by two policemen doing breathalyser tests.  We had a chat to them while this was happening and discovered that they were based at Wyndham when they asked us if we had been there.  When we told them we were there yesterday they asked what we had seen, and we seem to have checked off most of the features.  I then asked them what is exported from the Wyndham port, as yesterday when we were returning from Wyndham we counted at least 8 or 10 road trains (4 trailers long) heading to the port and we weren’t sure what was in the trucks.  As well as cattle, the main export is iron ore from a mine (Ridge Mine) we passed about an hour and a half further down the road. 

Then they asked where we were heading, and told us to be careful as there were a few single lane bridges, with one being badly situated on a corner, and last night a caravan was cleaned up on one of them.  He told us we would see it down the road.  They also warned us that there are a lot of road trains on the road, and the iron ore ones weigh around 200 tonnes fully loaded, so you wouldn’t need to tangle with one of those. 

Well we did see it down the road – it was actually at the first bridge and was quite a mess.  There was another van pulled up by it (perhaps offering assistance), and what appeared to be the vehicle pulling it was also stopped there, but didn’t seem to have any damage.  It’s hard to tell what happened, but the whole front corner right across past the middle of the van was smashed in, so it would have been a big mess inside.

We had a couple of short stops – one to give Grant a break from driving, then another for me to hand the driving back to him when my eyes became too dodgy, and a slightly longer stop for a lunch break.  As we got about halfway here the countryside became very rugged and mountainous, so the scenery was really lovely.

The park here is pretty good and we were settled in by mid afternoon and enjoyed a couple of cuppas as again it was very hot today – around 33 degrees.  Late in the afternoon (a bit after 5pm) an off road van came in next to us with a young couple and their two little girls (2 and 5 years old).  They had experienced a pretty tough day, driving from before 9 this morning and turning their clocks back an hour and a half as they crossed the border into WA, do all up about nine and a half hours across the Tanami Desert, and had some major car and van problems.  They’re not sure where they can get them fixed, as there’s nothing here to help with their problems.  And though they had intended to drive the Gibb River Road, they have had a rethink and now will give it a miss.  They had linked up with another couple doing the same drive, and they had four punctures today – so they’ve also had some interesting times.

We’re just having a one night stop here, and tomorrow we will make our way to Fitzroy Crossing.  Once we see what is doing there we will decide whether it will be a one or two nighter.

We’ve actually got wireless reception tonight and Grant is listening to the Maggies get beaten.  With only about ten minutes to go in the game, it’s not looking good.  Can’t help bad luck, can you!!

Friday 17 August – Gosh this waking at a few minutes past 6 in the morning is becoming a   habit.  I didn’t go to bed last night until midnight as I thought I’d sleep in – and I did until 5 past 6!!  Ridiculous.

We left a bit after 9am for the 100 km drive to Wyndham – the northernmost town of the Kimberley and still an active port in the export of cattle and mineral ore.  About halfway along the drive we saw the turn off to Hall’s Creek – where we are going tomorrow, then about 20km after that we saw a signpost to the Grotto.  Now a lady I was talking to on a visit to the toilet block last night said that we must go to the grotto, so we took  the turn off and arrived at the carpark a couple of kms along the road.

The sign describing the walk to the grotto said that part of the walk was down 140 man-made steps, and the water in the grotto was around 300 ft deep.  It sounded interesting, so off we went.  A short way along the initial track we stopped for a bit to watch two young boys – they looked about 8 and 10 who were having a lesson in abseiling.  Their parents were there, but they were in the capable hands of a fellow tied in with an adventure tour company who was very good dealing with them.  Over the time we were there they both did a couple of descents – very confident.

The rocky cliff we descended.

Then we got to the steps which were extremely steep and started to go down.  Grant was ahead of me as I am very slow, and about three quarters of the way down he was waiting for me as there were a couple of very deep steps which he knew I would have difficulty with.  I thought I had met my Waterloo with these steps, because even if I could get down them, could I get back up them on the return climb?

So Grant said he would go on down and see what it was like.  About four or five minutes after he went further I decided that I could do it, so I gingerly climbed down and clambered my way to the grotto – very scared, as if you slipped the outcome wouldn’t have been very good.  It was a pretty spot, so we hung around there for a bit before the climb back to the top.  The two boys were still abseiling, which gave me a good excuse to have the odd rest on the way up and watch them, but we eventually got back safely, hot, relieved and sweaty.

Wyndham is different!  In the literature we have acquired about the area, it is described as a small frontier town that typifies the diversity of the region.  It looks as if it is in a time warp – remaining in about the 1950’s.  On the way into town we passed the dusty gravel racecourse where tomorrow’s Wyndham Cup is the big event, and I heard on the wireless this morning that they are hoping for 800 people to attend.  The buildings in the town were old, dilapidated, many on stilts, and most having metal grilles on their doors and windows.  We had a look at the port area, then tackled the touristy things – the pioneer cemetery, the Residency (a stone house built in 1888 for the first magistrate, but the mortar used for the stonework was of very poor quality so the building eventually started falling apart.  It was never lived in, as it was too remote and because of the dangerous aborigines.), dreamtime park (a group of large statues depicting an aboriginal family and their animals), the five rivers lookout (where you get an amazing overview of the five major rivers – the main one being the Ord - as they reach the sea), the big concrete crocodile which is at the entrance to the town, and the Afghan cemetery (where the early cameleers are buried, often with their camel).  We also tried to find the giant boab tree without any luck.

The view from the lookout.

As we drove back to the main road from the Afghan cemetery we had some interesting interaction with a couple of aborigines we had noticed as we drove in. They were sitting in the creek bed drinking XXXX, and as we drove back the fellow was waving at us to stop.  Grant pulled up and the fellow started yabbering at Grant in his lingo, when the woman told him to talk properly, and when he again rattled off in his language, she told us that he was crippled and could he have a lift into town.  As we had left town, Grant just said we weren’t going that way, so she said thanks and wished us a ‘have a good afternoon’.  We did wonder how this crippled fellow actually got to the creek bed, or was his handicap the result of the consumption of the contents of the box of XXXX beer.

We did a bit of shopping once we were back in Kununurra, ready for the next leg of our trip, then relaxed for the rest of the afternoon with the odd cuppa and a bit of a snooze on Grant’s behalf.