Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing

Halls Creek is another Aboriginal town with a small variety of shops. Despite the dusty and arid van park, we did enjoy their refreshing pool for a few swims.  We drove out to see the China Wall, which was a wall of quartz, about 30 feet high.  You just wonder how such things got there!  We were travelling on dirt roads.  We also found a real billabong there with beautiful river gums.  We drove on and found Caroline's Pool. In his hey-day Halls Creek was the gold capital of WA.  Gold was first found in WA at this place in the 1800's and up sprung a large town.  The river is still flowing beautifully there and all is green.  The old town was fascinating and we saw the building that used to be the Post Office, a large building made of mud brick, still standing with its ornate fire place also of mud brick. There is a strong history there of The Inland Mission and the clinics that the nurses ran for the mission.  There is a rather destitute caravan park still out there. The sun was setting and we came back the next day to try and get a few photos in daylight.  Caroline's pool used to be the picnic and recreation centre for the old town of Halls Creek.  It was truly beautiful.  I don't think we quite captured the feeling in our photos.  It is a large, deep expanse of river water, which dries up a bit in summer.  People were camped there with vans on the sandy creek bed.  No crocs, apparently. and people were enjoying a swim.

 

We bravely carried on to a romantic sounding place calls Palm Springs.  Well, it was a bit of a surprise, not what we expected, with half a dozen young folk swimming there, then Aboriginees came and had a dip there also.  The road was pretty bad, and on the way home we got a flat tyre. Graeme did not know how to get the spare from under the truck, where it lives.  Within seconds of us stopping, two couples stopped to help us and took over the job, got the spare out, changed the wheel over, while the two girls chatted to me and kept me company. They were Jehovas Witnesses and we were glad of their kindness.  They also suggested where we should stay at The Lodge, Fitzroy Crossing.   We had the tyre repaired,   We need stronger tyres for the outback roads.

 

At Fizroy Crossing we found The Lodge, which is about 5 star accommodation.  Everything is built up high off the ground, because the Fitzroy River floods up very high and it is on at least one side of the van park.

It is a delightful place to stay.  We firstly took off to cross the Fitzroy Crossing, which is on one of the boundary roads to The Lodge.  We continued on to the barge which carried us gleefully down the Geikie Gorge. It is a wonder all of its own.  The walls stand very high and at the base the walls are pure white (an old coral reef from past times) and above the white are the Kimberley reds and browns towering even higher.  There are about 400 crocks in this part of the river.  They ignored us for the most part.  They are fairly friendly, smaller than some we have seen.   A note about crocks:  When the hatchling crocodiles escape their eggs, they make a noise which alerts all the female crocks that they have arrived.  Any female will come and hunt them off down to the water.  However, many things like to eat little crocks including Barramundi, if they catch one.

 

The Geike Gorge was absolutely wonderful to behold.  Well worth the trip to come and travel on it. We hope our photos will convey a little of it to you. The visitors' shed shows the heights the river has flooded to in various years.   It must be unimaginable to see it in flood. 

 

Caroline's Pool, Halls Creek

China Wall Halls Creek

Creek Crossing

Eagle flying near Fitzroy Crossing

Fire and termites

Geikie Gorge, Fitzroy Crossing

Old marine reef, Geikie Gorge, Fitzroy Crossing

Palm Springs, Halls Creek

Palm Springs, Halls Creek

Geikie Gorge, Fitzroy Crossing

 

Something fascinated me here.  It was the big modern service station.  It has been built of rammed earth.  This is both outside and inside.  The roof over the petrol pumps is held up by four huge logs.  Inside it is as clean as the most newly built modern supermarket would be. The Aboriginees seem to be the best customers. The servo also has two houses built in the same manner, but I could not get a photo of them.  What a cool way to build.

 

 

Big Horse Creek and Bungle Bungles (Pernalulu)

We are slowly crossing WA and are currently in Halls Creek.  The van park is all dirt and a few trees.  People packed in here for the night and all took off again for another day going NSEand W.  We will have an easy day, we hope, and will visit some beautiful spots out on the "back road to Kununurra", all dust and corrugations, but there are hidden gems to find along that road.  We discovered some of them in the late afternoon yesterday.

 

We've been doing a fair bit of free camping.  One stop was Big Horse Creek on the Victoria River, before Kununurra.  We spent minimal time in Kununurra, just visiting the Christian Broadcasting Station, HCJB, short wave transmissions to the South Pacific and to Asia.  It was good to catch up with all they are achieving there.  With the aid of volunteers it is amazing what they have done putting up the huge towers.  We set out for Turkey Creek, which, last year was washed away in the floods and then rebuilt by the government for the Aboriginal people.  It is like a roadhouse and camp ground and housing for the people who live there. We kept going until we reached a free park outside the gate to Mabel Downs, where the Pernalulu (Bungle Bungles) domes are.  It is something right out of the box,  We flew over it last year, but this year we did the drive into Mabel Downs.  It was 75 km of dirt road, corrugations, 15 river crossings. At one stage there we bumped into the guy who owns and runs the Tow-Ed Training Course busniess, whom we know.  You never know who you will bump into out in the bush.  "This is what I do", he announced to Graeme.

 

The day was all adventure.  We took many lovely photos and the flowering trees were out in full bloom to give a lovely foreground to the beautiful Bungle Bungles.  The road from Kununurra is called The Savannah Way when it starts out, and that is what it is, Savannah country, but it soon turns into the most wonderful rocky mountains of various hues, which reminded me of Palestine or Afghanistan.  They just kept going and the Bungles were hidden in the heart somewhere deep in those mountains, or so it seemed.  So well are they hidden, that few people knew about them until fairly recent times.  The Aboriginees knew and the few Station owners who live out there.  The properties here are vast.  The grass was green, it seemed like The Garden of Eden for cattle.  Breathtaking and beautiful.   Too bad they meet an untimely end.   I saw a bull who has managed to escape muster for his life and still has his big horns and had a black head and neck and a beautiful brown, shiny coat for the rest.  He was such a speciment and still running free.  Good luck to him.      We saw a big black snake on the road and a pretty brown one, both about six feet long.   Graeme walked into Cathedral Chasm, but it was so vast he felt disappointed that he could not photograph it.  I took a gentler way and was just surrounded by the big bee-hive-shaped domes.  I kept snapping away as the light changed on the domes.  It was a magnificent day of adventure, never to be forgotten.  The clouds in the sky were so beautiful to add to the beauty.

 

Beehive domes and flowers

Bighorse creek sunset

Cathedral Gorge entrance, Bungle Bungles

Cathedral Gorge

Crossing a flooded creek in our car

HCJB Christian short-wave readio, Kununurra

Kununurra sunset

Victoria river sunrise at Big Horse Creek

Victoria river sunset

When we leave here for Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing. This area is called "The East Kimberleys".   We are 1/5 of the way across WA.  At last we found warm weather, 32 degrees today and no heater last night needed.  This is the first night we have not needed the heater.     We rejoiced in a van park where we could have A/C, W/M, water (not to drink, but good for a swimming pool and a shower), clean clothes, which are enjoyed from time to time and even some shops to replenish supplies and a PO.  Mosly Aboriginal people are in these western towns.

Mt Isa to Katherine

We have finally reached warm temperatures.  Katherine, NT.  We are 350 ks south of Darwin. The nights are sometimes colder than Tumbi Umbi.  The night before we left Mt Isa, there was a great, noisy brawl in the van park from the back packers accommodation.  In the end the Police brought in a little "dog box" as a trailer and carried off the noisiest one of the group.  They had previously asked him to leave, but he came back and carried on. So they gave him fair chance and were nice and patient with him, according to the neighbours who watched everything from their vantage spot.  We eventually all got some sleep after 1.00 am.

 

We put our foot down for the next few days as we traversed into Queensland and up the centre toward Katherine.  The country is sometimes just brown grass, but often we have flowering trees and green grass.  The termite mounds get larger as we go further north.  How fascinating are the shapes these mounds.   Some end up looking like human figures.  Some of the termites are vegetarians.  We stayed at road-side places as we came through (various homesteads and other places which were not so good).  When we reached the Big 4 Caravan Park at Katherine, at last we were able to have a decent shower and I stayed in there for ages.  Its a lovely spot, they call this area, the "Low Level", as the beautiful Katherine River is low down and we go across a low bridge to cross the river.  The Katherine River has given the town many very large and frightening floods and the river can rise to the top of the cliffs which make up Katherine Gorge".  Anything like that would totally block off our entrance to this area. This van park leaves nothing to be desired, it is well loved and impeccably kept.  Nearby is the Springvale Homestead where we stayed last year and I could hardly bear to leave it.  The pink waterlilies and the hundreds of turtles kept me very happy.  They also have their own hot spring which turns into a giant waterway which seems to run parallel to the Katherine River.

 

The property where Springvale Homestead is, became the property of Giles, who had done so much on the Overland Telegraph.  The Homestead was built 132 years ago by his grandson.  It was part of the Overland Telegraph system.   Like similar properties in the NT it had its ups and downs.  Giles drove thousands of sheep up from SA. The time it took to drove the sheep was between 12 and 22 months.  You would not find a sheep anywhere near here these days, only big cattle.   The hot spring on Springvale seems to run parallel to the Katherine River.  The date is posted for the last crocodile sighting - 13/5/12.  We did not go for a swim, we just took photos which is the thing we most like doing. We hope you like the pictures of the old homestead, still in use today.

 

Along the way we stayed at Mataranka Springs, another favourite spot, and took a dip in the hot springs there.  We also stayed at The Manor Cara Park, where they not only feed the Barramundi by hand, but also can put their hands down the big fish's gullet and pull him right out of the water for a photograph! 

 

Katherine has a lot of Aboriginal folk living here.  It is one of the few shopping centres Outback.  Darwin is 350 ks, Kununurra WA is 500 ks, Mt Isa Qld, is 1200 ks and Townsville Qld is 2400 ks.  These are the places where you can buy fresh food or groceries!    Many of the Aboriginees appear to be in a bad state.  Your heart goes out to them, trying to live in this totally foreign culture, which we understand.  Some present their children with shoes on their feet and their hair brushed nicely, others have work in the local area, many others spend a lot of time out in the parks or on the street.  Every one of them is worthy of a photograph and I'm sure everyone of them has their own story to tell. When you meet them at church, they are beautifully presented and have a great passion to help their people.

Blue-faced Honeyeater Entomyzon cyanotis

Katherine River

Katherine stars at night 30 minute exposure

Knott's Crossing, Katherine

Mataranka Night Shot of Dam 15min exposure

Newcastle Waters

Northern Brush-tail Possum

Rock Formations

Treasures of Springvale Station

 Wild flowers at Mataranka

Richmond to Mt Isa

We made good time to Mt Isa and came a little further than we had anticipated.  Mt Isa, on water rations, is now receiving light rain.   We are glad to be off the road for four days rest.  Graeme has taken the car in for service.  This van park offered us an en-suite bathroom, which in effect doubled our space, so its very nice.  The best feature of all is that we have two resident frogs who live under the rim of the toilet.  Graeme first spotted the beautiful green one with red around his lower body, legs and feet.  I spotted a much larger light brown one.  He often hangs his legs way down, after a flush to keep hydrated.   I think they may have been a couple.  When they were ready, they headed off for other peoples bathrooms.

 

We drove to Julia Creek from Richmond.  You want to make sure you never get left behind there.  However the folks were nice and one man told me that nobody has to lock their houses and nobody would follow you home on a dark night, so it obviously has more advantages than I first saw.  The shop assistants were lovely, one Aboriginal and the other from England, but she keeps coming back to work at Julia Creek.  The scenery was light brown grass with a few low shrubs for the first 2 hours, but lots of crossing of water ways, which makes for a bumpy ride, as the road gives out where the waters rush across the country in beds or out of them and degrade the earth under the road.

 

After Julia Creek the scenery totally changed and as we left Cloncurry for Mt Isa, it is totally different again and turns into these fabulous mountains which are probably full or ore, they just look so special and the soil is deep, lush red and it is very scenic.  I did a swap from driving with Graeme not far out of Mt Isa and went to sleep, but Graeme called out "camel" and there he was, running in the opposite direction to us, but quite close to the car.  He was a big, fully grown fellow of light grey and streaked past us, on the grass, fortunately.  Yesterday we also saw many birds of prey including an Eagle, about 50 cm high, just sitting in the verge beside us as we drove.  A fabulous specimen in light brown and grey.  O for a picture, but nowhere to stop for about 150 ks.  We saw dozens of Black Falcons and photographed a couple of Aboriginal boys on motor bikes moving a mob of cattle across the road - from one boggy paddock to another.  They gave us a big grin as they moved the cattle so swiftly.  Lucky to have the camera in hand for that pic. I was also happy to see a lone emu.

 

The church in Isa was having a baptism and we met many lovely people of various nationalities.  The African women were very slender indeed and dressed in their best "African" clothing. There were 20 young children in the group.  They gave us lunch and I was able to cuddle one of the cute little African babies.

 

Later on we visited Moondalla Dam where the water is stored for Mt Isa. There is a beautiful contrast between the blue of the water and the red of the cliffs. A big grey kangaroo hopped in front of us out there and we saw 30 or more very tame peacocks.

Abigail's Baptism at the Seventh-day Adventist Church on Sabbath 2 June 2012

Resident green frog in our toilet, sitting on the toilet roll.

Lake Moondarra at Mt Isa

Lake Moondarra at Mt Isa

Lake Moondarra at Mt Isa at sunset

Mt Isa at night

Pam with a baby at the church lunch

 

 

 

Charters Towers to Richmond

We are in Richmond, having travelled on the road for two days on the way towards  Mt Isa, Katherine, Kununurra and eventually to Broome.  We go north, we go south, we go well out of our way because there are no straight roads through. Richmond is well and truly part of the Outback. It is a lovely town with a beautiful lake at its heart.  So we are delighted to be in such a great spot. 

 

This area is called The Dinosaur Trail.  You can dig here for dinosaur bones in several places.  Professionals put the bones together and some are on display.  It is well known that between 1/3 and 1/2 of Eastern Australia was once a great inland sea.  Lake Ayre was probably towards the lower end of the sea and today the rivers from the White Mountains NP (near here) still run to Lake Ayre, also to the Gulf of Carpentaria and back to the east coast near Townsville.

 

Today's road from Charters Towers was mostly dry grass with some Brahman cattle scattered here and there.  At this time of the year there are dozens of small and larger creeks to cross and also the big Burdekin River, which well and truly floods up and takes life to many places, wherever it wanders.  We amused ourselves today by watching the beautiful patterns of clouds in the sky.  Graeme said the wind in the sky must have been at 200 kms per hour, so the patterns kept changing. I've been helping with the driving for two days.

 

Last night we were at Charters Towers.  It was a delightful van park, but to actually see the town was like something off a very old movie.  They keep the towns old buildings pretty well painted and restored.  We have included a few pictures of these.  Charters Towers was once the second largest city in Queensland - around the 1870's. This of course was at gold rush time when they had a population of about 29,000 and also the Australian Stock Exchange was situated there.  The town is full of ghost stories, and WWII relics and memorabillia, such as the stores of weapons, which were hidden under molluck (residual dirt and rock from the gold mining) and were buried into the mountain.  There were also safety bunkers and old disused mines everywhere.

 

I am fascinated by the Auzzie farming families, who dress up in their best to come to town and each is wearing their Akubra.  I've noticed that even their young children and babies are built very strongly and the lean and lanky teens in their school shorts (still with Akubras on their heads) can probably do just about all the jobs on the farm.  Its all quite fasscinating to see.  I watched a little girl about 3 who had found her way into the display window of an old furnishing shop.  She checked out everything that was in the window, would duck low if she saw the shop staff looking in her direction, then she picked up a book she found and sat herself down in a big comfortable chair to have a read.  The town appears to be very religious and many churches and private schools are there.

 

One town we stopped at today was called "Homestead".  When I walked up the stairs to enter the shop, I found myself in somebody's living room.  Talk about cosy! It was also the shop.  Graeme said all the petrol bowsers were locked!?  An old man gallopped his beautiful horses up and down nearby.  The shop keeper said most of the population were retired folk who like a quiet life.  Hummmm....

 

Today I caught sight of a Spectacled Hare-Wallaby, hiding in the grass at the White Mountains National Park.   A tiny hare-sized wallaby, a shy little critter who looks like he is wearing spectacles.  The vegetation in this National Park is totally different from everywhere else and is an explosion of colour in Springtime with native flowers, shrubs and orchids.  Its a rugged park and you need to be adventurous to camp in there.

Australian Bank of Commerce

Big tyres for big boys

City Hall Charters Towers 1891

Post Office Charters Towers 1898

Town called Homestead

White Mountains National Park

White Mountains National Park

 

Magnetic Island, Townsville

Yesterday was a day for our visit to Magnetic Island.  With wild romantic notions about this island from childhood, we came down to earth to discover that Magnetic Island was a Quarantine Station in the late 1800's.  Not many boats called in there of course, and sometimes the quarantined and their carers waited for many months to see a fresh face or to leave the island. There had been scares with Typhoid, Meningitis and the like.  At the turn of the century the station was brought to Townsville and the remaining buildings are just a couple of kilometers down the road from our caravan park.  Like us, I'm sure the residents listened through the night not only to the ocean rolling in, but also to the mournful songs of the many sea birds who cry throughout the night.

 

Magnetic island has 4 main tiny centres with about a dozen streets each.  There are lots of "dead ends".  Where do you go at the end of a road on an island?  The island is made up of a mountain range, covered with huge smooth rocks of granite and some stand on top of each other like "The Devils Marbles", but not so dramatic.  The mountains are also covered with trees.  There are a few beaches, some are netted for the stingers and there are three Surf Living Clubs there.  There are also plenty of wrecks there.  The water has various shades of blue, which is very pretty.  The beaches are mainly sandy with gentle water.  We took the ute over on the vehicular ferry and this was pleasant. A trip of about 35 minutes.  Last night two large trucks were loaded on with us.  They had brought to the island a big crane and the cost of the transport was about $5,000, just to get the crane and auxiliary equipment there.   They needed the highest tide to get the ferry high enough in the water to take the great load.

 

Cyclone "Yasi" hit Magnetic Island as well as Townsville (3 Feb 2011). It also took out Mission Beach and blew as far as Mt Isa - which is very far out west from here.  So there was destruction on the roads (fallen into the sea) and the pier was destroyed as well.  Hence the need for the crane.  We saw a sleepy-looking road worker holding his "lolly pop" sign, but at night all the road workers seemed delighted to be going home to Townsville on our ferry, while teenagers and adults returned home to the island from a day at work or school.

 

Picnic Point, Magnetic Island

Rock Wallaby

Amongst the rocks we saw playful Rock Wallabies, some with Joeys in their pouches. They were very tame.

Shades of Blue

Garage for small car

We found a cute rock cave where you can park a small car (not ours).  

Solar panels to power 22 homes

An unmade road on Magnetic Island

Spotted, asleep while he waits!

Clouds

 

Mackay, Bowen and Townsville

The country-side near Mackay was so beautiful with the ranges on our left and the sugar cane fields were ripe for harvest and everything was as green as could possibly be, with all the dams full.  The roads are being torn up in many places to make way for the advances of the mining industry.   We found a quiet place in a secluded valley and on the beach at Seaforth to "free park" ($21, great hot showers for 20c, no power). What a friendly group there, mostly from the Central Coast. The terrain consisted of steep, wild, rocky mountains in the valley.  I pictured the lucky children who had the opportunity to grow up in such a beautiful place.  We found ourselves caught up in the peak hour traffic coming into Mackay and glad to get out into the valley and the beach.

 

O beautiful Bowen.  We spent quite a few days here enjoying the sparkling ocean of tropical waters which surround this fortunate town.  It is really like a big country town with wide streets, but because it is surrounded on three sides by ocean, it has a beauty all of its own.  The beaches were beautiful, with the most fantastic rocks thrown from some huge volcano once upon a time.  How I would have loved to see it all happening. We were glad to find a smaller version of Woolworths there for supplies.  The buildings, many of them are very ancient, were interesting and in fact the movie "Australia" was shot in beautiful Bowen.  Many of the townsfolk had the opportunity to be extras in the cast.  The buildings which were shown to be in Darwin were actually in Bowen.  It was great to learn all this as both the "Australia" movie and Bowen are favourites. We went to church there and the people begged us to stay forever. They enjoyed having Graeme to play the piano for them for church, they used recordings for the Sabbath School hymns. The caravan park there was wonderful, like a boutique van park, with a magnificent pool to swim in, so that was a great help to us. We were also on the ocean there.

 

Townsville was to be our next stop. We came this way last year, but wanted a bit more time to look around.  Some of our best photos were taken in the National Park north of Townsville.    As you approach Townsville from the south, you travel past huge, tall, rocky mountains, which appeared black as we drove toward and past them. They were covered with wild forest and would look different in a changing light. We drove past them for about 40 ks until we reached Townsville.   Strange, we can't actually remember them from last year.  Our van park here has a pool and we are once again on the ocean, though it is up the hill from our van, so we have to walk to the top of the park to see the ocean.  It is tidal and you can walk out forever and still be in shallow water.  Sitting right out there in front of us is Magnetic Island, which conjures up every romantic and beautiful picture you have ever seen of the tropical waters and beaches with tropical fish to photograph and to swim with. A regular boat runs there frequently during the day and we look forward to a bright sunny day when we can go out and explore the island and its enchantment.

 

Contentment, Bowen

Rocky Bowen

Seagull on light, Bowen

Sunset Friday at Bowen

Sunset Sabbath 19th May at Bowen

Tidal Curves at Bown