Broome and Bust

We arrived in Broom via tow truck.  The ute burnt out the front dif. due to a malfunction in the controller.  The main controller and wiring harness is not available and they have to be manufactured overseas which is an indictment on Mazda and Ford. In the meantime, the local dealer has not yet lodged our Warranty claim, so nothing else can be done until that is done.  We are still in our van near Cable Beach. Our booking is for two weeks, then we will probably have to move.  Population  of Broome is normally 10,000, but now, in the tourist season, it is 20,000.

 

 EXTRA!   EXTRA!   Today, Monday, we received permission from Ford's Warranty Manager to approve the work that needs to be done on our ute.  He rang the local company and gave them the precious Warranty approval number, so now we can move to step 2, to order the parts needed to do the job. The local company is not coping with the huge influx of jobs, with the tourists, and the staff seems to be taking it in turns to have nervous breakdowns!

 

 Broome is beautifully warm with blue skies every day, and few signs of clouds.  Sometimes the nights are chilly (15 degrees). We swim each day at the town pool. However, the beach is the most beautiful shade of turquoise as you will see from the photos.  Many people go to watch the sun disappearing over the western horizon, as it travels on its merry way to some other place.  The camels take riders at 3pm and at sunset. It is such a ritual here.  The 4 WD vehicles drive down on to the beach by the hundreds to watch the sunset and the camels. There is a nudist beach at the far end of the camel ride! Cable Beach is pure white sand and is in a big horse-shoe shape.   Lots of sand and lots of very high tides.  Staircase to the moon happens this week. They seem to be expecting thousands to turn our for that, even though it happens each month.

 

Broome is on a peninsula and there are two main beaches, Town Beach and Cable Beach. There is also a shipping terminal on the Town Beach side.  We saw many trucks arriving with hundreds, or more beasts to be shipped overseas as live exports.  The huge trucks, double story and with 2 or 3 trailers behind, drive right down the pier and can turn around there, as they unload the animals.  Lilies: Lying on the ground we see these beautiful lilies. The plants they grow on, look like Gymea Lily plants, but when the strong stem grows tall, it falls over and the flower heads may be quite a distance from the mother plant.  This means that you see these lively lilies lying in the most unexpected places on the ground and you think they must be plastic, until you realize where they have come from.  Birds: We have seen lots of beautiful birds. We don't know really what the birds are, you can inform us if you like.  I just felt the "Cuccoo Bird" looks like a face that only a mother could love, and he makes me laugh.

 

We have had the most fabulous support from everybody around us, firstly here at the van park but mainly at the church, where they offered us a vehicle to use, a place to park our van and a hoist with 3 mechanics to take care of our car.  However, without the spare parts, we can't do anything very much.

 

The history of the Pearling industry here is very important.  It has a checkered history, between the Chinese, the Japanese and the whites.  There are pearl shops everywhere. Now there are only 20 pearling luggers left. There used to be hundreds after the pearl shell, but now the oysters are seeded, the pearl itself has become the main object of beauty and  desirability. Broome also suffered Japanese bombing attack on 3/3/42 and 140 people were killed.

 

Camels on Cable Beach

Camels on Cable Beach

Cuccoo Bird

Green parrots at Derby

Lilies

Shipping terminal seen from Town Beach

Sunset at Cable Beach

Camels at sunset at Cable Beach

Sunset at Cable Beach

Town Beach

 

Derby - Windjana Gorge & Tunnel Creek

Derby is a small Aboriginal town. The Aboriginees seem to be well integrated into society, though there are always problems.  All who live there, agree it is a very social town and many prefer to work in Broome for the week and drive home to Derby.  A lifeguard travels twice a week from Derby to Broome to go on Lifesaving duty on Cable Beach (220 ks).  He is in charge of the nurses at Derby Hospital. I found a beautiful pool to swim in at Derby.  I was there with about a dozen or so Afghan Detainees from the Curtin Air Force Base, which is currently acting as a Detention Centre (800 detainees).  The runways there are 5 km long, to take the biggest planes.  They are increasing the size of the Detention Centre.  In war time, I'm sure they would quickly be evacuated if the base was needed for war. They detainees had four guards with them, one a young woman who had a Bronze Medallion, as most of the Afghans dont swim well, so they received a lifesaving device around their waists.   It was hot and they all enjoyed themselves at the pool and were happy to chat and practice their English.  All were about 22 years of age and looked like nice young men.

 

The biggest shock at Derby was the ocean is red.   It is 50% Kimberley red mud mixed in with ocean water.  Its not safe to get into it.  Derby has the highest tides in the World at 13 metres. This means the town is surrounded by mud flats where the tide spreads out all over the place when it is high tide.  It looked a little bit like Wyndham where five rivers empty out into the sea and the mud flats go as far as the eye can see.  There are islands beyond Derby where the once again returns to blue and the ships go out for weeks at a time to fish.  There is a French fish and chip shop on the long promenade out to the shipping terminal where they serve yummy food.  Their Air Conditioning system consists of hundreds of tiny sprinkler heads around the roof of the building, which spray the clients every two seconds with cool water. It works very well.

 

Graeme decided to take a bus tour out to Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek.  The bus was a big and sturdy 4WD vehicle, which can tackle the Gibb River Road.  He had a great day out there and the pictures will tell the story.  The Prison trees were used by the Police in olden times to hold mostly Aboriginees, as a resting place, overnight.   What a terrible experience for them - all chained up, some by the neck.  Some of them were taken as divers for the pearling interests in the earliest times.  Derby used the Boab trees as street plantings down the main street.

 

Tunnel Creek

Windjana Gorge

Windjana Gorge

Boab tree

Crocodiles at Windjana Gorge

Tunnel Creek

Tunnel Creek

 

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