Allthegobro

We have come to the Ningaloo coast to check out what all the fuss is about with whale sharks and the world famous reef.

The Ningaloo coral reef is a fringing reef that stretches from north of Exmouth down the coast to near Carnarvon, about 260km. It is never more than 12 kms off the coast and in many places comes close to the shoreline. You can look out from the beach and see waves breaking on the reef out to sea.

The reef is different from the Great Barrier Reef on the east coast. As its name suggests it is a barrier reef that is from about 16 to 160kms off the coast and stretches from Cape York down to near Bundaberg, about 2,300km. Both reefs are World Heritage Areas.

Exmouth is a curious place. It had its origins during WWII, when it served as a submarine base for the United States. Sorties were launched from here into South East Asia, including some Australian chaps in a small boat who blew up some Japanese ships in Singapore Harbour.

In the 1950s the Americans set up a naval communications base here that was pretty secretive. There are 13 big towers with wires hanging off them that communicate with American subs in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. It was so secretive that even the Australian PM was very vague as to what went on. Allthego remembers a bit of all this when he was at Uni, protests and the like by unions, students and professional rabble rousers etc. Sometime later Bob Hawke (or was it Gough Whitlam?) I think rationalised things and took over the place politely asking the Americans to go somewhere else. They are probably still there in some form keeping an eye on things. Any way when they left town we were told the population dropped to about 400 from 2,000.

They didn’t have a lot to do!

But then something generally comes along to pick up the pieces. This time it was a big blue thing with lots of white spots. Of course whale sharks had been here all along. They were ‘discovered’ along with the reef and all its sea life, and today we have a tourist mecca! The population has grown back to around 2,700 and is busy servicing the tourists and relieving them of their cash.

People come from all over the world to swim with these gentle plankton eating giants of normally about 4-8 metres in length. By the way they are not sharks but fish.

Allthego had hoped to get a chance for a swim, but School Holidays again got in the way. All booked out. The swim involves a day trip in a boat that is assisted by a whale shark spotter plane. The whale sharks cruise along near the surface and when spotted the boat finds it and all (two groups of 10) get in the water and snorkel along beside the creature, it moves slowly.

Allthego had one chance when a vacancy arose but while going through an inquisition as to his physical fitness, swimming ability etc the place was taken by someone else. In retrospect missing out may have been a bit lucky, keeping up with the all the twenty somethings and the shark might have been interesting!

So we settled for something more sedate, a semi submersible boat that we sat in below the waterline and observed the reef and life below the surface. Numerous coloured fish of various sizes and several turtles among the coral structures swam past during the afternoon.

Allthego was able to get off for a snorkel around and managed to get back on the boat.

Our other excursion was a short boat cruise up Yardi Creek. The Creek is a short water course into the landscape behind the coast.

It’s a mini gorge with colourful cliffs and a large population of rock wallabies that somehow cling to the vertical rock faces while moving around into caves and crevices. Quite a few resident fish and birdlife as well. An enjoyable jaunt.

The town has two craft breweries and we tried one out for lunch. An Exmouth prawn pizza was washed down with a selection of their product including a tasty ginger beer, there is a 4 pack in the van cellar to take back to Brisbane.

From Exmouth we moved 130km or so south to Coral Bay for a night on the way back down the coast to Carnarvon. Very crowded place. The reef comes right in close to the beach here for snorkelers to safely potter around in. Looks a good spot for youngsters compared to Exmouth.

We have now retraced our steps back to Carnarvon for a few nights before commencing the long haul back to Brisbane.

On the way to Gascoyne Junction (GJ) we retraced part of the route we took to get to Mt Augustus before diverting down what is called Dairy Creek Rd. This took us all the way down to a T junction where we went right to GJ, on a sealed road.

The scenery continued to be the gibber like plains with hardy shrubs. Trees lined the currently dry water courses. This country used to be sheep stations before WWII. Pastoralists had pushed too far north and in so doing ended up extensively over grazing the land, basically destroying it. After the war sheep eventually gave way to the more land friendly cattle industry which continues to this day as the pastures are slowly rejuvenated by the land owners.

GJ was our base for a few nights to ‘recover’ from the dust and a bit of touring around, including a visit to the Kennedy Ranges to the north. An interior van clean up was the order of the day for Homealone as well.

GJ is a small town of 150 or so people that serves as the administrative centre for the Upper Gascoyne Council. The town sits beside the Gascoyne River, it is called ‘Junction’ because the Lyons River joins the Gascoyne downstream from the town. The town actually looks ‘brand new’. It has a sparkling appearance.

In actual fact it is a ‘new’ town. The old GJ was destroyed in a flood in 2010 and has been rebuilt on slightly higher ground further back from the river. The van park is excellent and has the advantage of a tavern being adjacent.

From GJ we did a day trip up to the Kennedy Ranges NP. The road up there was again pretty good gravel, no dramas. It was about 150km there and back. The Range sits up above the surrounding plain like a big Mesa.

The water run off has cut deep gorges along the escarpments. These are the sort of gorges you walk into and look up. Not the ones you walk down into and then look up. Much more benign!

Allthego had a couple of short walks, one into Temple Gorge and the other Honeycomb Gorge. Both involved a bit of rock hopping along dry creek beds. Very pretty.

We had a minor drama as we left GJ to return to the coast. On the morning of departure a rear tyre on the truck was displaying a rather flat appearance. It was the old spare we had put on back in Karratha. It had a slow leak somewhere.

So, a change was required before we left. A young chap, looked about 55, gave us a hand and the job was done quite quickly. We later got a new tyre fitted as we passed through Carnarvon on the coast.

We did a loop and headed back north to Exmouth and Coral Bay on the Ningaloo coast. Hoping to swim with a whale shark. Have had to do this back tracking because of the WA school holiday camp ground book outs. We just couldn’t get a booking on the way south from Karratha and had to go out to Mt Augustus/GJ to fill in time.

But we are now on our way and have stopped at a free camp for an overnighter about half way up the yellow line on the map.

Mt Augustus is in the region known as the Upper Gascoyne, about a thousand kms north of Perth and about 400 km inland from the coast at Carnarvon. This is the area in which the Gascoyne River rises.

The Gascoyne is WAs longest river, for much of the year though it is dry and only runs after heavy rain. It is called the ‘upside down river’ as its water flow is below the thick sand beds. It flows into the sea at Carnarvon, we will see it there in a few days. The river has numerous tributaries that criss cross the landscape. One of these is the Lyons River, also generally dry, which we cross on the way to Mt Augustus. Its floodplain is to the north west of Mt Augustus.

Mt Augustus is quite striking when it first appears on the horizon. It is big, in fact at about 860m above the plain it is about twice as high as Uluru and in area about 1.5 times bigger. It is 8 km long. It is also very old, much older than Uluru. The other noticeable difference is that it has lots of vegetation, unlike Uluru.

Uluru and Mt Augustus are both known as inselbergs, or single mountains rising above flat plains.

Uluru is Australia’s biggest ‘rock’ inselberg. It is a single rock ‘stranded’ in among the surrounding strata. Totally different to Mt Augustus. Mt Augustus is what is known as a monocline, it’s not a ‘rock’ like Uluru. It has an underlying granite base that was covered by millions of years of sandstone deposits. The whole structure was ultimately buckled and folded into an arch. The sandstone has been eroded away leaving today’s big ‘rock’, Mt Augustus. The granite is partly exposed in some places on the mountain, but the last ‘layers’ of sandstone are still there.

Sorry, to tire my readers with a bit of very rough geology. Allthego finds this stuff interesting, Homealone is not stimulated at all by it and sympathises with readers of the same ilk!

The local indigenous people have a traditional dreamtime approach to explaining Mt Augustus. They know the mountain as Burringurrah.

It is a short story about a boy, Burringurrah, under going initiation into manhood. He got stressed about this and ran away, so breaking the law. He was pursued and speared in the right leg as punishment. He fell to the ground and the spear broke leaving the stump in his leg. He was then severely beaten and died, lying on his belly with his left leg (circled in white below) bent up beside his body, right leg stretched out. Head circled in yellow. He turned to stone.

This is a photo of the mountain showing all this for you to see, a little imagination is required.

Now Allthego spent quite a bit of time trying to see all this, but got a bit lost in the detail. The photo has the spear stump circled (very small and hard to see) in black, it is now a lookout. Homealone, was less concerned in detecting this detail.

We did three short walks up the slopes of the mountain to check out some petroglyphs and generally take in the mountains presence. Allthego didn’t venture to the summit, a full days walk there and back and apparently strenuous in parts.

An interesting spot was the Cattle Pool, a deep waterhole on the otherwise dry Lyons River. Plenty of birdlife here, especially Corellas.

Mt Augustus is the sort of place where you can do a lot or little. Just sitting in the van park taking in the mountain is special. Its colours change as the sun moves across the sky.

We had four nights here before packing up and heading, another day along the dusty gravel roads, to the small town of Gascoyne Junction.

We had a day in Dampier and Karratha to check out the activities here. Having seen iron ore and salt ports in Port Hedland these were not to be our focus.

Of more interest was Red Dog and the aboriginal petroglyphs on the Burrup peninsula.

But first we needed to get the tyre fixed. Found a repair place in Karratha and it would be ready after 3pm which was good.

Before chasing down the Red Dog sites we made for Roebourne about 30km north and one of the early settlements in this region. It is inland a bit and has a lookout over the surrounding plains. On top are indigenous statues (7?) that look out over the particular area their clan occupied and called home. An impressive way of showing the hold of country.

Red Dog was a movie star back in the late 2000s early 2010s (two or three movies?) and there have been several short books written about his exploits.

He was well known in the area around Dampier and Karratha during the 1970s. He now has a highway named for him, the Red Dog Hwy. We came along it from Tom Price. The road follows the general direction of Red Dog’s movements around the region. Loyally following people around and hitching rides to get to places. Lots of people knew him and he knew lots too.

Dampier has a bronze ‘statue’ of him on its outskirts and various landmarks are noted as Red Dog haunts. Allthego and Homealone saw the first movie a while back but don’t remember the details and haven’t read the books. We picked up a small paperback to find out more sometime. Not sure how much longer this Red Dog stuff will last before it runs out of steam. Perhaps memories of Red Dog are fading with subsequent generations.

The other big activity up here is the Woodside gas plant on the Barrup peninsula. They bring natural gas ashore here from the North West Shelf gas fields and then process it for export. This is a big operation. The federal government recently extended Woodside’s rights to do all this for another 40 years, till 2070. This has agitated the greenies, anti gas groups and others, including the local indigenous groups, immensely.

This is because, apart from the decarbonisation issue, nearby there are some big piles (not a geological term) of very old rocks with numerous indigenous petroglyphs on them. The concern is that all the industrial activity going on will ultimately destroy these images. It is claimed some are up to 40,000 years old. They are not rock paintings, like in other places we have been, but etchings in the rock faces. There are animals, images, implements and human forms represented on the faces of the rock.

We had a wander around the site that is able to be accessed in the Murujuga NP. Some images are pretty clear, others you need the signage to assist identification and in other cases perhaps a good imagination to help! While we were here it seems the NP was made a World Heritage Site. It is interesting to ponder the human activity in this area over the last 40,000 years. Will the gas plant, the iron ore and salt ports, as well as a new fertiliser plant destroy it all? The industrialists say no. I suppose only time will tell.

We had come mid late afternoon as it was a good time to ‘clearly’ see the images on the rocks, however we had to get away back to town to pick up the tyre before the shop closed. All done!

Back at the van we settled in for another night on the Servo pad, all went well. We made a quick getaway south in the morning on the North West Coastal Hwy.

It was going to take us a couple of days driving to reach Mt Augustus, it is around 650km from Dampier inland to the southeast.

We had a one night stopover at a free camp about half way before turning off the main road to head east. A great sunset here.

The next morning the route took us along a series of mainly good gravel roads for 330km to Mt Augustus. Plenty of red dust to coat the van and contents. We arrived about 4.30pm all ok but with only about 5 litres of fuel left, plus our 20 litre safety gerry can!

By the way Dampier is named after William Dampier the English Navigator who sailed these parts in 1699. He came to check the coast out as the Dutch were sailing up the WA coast to get to the East Indies. A bit of European competition for the Great South Land? Could have been Dutch!

We are now heading back to the coastal towns of Dampier and Karratha, I think they call Karratha a city. In some ways these two places are similar to Port Hedland. They are iron ore ports for Rio Tinto like Port Hedland is for BHP. Rio also has another export salt production operation here, similar to that in Port Hedland. The similarity ends there though as Dampier and Karratha look to be lively places with more diversified activity. But more about that later.

We have chosen to head for Karratha from Tom Price along the Rio Tinto private road beside the railway line. To do this you need a permit. Permits are not hard to get, you just have to sit through a 20 minute video on the dos and don’ts at the Visitor’s Centre. The video is a little dated we are told but the sentiments hold! It was one of those videos that sort of make it all sound a bit hard, risky etc.

The Visitor’s Centre people tell us that it is a better gravel road than the unsealed public one. So we decided to do it, as it turned out not a lot of others did!

Some great scenery along the route and some train encounters as well.

We only saw a couple of other vans and that was near the end and they were coming the other way. Mostly railroad maintenance people out on the job used this road.

It was a pretty good road all the way to where it joined the Red Dog Hwy which then took us to the outskirts of Karratha. Our problem was that we didn’t have a booking for a van park. Same old reason school holidays.

A big 24 hour Servo appeared in front of us and Allthego thought maybe they would let us stay out the back on their big concrete pad.

There were a couple of other vans there. Yes the attendant said no worries mate. Free too! Ambience was marginal. So we set up there for our two nights in Karratha.

As we were doing this a fellow nomad next to us pointed out that the back tyre on the truck was partly deflated. Allthego looked and he too became deflated. A flat. A bolt through the tread and thus a slow leak. Lucky we made it to the Servo, no idea where this happened. The spare came out and a quick change was completed. Found a repair place to take the tyre to the next day.

As we settled in for the night we realised we were just down the road from a railroad crossing. All through the night there were loud long train toots at the crossing. Endless! Got used to it after a while.

Through the evening a stream of big trucks also came to park near us as well, including two triple Bs with cattle on board. Thankfully, the cattle trucks eventually moved on to other places.

We have a day here to check out the Red Dog story and all the other action, the first stop in the morning will be the Visitors Centre.

Here we are at Tom Price. The van park is a few kilometres out of town in the shadow of Mt Nameless.

Plenty of people here but the sites are big and we have been super lucky to get a nice quiet spot adjacent to the men’s end of the facilities. The laundry is next door too, so Homealone was quite satisfied.

Unfortunately, a van came in a bit later and blocked our view of the passage of people in various states of urgency to and fro from those places. Seriously, the location was pretty good and we didn’t get disturbed at all, wind going the right way too perhaps!

The park was our base for seeing the western parts of Karijini. But first we booked a tour of Rio Tinto’s mine. The reason why the town was set up in the mid 1960s.

Went all around the site looking at the various stages of the mining and benefaction processes. Everything is big, including the hole in the ground.

The mine has been going for 60 odd years and our guide said plans were afoot to open a new mine area on the mountain that would see it going for many more to come.

Tom Price is the highest town in WA, 747m above sea level. This is why we found it distinctly chilly at 3 am in the morning.

Following the morning mine tour we headed off for Hamersley Gorge, this is a remote site some 70km from Tom Price, on the north western side of the park.

So it is a longish drive, albeit all sealed roads, to get there and back to see another gorge. Or as Homealone might say ABG. She is a little tired of gorges, doesn’t really like them anyway, having to get close to the edge and looking way down to the bottom. So she doesn’t do it at all. And for going on a dirt road to do it then ‘why’ is the question.

By the way ABG stands for ‘Another Bloody Gorge’ much like ABC stands for ‘Another Bloody Castle’ when you are touring around the UK or Europe.

It is not a difficult descent into Hamersley Waterfall and Gorge. There are some amazing rock strata in the cliff walls and the gorge water hole is very picturesque. Well worth the drive there and back.

Our last day at Tom Price took us back to central Karijini for a look at some gorges there. Here are a few pics of the scenery at Joffre Gorge, Knox Gorge and the Oxer Lookout.

No long walks to do here, only short strolls to the lookout points. There are numerous longer walks down into these gorges, described as being difficult and also time consuming. Allthego passed on these, leaving them to the more nimble!

It was time to return to the coast and we headed north west the next morning to Karratha.

We have said good bye to Port Hedland and made the longish 260km trek down to Karijini NP along the Great Northern Hwy. The plan had been to stay in the NP at the Dales Gorge Campground.

Allthego had booked the site months earlier, it is WA school holiday time and the park is totally booked out. So it was good to book so far in advance to secure a spot. The small issue was that he had booked it for the month before and now could now not get a site for the right dates, all booked out!

So we split our time with two nights at the Auski RH and three nights at Tom Price. Both are about 50-60km from the NP. Auski is at the eastern end and Tom Price at the western end of the Park. The Road House is a stopping place for all sorts of road trains. Many shapes and sizes call in and go past at all hours of the night. There is a constant hum for us to sleep through!

From Auski we travelled the road cutting through the Munjina Gorge to Karijini. Quite a steep climb and it slows the big road trains considerably, both ways. A great view of all this from the Albert Tognolini lookout.

The Park Visitor’s Centre was our first port of call. A very comprehensive display of the history of the region and the geography/geology of the gorge system.

At Dales Gorge there is the Fortescue Falls and the pool at the bottom. A steel stair case takes one all the way to the bottom, some stops along the way to take in the view or have a breather, particularly on the way back up. A short walk further up the gorge is Fern Pool. Lots of people have a swim in this very deep and cold pool.

Several hundred metres to the start of the gorge is Circular Pool, beneath towering cliffs, from which water seeps into the pool.

We then moved on several kilometres to Kalamina Gorge, this one was 6km in along a flood damaged heavily corrugated track. Homealone wondered why we were going. It was just ABG!

Allthego saw it as a challenge, and it was a relatively easy descent down to the bottom of the gorge and a pretty pool beneath a short waterfall. That was it for the day, we did have a picnic lunch somewhere!

Back at Auski we packed up the next morning and headed for Tom Price.

We have had an interesting day out at Marble Bar.

Homealone though was a little sceptical that the 400km round trip for a hamburger at the old pub and seeing a bit of jasper was worth the journey.

We did leave a little late and just managed to get to the town half an hour or so before the Ironclad Hotel shut at 2pm.

Allthego thought the burger was rather good, particularly in the ambience of the beer garden out the back. The iconic pub was established in 1892, one of the towns first permanent structures. Inside it doesn’t seem a lot has changed.

The town of Marble Bar has been around a long time. It was settled well before Dampier, Port Headland and other places up this way were established. It was gold finds in the late 1880s that originally brought Europeans to the region.

The town was called Marble Bar because the new arrivals thought a geological feature passing across a river bed was marble. In fact it was jasper an altogether different type of rock, but the town name stuck.

Tourists come here to check out the jasper field. This is a post card pic of the sight. Very colourful. Allthego is a bit puzzled by the pic and thinks it might be doctored a bit. He believes the colours don’t really show up like this unless the rock is wet. Could be wrong. Maybe a photographer was here just after rain. The location of the jasper had been recently cut off from the main track by floods that have removed a lot of sand between the rocks.

A bit of a maze to get through, and unfortunately we didn’t have the time to get to the postcard spot. Found a few slabs of it though and got a couple of pics, the water bottle came in handy to get the colours showing well.

Marble Bar’s main claim to fame is that it is recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as ‘the hottest town in Australia’. For the 161 days leading up to 20 April 1924 the temperature did not drop below 37.8’C. That is a hundred year old record. The town continues to get regular mentions in TV weather reports for extreme temperatures.

We had a bit of time to look around the town at some of the historical buildings before setting tracks back to Port Hedland into the setting sun.

We left Port Hedland in the morning for some time at Karijini NP, inland and away to the south east.

You know you wake up some mornings and wonder where you are? Allthego does, but he knows where he is today! Port Hedland.

Here is a map of where we have come from and where we are going over the next few days. We have come down from Broome (top right) along the Great Northern Hwy and stopped at 80 Mile Beach (in the middle). Now at Port Hedland and will be going out to Marble Bar on a day trip.

‘Hedland’ is spelt without an ‘a’ before the ‘d’. Why is this? It’s because the place is named after Capt Peter Hedland who explored the area in 1863. BHP have big influence. It is their iron ore export port, Rio Tinto also use it for salt exports.

Our camp spot here is in a rather squeezy van park. Bit of a concrete jungle, the paved sites are wide but quite short with a narrow road between the rows of vans. Not much grass. We are fortunate to have a view out to the port from an elevated site on the CP boundary.

The area is comprised of two ‘towns’, the old ‘Port Hedland’ and the new ‘South Hedland’ which is about 5km to the east of old Port.

The old Port Hedland is based around the BHP iron ore export terminal complex. Trains bring the iron ore from the interior into the port for loading onto ships bound for all parts.

It is almost a constant stream of trains up to 2.5km long, with empty ones going back the other way. We were lucky to catch a loaded train coming past the elevated lookout point and get a video for my train followers to see.

Watched some ship movements at the port for a while as well. Commercial activity in this area seems to have had better days. We had lunch at the 100+ year old Esplanade Hotel. It is closing soon for a two year refurbishment by BHP to make it safe. The sandstone wall claddings are falling off and the accomodation areas are suffering severely from old age deterioration.

Rio Tinto also operate a salt production complex just out of the old Port. It spans over 35 hectares of evaporation ponds with salt water being pumped from a river fed from the Indian Ocean. We did a site tour of the complex and learnt a lot about salt. There is a lot to know about salt. Interesting story, but rather complex to try to share on a blog like this one. And Allthego is unable to vividly recall all the nuances. It is just a big operation.

After harvesting the salt from the ponds it is stock piled and later loaded onto trucks for transfer to the port and overseas customers. It is high grade salt and very sought after by overseas manufacturers for use in a wide range of products (not just food) and production processes. An interesting tour.

Over at South Hedland the town seems to be service centre for the iron ore extraction industry. All sorts of industry suppliers are based here, as well as a TAFE, corporate offices and accomodation complexes.

We came over here to get some warm woolies and a photo of the Big Wheelbarrow. The area seems to have more life to it compared to the old Port area.

We have a big day coming up out at Marble Bar.

We made it down to the Broome Gateway CP in good time, staying there for one night.

After a quick lunch we headed into Broome for a quick look around the town. A lot has changed in the 15 odd years since we were last here. People everywhere and Cable Beach cordoned off for roadworks and beach front improvements. Looks like the place has become a WA version of Noosa or Byron Bay. One of the parks in town is rumoured to be charging $100 a night for a powered site. Onset of school holidays. Don’t have an urge to go back any time soon!

We made an early getaway the next morning. It is a 375km drive to our next stop at the 80 Mile Beach CP. It is an oddity that it is called 80 Mile Beach because it is a 220km long beach, the longest in WA.

It is quite a big park and the sites are packed in a bit, but there is grass and red dirt/sand. So it is not a concrete jungle.

There are a good number of who seem to be ‘regulars’ and who have taken up court in prime spots. The area around us emptied out in the mornings so we had a bit more room until later in the day when others arrived.

A major activity here for many is fishing and/or driving up and down the beach at low tide. The tide goes out a long long way and comes back pretty quick across the sand banks. Plenty of shells dot the beach, we filled up a small bag with some different types, adding to those from Pender Bay.

We sat and enjoyed some outdoor entertainment from a chap named Jannes, Golden Oldies. Above are two memorable videos showing his style, he too seems to be a regular here!

We had a lazy day here before getting back on the road for Port Hedland. Sunset pretty good!

The main game in coming up to Cygnet Bay was to do an overnight stay on the pontoon at Garaan-Ngaddim. Non indigenous Australians probably know it better as the Horizontal Falls.

We flew in a sea plane from Cygnet Bay to the pontoon moored in Talbot Bay, about a 45 minute flight.

From 3,500 ft there were great views of the Buccaneer Archipelago. Landing on water was a first time experience, much smoother than what I had envisaged.

We had our first look at the falls from the air as we circled around before landing. Spectacular sight.

The pontoon works like clockwork. We arrived about 3.30 and were given a quick briefing on what we were going to do and then shown our rooms for the night.

This was quickly followed by a speed boat trip for an hour through the falls and surrounding waterways. An experience indeed!

These ‘falls’ are caused by the changing of tides from high to low and the resultant flows of water back and forth through the narrow gaps in the sandstone ranges. The flow changes direction every six hours.

There are two horizontal falls, the wider first one and the very narrow second one. There are generally three levels of water in this chain of waterways. There is the sea level (Talbot Bay) and if we are experiencing a rising tide the water will be flowing down into the ‘inland sea’ behind the first falls.

Across the ‘inland sea’ is the second horizontal fall and the water will flow down through that into the second ‘inland sea’.

For a brief moment when the tide peaks the water levels will be the same across all three ‘seas’. They will then reverse as the tide changes and water flows out.

The Horizontal Falls is a phenomena unique to Australia.

The local indigenous people maintain these ‘inland seas’ are culturally significant and very important to their beliefs. They have native title over the area and allow boats to pass through the first horizontal fall but not the second. The second one would be rather problematical anyway, rather tricky and dangerous.

They believe the Woongudd Woman, lives in the ‘seas’ and was responsible for all of creation. When the water flows out of the ‘inland seas’ through the falls, it is the spiritual snake going out into the world to continue creation.

When water flows into the ‘inland seas’ through the falls it is the snake returning to rest. I hope that is the correct retelling of the story.

So that is why in the near future passing through the first falls may not be allowed.

We returned all in one piece to the pontoon a little after 5pm. This was the appointed time for those who wanted a swim, a loose word for waist high paddle, in a cage beside the pontoon.

Next to the cage a flotilla of sharks gathered to feast on bits of barramundi thrown in by one of the crew. Various other fish also gathered for the event. The sharks ignored the swimmers, they are blind and generally bottom feeders and dwellers. The sharks not the swimmers. Entertaining.

After the shark show it was time for pre dinner drinks and nibbles. BBQ Barramundi and salads followed for dinner and we were all in bed by about 8.30pm, having to be up at 5.30am for a 6am breakfast.

Now, why all this haste? At 6.30 we were back in the boat speeding back to the falls for a last look.

This time it was different and we had a somewhat unique experience in seeing the falls for that brief moment when the water levels were even and the passages through the falls quite calm.

The dark band of rock above the waterline is the usual daily tidal movement. The narrower white band above it is the extra tidal movement at certain times during a month.

As we watched the waters started to turn and began flowing in, was the spirit returning from an enterprising night out? Quite an experience.

We then returned to the pontoon to get ready for our flight back to Cygnet Bay. As we waited four seaplanes followed one another into view, splash landed and motored up to their docks so that we could board.

We returned by a slightly shorter flight path to Cygnet Bay. Back at the van by 8.30am in good time to finish packing up and head back down the Cape Leveque Rd to the Broome Gateway CP.

Before leaving Pender Bay Allthego had a wander around some of the headland camping spots. They all had pretty good views but mostly of ocean and other camp sites. The people in a van at one spot had a good view of us, looking down from on high!

We made it up to Cygnet Bay in good time. The track out of Pender Bay seemed better than the track in! After a close look it was the same track. Often the case!

We only encountered two vans coming in and that was near the turnoff from the main road. So no problems getting out.

Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm is near the top of the Dampier Peninsular and we took up residence there for three nights. It was our first powered site since Home Valley Station on the Gibb almost four weeks ago. A bit of luxury.

The Pearl Farm runs a tourism operation alongside its pearl business. Camping grounds, infinity pool, restaurant and various daily tours of farm operations. There are also boating excursions on the waters surrounding the tip of the peninsular.

We gave the fish n chips a go at the restaurant. Very generous serve of barramundi pieces and the usual pile of chips buried underneath with the tasty tartar sauce. I think the best F&C so far! The rose helped.

Nearby is the Ardyaloon Aboriginal Community. The pronunciation in these parts emphasises the first syllable and the rest rolls off! Very phonetic too.

So

AR d a loon!

I think that is right?

It is interesting that the little book mentioned below spells it totally differently….Ardiyooloon. Maybe because indigenous languages were not written the English spelling relies on the nuances of pronunciation over time?

Native Title and a small fee of $11 each to have a look around the town and environs. The waters and beachfront here are pretty special, the tides rip through the channel between the islands and the mainland. Eerie noise!

The kids at the local school have published a book discussing their traditional life, plenty of pictures and annecdotes. The Bardi Jaawi people are ‘sea people’ and live in it and from it.

It is a great read, better than a text book or an ABC documentary! Also bought a polished trochus shell, $35 ……mmm…on what shelf am I going to put this now?

They have a hatchery originally set up to grow out trochus for the button trade, now dead because of plastics.

The hatchery is now a mini aquarium with various sea-life from the region. Well worth the visit, a resident turtle entertains!

Back at the camp we had a short tour/chat about the origin of the farm and pearl production. There was of course the opportunity to acquire a pearl or pearls at various prices.

There were a couple of nice strings of pearls ranging from the low $38,000 through to $58,000. These appeared to be slow moving stock items. We did not increase the stock turn rate.

Interesting, it seems this operation is part of the Brown family business empire. No one has ever mentioned this to me, I must investigate any unknown ownership interest.

Our last day at the farm involved a visit to Garaan-Ngaddim. But more of that next time.

We left Derby with the aim of getting to the Broome Gateway CP in good time so as to make a quick trip into Broome to pick up some supplies. The CP is roughly 30km from Broome. The road down from Derby is fully sealed and passes through pretty flat grazing country.

We had a little bit of excitement along the way with an unruly fire that was ravaging the country alongside the road.

We could see plumes of thick smoke from a way off. For some reason the road headed to where the fire was and this presented a bit of a dilemma as to whether one pulls over and lets it pass or do you battle on through the smoke etc.

Plenty of cars and trucks were coming the other way so we ploughed on.

Bit scary I tell you! Couldn’t see much in some places except the white centre line. Homealone took some great photos of the experience. Probably will choose to let the fire go by next time!

Despite the fire we made it to camp in time to set up and make the gquick trip to Broome for the supplies. We had to pick up a few bottles of wine for the days ahead on the Dampier Peninsular. This can be easier said than done in the Kimberley region. Bottle shops are not open Sunday or Monday and when open don’t do so till Midday. And I think you can only buy two bottles without having to sign forms saying you are a bona fide traveller etc. The police can search the car and you need the receipt from the bottle shop to clear your name. All in the interest of restricting access to alcohol in the community. Probably a good idea.

It was only a one night stop at the CP and the next morning we set off up the Cape Leveque Road, which more or less runs up the centre of the Dampier Peninsular. It is only in the last 18 months that this road has been sealed all the way to the top. Apparently, it used to be a nightmare and took almost all day to do the full length. We had left about 10am and made it to Beagle Bay before lunch.

Beagle Bay, about 5km off the main road, is a popular stop with Nomads as you can top up with fuel and visit the Sacred Heart Church, the altar of which is made from Mother of Pearl shells. It was originally built by Pallotine monks and local aborigines in 1918, the bell tower was completed in 1920.

The Church has been renovated a couple of times since then and the bell tower was rebuilt after it collapsed in 2001.

We decided to skip lunch and head back onto the Cape Leveque Road and make for Pender Bay. After 20km we took the turnoff to Middle Lagoon, our destination is a subsequent turnoff off further along.

All up an hour and 35km of very slow, corrugated, bumpy and sandy track. Mostly, a single lane bush lined track with limited passing points.

We are camping for four nights at Pender Bay Escape on Native Title land, overlooking the Indian Ocean from cliff tops.

Our site faces east and the sun rises it seems from the waters of King Sound, across the tip of the Peninsular. Pretty good spot for feet up and a swim after the more hectic Gibb!

Allthego spent some time in an on site bath tub contemplating the view from our campsite. Homealone pondered this and thought that he should rename a previous blog entry ‘Soaking in the Kimberleys’, rather than ‘Sucking in the Kimberleys’. It has a much better ring to it, so he will do so at the next opportunity.

After four days it was hard to tear ourselves away from Pender Bay but we had to make tracks for Cygnet Bay at the tip of the Peninsular. We left at 8am to minimise the chances of meeting incoming vehicles, vans and boats along the narrow track.

The Gibb River Rd ends on the outskirts of Derby where it intersects the Derby Highway.

Birdwood Downs is about 10 km from the end of the Gibb. It is a sister station of Mt Elizabeth Station (one of our earlier stops), owned by the Burton family. The camp is run in a similar way, no power or water to sites but good facilities compensate. Homealone was in luck because we arrived on a Saturday and Saturday night is burger night around the campfire. All up sixty seven burgers were consumed by travellers. Dinner all done!

Here is a map of the journey along the Gibb, starting at Kununurra and ending at Derby. Many of our stops are marked on it.

We stayed at Birdwood for two days to explore Derby and restock the pantry after nearly a month following the Gibb.

Derby is a quiet but interesting town. We saw no unrest among the residents. In the late 1800s it was a centre of indigenous unrest, significant resistance was mounted against the expansionary pastoralists.

This resulted in numerous arrests and gaol time for aboriginals, possession of cattle meat a frequent offence. There were white deaths as well. There were revenge executions and rounding up, ‘black birding’, of aboriginals for work on properties and pearling enterprises.

Another example of the ‘frontier wars’, of which our and earlier generations learnt little about in school.

On the outskirts of Derby is the ‘prison tree’, an old hollow boab tree, used as a holding cell for aboriginals being sent to Derby gaol. The tree is thought to be 1500 years old.

The old Derby gaol is still standing as an historical site. Not pleasant days.

Near the ‘prison tree’ is another relic from the early 1900s, what is thought to be the longest cattle drinking trough in the Southern Hemisphere at 120 metres. Five hundred bullocks could breast this bar! Originally it was directly fed by a bore, a windmill now pumps water into it. No bullocks seen, I suppose they still come along at times; only tourists.

The town itself is a bit non de script, a good bakery from which we had some steak and cheese pies for lunch one day.

There is an interesting art gallery and gardens, the Norval Gallery. He Mark Norval is a long term resident and it would seem a leading artistic light in the town.

Some interesting works by him and others on display. Indigenous themes, many Wandjina and Gwion Gwions (Bradshaws), the later are the sticklike figures. We had a lunch snack here while looking around.

Mark Norval was also instrumental in organising the installation of the sculptures on the mud flats surrounding the town.

Very flat, bone dry (different story during the wet) and seemingly endless. Some of the sculptures are his and the others by locals. Very impressive as the sun sets.

The Derby port is not very busy these days. It looks out over King Sound and the estuary of the Victoria River. Tide movements here are enormous, upwards of 11 metres between high and low. Reputedly the largest in Australia and second to someplace in Canada.

The sun sinking into the Indian Ocean is memorable. It is a favourite spot for the nomads as the sun goes down.

We pack up in the morning and head down to Broome.

As we left the Bandilngan NP for Birdwood Station we are set out on the last stage of our journey down the Gibb River Rd.

It is all sealed! All the way to Derby, 130km or so. No river crossings, no corrugations, all pretty smooth! The Gibb will never be the same! The countryside is drying out, it is a dead flat Savannah style landscape. Boabs are everywhere and at different stages of leaf loss. This guys yellowing leaves stark against a blue sky.

Driving it is a big change, the elbows aren’t bumping along with the corrugations, there are even lane markings on the edge of the road. Catering for Victorians on the way north!

We are now at Birdwood Station, about 25km from Derby, for a couple of days. We will take in Derby from here before heading to Broome and then north up the Dampier peninsular for a few days. We will be back on the air when internet permits!