Part 7 - Western Australia - The Pilbara

Prologue

The departure from Broome occurred with some confusion and disarray, as the Kelly family was spread all over the globe.  Jodi was holidaying in Darwin, Sara was working in Houston (Texas) and Shirley was in Melbourne visiting her sick father,  For Trudi & Amanda life was roughly normal (apart from Grandpa duties).  And I was chief cook, bottle washer, navigator, driver, and gopher.  I quickly found out how well Shirley hides things in the caravan.  Still with no one to stop me I could east as many jelly babies as I liked.

Eighty Mile Beach

Anyway on Wednesday 28th July (I think) I departed Broome just in front of Darryl & Kay.  Again, it was a lovely road, mainly flat and mainly straight.  I put the car into cruise control, made a coffee and read a book as the car did all the work.  Please do not do this at home.

About 360 km later we ended up at Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park—I had a powered site, Kay & Darryl missed out and scored a non-powered site.  The beach was superb—very similar to Cable Beach.  Eighty Mile Beach is around 350 km from Broome and 250 km from Port Hedland with NO other towns in between.  Sort of fairly remote.  As normal, we had a great multi-course dinner after 5pm nibbles & drinks.  I nipped into the cellar (read under the bed) and found a bottle of red.

After a good night’s sleep I then discovered something that I have never struck before—the sun set and rose on the same beach, albeit at the western and eastern end of the beach.  No, it was not the red wine—I have witnesses.

Port Hedland

(I think) it was Thursday, so being a responsible husband I broke camp, left the remote paradise, and set off to Port Hedland, to set up camp before Shirley flew in from Melbourne.  The dew was so heavy that the clothes on the airer under the awning were soaking wet, and the red dust was red mud.  I found some nice shells (under orders from Shirley) and watched Darryl bait his hook before I departed.  Darryl later reported that he caught a sting ray—the reason for losing two hooks and 2 metres of line.

The wild flowers throughout this newsletter were found between Eighty Mile Beach and Port Hedland - a drive of about 250 km.

Thought for consideration - 12 mile creek is about 530 km from 9 mile creek. Hmmmmm. 

Meanwhile back at Port Hedland, which is related to (and smaller than) Hedland South—a satellite city down the road created to house the people who could not fit into Port Hedland—which has expansion limitations.

As you do when in Port Hedland I visited the observation point at the assigned time and counted 232 cars on the BHP-Billiton Iron Ore train.  Actually the count was posted at the Information Centre.  I reckon the train was a mere 1.5 km (or so).  It took 9 minutes to pass me.  I then got caught by the same train at a railway crossing on the way back to the camp site.

Another thought for consideration—apart from mining this coast is renowned for its fishing.  Yet there is no fish shop is either Port Hedland or Hedland South.

How about a bit of trivia—Eighty Mile Beach (on this trip anyway) is about as far away from Melbourne as we are liable to be.  As Eighty Mile Beach was left behind this morning we are now on the way home.

This is interesting.  The shower cubicles at the Blackrock Caravan Park have mirrors, adjacent to the shower head.  So either the local guys are horribly vain, or they have enough water to promote guys shaving in the shower.  Neither point is relevant to me.

So then a photo of the salt works was is order.  The process to produce the salt uses 99% renewable energy. 

Shirley then flew into Port Hedland and we went into sight seeing mode to check out Port & South Hedland in one day—which we did.  Trains, coffee, iron ore tankers, coffee, shopping centres, coffee—pretty normal stuff.

Point Samson

On Monday 1st we drove the 250 odd km to Point Samson, a lovely seaside village (do we have villages in Australia?) an placed our caravan on a shady site about 50 metres from the beach.  The bad news was that the local fish and chip shop was closed for renovations.  The good news was that the only ‘tavern’ in town resided within the caravan park—a mere 50 metres in another direction.

 

I soon found out that Fremantle sardines were on the menu and there are pasta specials each Tuesday night.

 

We visited Roebourne, went for some long walks on the beach, then went on a tour of historic Cossack (abandoned port town) plus Port Lambert (iron ore loading facility).  The Rio Tinto statistics for the loading of iron ore onto tankers are mind boggling.  It was a very relaxing couple of days. Rent in Roebourne (near the Rio Tinto facility) is anything up from $1500 per week.  House blocks cost $1m—just so a cyclone can knock it down.

 

Have a look at the brickwork in the 150 year old building (below) in Cossack that has handled all sorts of cyclones which have systematically flattened its neighbours.  Note the interesting roof line.  Similar brick buildings in this area were built by some guys called Bunnings who were the ancestors of the people who gave life to the current hardware chain.

 

Just to support the tavern, we ate there last night—with pasta being the nights special.  My spicy prawn spaghetti was as good a pasta dish as I have had anywhere—it was superb.  I know that is a big call—but it was excellent.  The 50 metre walk home was good as well. Before we departed on Thursday I went for a pre-dawn walk on the beach and not only got more sunrise and bird photos—I found a couple of magnificent shells.  One went back into the water as it had a living occupant.

 

Karratha / Dampier

   

We had a short drive to Karratha, did some shopping, then set up camp in a lovely spacious camp park.  We then visited the status of the (now) famous ’Red Dog’ statue, Dampier, the Woodside gas complex and the most amazing aboriginal rock art complex in Australia.  There are over 4000 pieces of art that are etched into local (iron ore type) rock.  I have included two photos. 

  

I have also included an example of some local humour from a Dampier beach. This humour does not reflect the morals of your scribe.

     

On Friday we journeyed around 140 km to the Millstream-Chichester National park.  It was a very scenic drive to the park and even better within.  We were surprised to see how much water was in various water ways—one of which was a natural spring that flows all year around.  The adjacent photos shows this water, where we could see the bottom maybe two meters deep below the lillies.  Unfortunately on the way home I ruined a tyre—third puncture for the trip.  Dirt roads again.  We did 370 km for the day.

   

As we departed the Pilbara on the 6th we reflected how rugged this area is and how important it is to the Australian economy.  Truck drivers are earning $150,000+ and can be flown free of charge between their regular home (anywhere in Australia) and the mine on a regular basis (e.g. monthly).  If you take away mine cars and tourist 4WDs there would not be many vehicles on the road.

As we headed into the Gascoyne region of Western Australia our entire trip had covered about 9500 km, an average of 100 km per day with the caravan plus 48 km without the caravan.     

Please stay tuned for our next report.   

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Part 6 - Western Australia - West Kimberley

We are now moving to the western side of the Kimberley (and have been for a few days I guess).  On Tuesday we headed off to Derby – a trip of about 260 km.  About 90 km down the road we reached an overturned fuel tanker that had flipped over in trying to avoid some recalcitrant motorist.  This caused a stoppage of around two hours while they transferred the fuel to another tanker.  When we got to move again the line up on our side of the blockage was as follows (approx), 18 caravans, three motor homes, one bus decked out as a motor home, three 4WD with holiday stuff, two 4WD with holiday trailers, two other 4WD, ONE sedan.  Our estimate was 75% had Victoria number plates. When we pulled into the caravan park in Derby two hours later (after some serious highway jostling) Daryl and I had moved from positions 10 and 12 to positions 1 and 2 – not counting the non-towing or small trailered cars (who were miles in front).  The need for coffee and toilet stops was shelved. The caravan park had eleven arrivals in around five minutes.

We found a bottle shop in Derby whose beer prices could compete with Dan Murphy’s in Melbourne.  Dinner was barra and chips ($23.50 for two people) from the local “greasy’s shop”.  It was pretty good – straight out of the paper under the stars.  Tonight was probably our warmest night on the trip.

Horizontal Waterfalls

An amazing sight

Our first full day in Derby was superb.  I was in the co-pilot seat on a 14 seat sea plane for the 35 minute flight to the coast due north of Derby. We took off from land and landed on water in a location that cannot be reached by road.  We then had an unbelievable jet boat ride at speeds up to 60 knots (about 100 km/h I think) though a narrow rock pass called the horizontal waterfall.  It is a quirk of nature that the change of tides causes a lot of water to need to get through an opening that is too small to allow easy flow.  So, depending on which tide it is, there is a strong flow from one side to another – among awesome scenery.  We had Barra for lunch then swim with sharks in a cage (sharks outside, us inside).  We even had a visit from a huge groper.  Then another jet boat ride (we have a video) and a demo of friendly fish (see photo) where the fish was content to swim into the hand of our guide – and then be lifted out of the water – quite amazing.  I patted one of the sharks (about 1.6 m long) – very quickly of course.  To complete the day we had a take off from water, lots of scenic views, then a landing on terra firma.  It was a costly day but worth every cent.

To finish off a great day we took some photos of the sunset at Derby pier.

  

Sunset at Derby

Our final day in Derby was a day of culture, starting with “scone a clock” where yours truly cooked the scones for morning tea, then we went for a drive and witnessed such national treasures as the ‘boab prison tree’ (the 2^nd of this trip) and a water trough that can water 500 head of cattle at one time.  All ‘serious’ towns need to have a ‘biggest’ of some sort.

Boab Prison Tree

At 5:15 Shirley, Fay and I headed off to the Mowanjum festival which is an aboriginal celebration of their roots.  It includes a number of tribes, one of which was responsible for the aboriginal component at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.  It was notable for the fact that all management was performed by white people, the amount of dust that was raised by the performers, the enormous fun that was had by the huge number of young aboriginal kids and the quality (or lack) of the crocodile kebab that I consumed.  Still, we engaged in some local culture and witnessed a corroboree.

Our next stop was Broome and a reunion with friends who now live in Merimbula.  Broome has changed significantly since Shirley and I spent four days here in 1995.

Broome has changed significantly since Shirley and I spent four days here in 1995.  It is a bustling and vibrant tourist precinct.  Not sure what that means but I read it somewhere and it sounded good.  On Saturday we had a leisurely day with our only real activity being to check out the “stairway to the moon”. Alas it was too cloudy and we had to settle for a quiet drink and nibbles under the stars.  On Sunday we visited the Broome brewery and had a few schooners while we listed to some live jazz/country music. Try http://www.davidrivettmusic.com/ for a sample. Shirley had some alcoholic ginger beer.  The beer and wedges were excellent.

We have suddenly slipped from travelling mode into relaxing mode – our first real break since home. With the weather being pretty warm it is easy to be lazy.  We had an enjoyable, lazy week in Broome with relaxation being the key activity.  However, we did enjoy the sights and benefits of 'stairway to the moon', famous cable beach, Willy Creek Pearl farm, various walks, various coffee venues (although hard to find after 2pm).  The other notable achievement was my first pizza since leaving Melbourne.   The days were warm to hot and the nights were balmy.  Some of the mornings were cool enough for a track suit top – until 8am anyway.

 

 

So far, for every 1000 km towing the caravan we have done and extra 450 km without the caravan, visiting local sights once we set up camp.  Minor glitches on the trip have included the following (in chronological order):

·               A broken part on the awning (fixed by me with the help of John and Darryl),

·               Lost plug for the sink (bought two so we now have a backup),

·               An “allen key” embedded in a car tyre – not good (lucky it happened in Katherine),

·               Air bed # 1 going flat,

·               Air intake hole in new airbed too big for pump attachment, and

·               Air bed # 2 going flat.

To cap it off, a second tyre issue, this time a split on the inner wall – possibly caused by a sharp rock somewhere around Broome (lucky it happened in Broome).

 

All part of travelling.

Anyway back to Broome.  As you do when in Broome we visited Cable Beach and caught a few waves.  Brought back memories of July 1995 when Shirley and I were last here.  And, as it the right thing to do, we sat on the beach (Coronas in hand) and watched the sunset (see photo).  Eventually we retired back to the camp ground where the BBQ was gunned up to cook some fish, which was followed by pancakes/fruit salad/maple syrup/ice cream. How hard is this life?  On another day I cooked scones for 9 (with cream & jam) and then we had a group spaghetti dinner (for 6) with crispy bread, following by fresh fruit salad and let over whipped cream. As you can see we are doing it pretty hard. Of course we had our 5 pm session between scones and dinner, i.e. a few coronas with lime.

 

The pace has been so hectic that Shirley and I decided to stay another 3 days in Broome to get some rest (said with tongue in cheek).  Darryl and Kay decided on another week.  John and Fay hit the road – off to Eighty Mile Beach.  However we had to shift sites, going from 60% shade to 80% shade – so that was OK.  Also closer to the pool.   Of course this also gave us a chance for a second visit to the brewery to try a couple more beers and visit the place up the road that had half price prawns on a Sunday. 

Another thing - there was a crocodile in the Cable Beach waters yesterday - just where we were swimming a few days ago.

By the time we leave Broome (maybe tomorrow) we will have spent about 4 weeks in the Kimberley and will have covered just under 3000 km – 60% of it without the caravan – 450 km on dirt roads. It has been a wonderful four weeks with lots of memories to take away – not to mention the number of photos that I have taken.  It will be hard to leave Broome.

Next stop will be the start of the Pilbara. Please stay tuned.

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Part 5 - Western Australia - East Kimberley

Hello Again – This time from the Kimberley.  Never ending flat plains are behind us.  The rugged rocky beauty of the Kimberley is before us.  We had a great drive form Timber Creek (NT) to Kununurra with a stopover in a few places to review the magnificent scenes.  When viewing the majestic Victoria river from a bridge, crocodile footprints in the river mud bank could be seen around 100 metres away.

On Thursday we had a lazy day and planned the rest of our time in Kununurra.  The notable points are related to Shirley’s retail therapy, plus finding a banana farm/plantation who sold bananas for $6 per kilo.  We also checked out an amazing phenomenon called zebra rock.  Let your imagination run wild and you may be close.

Ord River

On Friday we had the trip that had to be seen, experienced and heard to be believed.  It was a 70 km bus drive to the Argyle Dam and then a boat trip down the Ord river for the 55 km back to Kununurra.  When you consider the amount of water that is held by the dam, continually flows down the Ord, is used for irrigation, is left over and flows out to sea, increases in the “wet” season, etc etc.  It is huge.  They measure water volume in “Sydney Harbours”.  That is, the amount of water that is held in Sydney Harbour.  At the moment the volume of water in the Argyle Dam is 32 Sydney Harbours (I think).  At the moment the daily amount that goes out to sea is enough to supply Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne for a year.  If you couple those statistics with an amazing ride through breathtaking scenery, at speeds up to 60 km/h, and you include sights of rock wallabies, fresh water crocs, many birds big and small, a huge range of foliage – you get an idea of how good it was.  But wait, there is more.  Add to that the idea of returning to Kununurra in the dark after having seen the sun set over the hills and down the Ord – the experience was truly amazing.  And what was more amazing – Shirley enjoyed the entire boat ride (I think).

One of the more famous components of the Kimberley is the Gibb River Road that runs roughly from Kununurra to Derby.  Its length of 590 km is mainly dirt road with many water crossing.  We ventured down about 40 km of that road to visit the first station from this end – El Questro.  El Questro is not rectangular but if you imagine  a property that is around 100 km wide and 135 km long you get an idea of its size.  We left the caravan (and our friends) in Kununurra and took a two man tent to El Questro (see phot below).  It has plenty of 4WD drives and plenty of rocky walks – most ending in a swim of some kind.  One was even a warm 27 degrees.  We set up camp and enjoyed an open air BBQ which consisted of tomato soup, main of barra/scotch filet/chops/chicken/pork/sausages/hot spuds/salad, plus a great range of desserts.  All this was eaten to the accompaniment of local music.  On the way back to Kununurra we called in to check out Wyndham and see the Boab Prison Tree (photo below) plus the sight of five rivers joining the ocean at roughly the same spot (viewed from a high lookout hill).  In a different way the two days were as good as the Ord river cruise (above).

About half the places we stay at have some form of entertainment, either bush poets or singers.  Although the singers are not substitutes for Clapton or McCartney they are great entertainers. They ALL LOVE their guitar, and love playing it whenever the opportunity arises.  In fact they remind me of a good mate who loves playing the guitar.  At El Questro the singer appeared at the tent next morning in a “ranger” uniform.  He is a stonemason by trade and, in the wet, he is also the brick layer, the stone layer and general construction worker.  He is also called on to muster cattle.  What a life.  And I bet he could tell a few yarns as well.

Boab Prison Tree

Monday 4^th was my birthday. The highlights stared when we had home made (by Fay) iced cupcakes and sang happy birthday (one candle) at morning tea.  We then took a flight over the Argyle Dam, the Argyle Diamond Mine and the Bungle Bungles.  It was excellent.  Six passengers and a gorgeous blond (female) pilot crammed into a flying tin can for the two hour trip.  Lake Argyle stretches for 76 km and we flew down the middle of it at 2000 feet (maybe about 600 metres).  The Bungle Bungles are breath taking – we can’t wait to get out there and go through some if it on land.  The drive in to the National Park is 55 km and takes two hours with about 25 water crossings.  More on that later.  To finish the day the six of us went out to dinner at a flash restaurant called the “Kununurra Grand” – and it was.

On our last day in Kununurra we went to the Hoochery (http://www.hoochery.com.au/) where they make Aussie rum.  Hmmmmmmmm.  Three nips for $5.

Shirley in Echidna Chasm

On the 6^th we drove the 250 km to the edge of the Bungle Bungles and set up camp in a new caravan park (opened in May 2011) which is in a true bush setting.  They even have new ready grown turf that was put down a week ago.  Then on the next day we did IT.  How more Aussie can it get when you are driving down a corrugated red dirt road (good name for a song) in a 4WD at break neck speed (40 km/h), listening to Slim Dusty sing “The Ringer from the Top End”, while cattle graze beside the road and the Bungle Bungles loom out of the flat plain in majestic multi coloured rock.  Shirley and I had left the caravan behind and had migrated to the Bungle Bungles for two days and one night. 

Our camp site

It took us 2 hours to travel the 55 km into the Bungle Bungles National Park – with 25 water crossings. The tent came to the fore again – this time with a new air bed.  We visited a place called “Cathedral Gorge” which was a huge open air cavern/amphitheatre with such good acoustics that a lot of people sing in there or take pre-recorded music to experience the sound effects. We heard a guy sing a few bars of the “Alleluia”. After another couple of walks we set up camp and had a relaxing couple of hours of relaxation before total darkness set in.  Dinner was early, then bed was early, then the dingoes started howling.  However it was a good night for sleeping and an early start was on the go – particularly as Shirley’s air bed went flat this time (not the new one).  We spent four of the next five hours walking – mostly along dry rocky river beds.  Again, the sights were majestic – it is too hard to explain the rugged beauty of the sights.  I took 175 photos in the two days.  So we tackled the 55 km again with the water crossings and arrived back at base camp looking forward to a long shower – after the car was washed of course.  It went from red to its natural gray.  Our four friends did an organised tour into the Bungle Bungles instead of the tent caper.  The Bungle Bungles are probably the highlight of the tour so far.

A magic view of the Bungle Bungles

I have a new item on my “Bucket List” – to write a fictional children’s book.  It has already started with the setting and the characters being established.  Publishing contracts prevent me from releasing any details.  I have already dictated half of the book to my secretary.  Stay tuned for updates.

Shirley in Tunnel Creek Cave

Our next stop was Fitzroy Crossing after a brief pause in Hall's Creek which is nothing to write home about - with due respects to the people who called that neck of the woods home.  Our first day in Fitzroy Crossing was fairly lazy with just a 60 minute cruise along Geikie Gorge - a magnificent limestone gorge with lots of great views.  It was very pleasant cruising along the river – the only thing missing was a glass of wine. On Monday we had a sweet and sour day. The “sweet” was the stroll though the magnificent Windjana gorge (many crocs were present), followed by a stroll/wade through “Tunnel Creek”.  Tunnel Creek is a 700 metre tunnel mostly big enough to drive a couple of buses through.  About 300 m of the stroll was wading though water, some of it waist deep – so we were wearing bathers.  About 50% of it was pitch black requiring all walkers to have a talk.  This is not for the faint hearted – a stroll in the dark in a tunnel through water – where crocs are NOT guaranteed to be absent.  However it was a great experience. The exit of the tunnel flowed into a free flowing very pretty large creek. 
The “sour” was the 300 km round trip, 220 km of which was probably the worst 220 km of dirt road that I have ever driven in one day.  Again there were plenty of water crossings, albeit small.  If James Bond was with us his martini would have been well shaken – not stirred.

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