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SEPTEMBER 1

Homeward bound

This is it.  The final post for this trip.  We arrived home yesterday.  As Dorothy told us: “There’s no place like home.” Yesterday and this morning it was beautiful.  Middelton Beach was blue and tranquil.  The house was warm and newly cleaned.  Now, it is awful.  It is freezing and raining and I want to go back to the sun.

Looking out at the low grey skies, I am thinking back to what I will miss about the Kimberly.

• Living under a huge sky; deep cerulean blue by day and by night, ablaze with millions of glowing stars,
• Boab trees,
• Skinny dipping in cool waterholes secreted in dramatic scenery
• The primary coloured, dramatic landscape

And what I won’t miss….

• Red dust getting into EVERYTHING
• Corrugated roads.
  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

We’re already planning our return and the places we will explore in the interim. But for now, it’s time to catch up with Albany friends, share a wine or coffee, get back into some desirable routines such as walking Sayley along the beach and in the bush, and the gym and Saturday morning markets.

 

Dalwallinu – Perth

August 25

Day 42

Dallwallinu is blue and sunny this morning, but the wind is cold.  The drive through the undulating farmlands is rendered spectacular by the lime yellow fields of flowering canola.  We stopped for coffee at New Norcia.  If you were intent on a life of monastic aestheticism, this would be a pretty nice place to do it; so long as you didn’t need to be fuelled by decent coffee!

It was now a short and easy drive to Perth and we were in the Swan Valley by lunchtime.  Mark looked at me, ‘We could call into Feral for lunch?”  We did. After all, we fitted right in!

Next stop Madely.  It is nice to be home, albeit small ‘h’ home.  Sayley gave us a warm, talkative, lickey welcome, Mum settled for a hug and a kiss.  A few days here to tell stories, show photos, catch up with friends and family.  The car and trailer will both get a well needed service and minor repairs undertaken.  Mark and I both need ‘de-feralling’, and then home to big ‘H’ Home to plan for the next adventure.

A bit of loving – and a brush.

Gascoyne River Camp – Dalwallinu

It wasAugust 26

Day41

Mile after mile of not very much at all.

Borrow Box and Bolinda audio stories make the miles go by easily.  The only real highlight today was spotting some Mulga Parrots when we stopped for a leg stretch.  They are the most wonderful turquoise green with long blueish tails.  Despite their bright colouring, once they were in amongst the tree they are almost impossible to detect.

It was the first night of our long and lovely holiday where it was too cold to sit outside.  I popped some corn while Mark got a movie sorted out.  We snuggled up in bed with a bowl of chilli-choc popcorn and a good movie and avoided the outside chill.  It was nice for a change, but I wouldn’t want to do it every night.  I don’t get all those people we saw travelling with their satellite dish and televisions.

Wild Dog Creek – Gascoyne River Middle Camp

23 August

Day 40

I was having an outdoor shower when I became aware that the nearby cows were taking an interest.  After the bull incident at Ellenbrae, I was a little wary.  But they lost interest soon enough and went back to cow business.

The road into Newman is still pretty, but losing some of its drama.  The ridges are becoming smaller and less frequent. Eventually the ranges petered out and began to be replaced by the ugly scarring of mines.

I stopped at the Newman library to, again try and get some access to my computer files while Mark got a new tyre, petrol and other necessities for the remainder of the trip home.  The library proved to be an interesting insight into the lives of others.

Four Aboriginal women came into the library; two older women and two younger girls around 16.  Well, the content of their conversation and the attitudes and beliefs it revealed, was awful.  Violent abuse, drug addiction, dependency and transient housing arrangements were all discussed in the way my girlfriends and I might talk about work place annoyances.  The women who were in the library were decent people for whom these dreadful situations are their everyday normal.  When you see the hopelessness of the mainly, but not exclusively, Aboriginal men hanging around the very nice, new town square, their repeated forays into the local bottle shop, increasing intoxication and the casual abusiveness with which they address every person and topic, it is impossible to imagine how those women are ever going to come to a place that the majority of us ordinary.

Time to go home; Mark’s become a bit feral!

We were not unhappy to see Newman in the rear-vision mirror.  It was now a long drive through relatively uninspiring country.  The majestic Wedge-Tailed Eagles were welcomed points of interest.  They seem to prefer this wide open country.  We saw them perched hugely in feeble looking desicated trees or towering over other opportunistic carrion diners on the edges of the highway.  With two powerful beats of their massive wings they rose effortlessly into blue skies.

We pulled into a roadside camp for tonight.  While these camps do not rate with the beautiful places we have pulled up to on this trip, they do serve a purpose and they are quite well  provisioned.  There are drop toilets, fire pits, picnic tables and plenty of space to either be near all of these amenities or to go further afield to smaller cloverleaf style campsites where you can be more secluded.

Mark the outback chef, working his magic.

 

De Grey River – Marble Bar – Wild Dog Creek

August 22

Day 39

The vibrant Bee Eater

We lingered  long on the banks of the de Grey.  Another river bathe anbd some quiet observations of eagles and hawks and bee-eaters as they swooped, glided and darted, respectively, around the paperbarks. 

The drive along the rest of the Boreline Road was as beautiful as it had begun.  The mulla-mulla was in full bloom.  Their purple swathes presented an outback version of Provincial lavender fields.  The early morning light added to the beauty of the scenery.

Marble Bar is ‘Australia’s hottest town’, well, we had to call in.  The delightful woman at the tourist information did a fantastic job of selling the sights and delight of Marble Bar.  She was so good that when we left we were thinking of staying the night.  We tried to sort out the issue with my computer.  The guy at the community centre was delightfully helpful, but no success. – still a paperweight.

 

Cold beers, but no marble bar at the ironclad Hotel!

After the disappointment we needed to bolster our reserves.  The tourist information woman had practically insisted that we at least visited the Ironclad Hotel.  It is, she told us, listed in the top ten of Australia’s most iconic pubs. It is certainly a ‘country pub’.  It is completely constructed of corrugated iron – at least half still unrusted.  I thought the hotel was named after the galvanised iron of which is constructed, but rather, it is named after one of he richest mines of marble Bar’s hey day.

The beer is frosty cold – but comes in bottles and cans rather than from a tap; which were conspicuously absent.  The steak sandwich took two beers to arrive.  The steak was local, tender and tasty.  Much to Mark’s diappointment, and my amusement, the bar was not constucted of marble.

A splash of water reveals the beautiful colours of the jasper at Marble Bar

Next stop, the Marble Bar.  The Marble Bar was originally thought to be marble, but is in fact, jasper.  The jasper is red and is present in striking bands through the white quartz and darker bands of some other stone.  It wasn’t quite as dramatic as in the picture we were shown, but once we splashed it with river water, the colours shone.  In the wet and the afternoon light, it would be spectacular.  By now we had realised that we did not need to spend a night at the Marble Bar Caravan Park.  We bade farewell to Australia’s hottest town and continued on our way.

The drive continued prettily until we heard a strange sound as we drove over one of the concreted floodways.  On inspection we discovered the cause.  The other back car tyre was not only blown, it was shredded!  What a mess.  The side of a narrow gravel road in the late afternoon heat is not the ideal place to be changing a tyre.  But we were in the country.

Ouch!!

The first car drove straight past, but every other car (mining vehicles) that came by stopped to see that we were okay.  The first of these, stopped anyway and lent us a hand. He had tools that made the job easier and two blokes is always better than one in such a situation.  Before too long we were road worthy again and our new friend was on to Nullagine for a cold beer.

Wild Dog Creek

Wild Dog Creek is our destination for tonight.  It proved to be a pretty spot alongside a lagoon/wetland formed by the unfortunately named creek.  This was to be our last night of pretty outback camping for this trip.  We lit a fire and made the most of the unfiltered night so alive all around us.

80 Mile Beach – De Grey River Camp

August 21

Day 38

Along the Boreline Road

We were in a dilemma: do we stay or do we go?  In the end it was the wind which decided us.  This morning it was strong and gusty.  Although it was off-shore and might have dropped as the day warmed up, it didn’t say ‘spend the day on the beach’.  However, before we left, we took the trailer and the car to the washing bay and gave them a long overdue wash.  The car took a lot of hosing and three shampoos.  Even then it wasn’t properly clean, but it no longer looked as if we could grow crops on it.  After a good rinse, the trailer too emerged from its red shroud, still a bit dusty, but we could walk near it without getting filthy., which was a definite improvement.

The beach here is so tidal, that, clearly, swimming isn’t the main attraction.  On a wander around the caravan park we got a bit hint what people do when they come up here for months on end.  While they all seem to take their fishing seriously, some folk take it far more seriously than others.  There was a whole section of the park devoted to these ‘jinkers’ – some up market, others, a little more tongue in cheek.

Along the Boreline Road

On a tip from our friends, we took the Boreline Road towards Marble Bar.  What an excellent tip.  The road is beautiful. The rugged red ranges rose and fell haphazardly either side of the road.  The spinifex looks deceptively soft in its little grey-green mounds covering the hillsides like an Aboriginal dot painting.

 

Spring flowers have just beginning to emerge and add splashes of bright contrast.

 

 

The stony banks of the De Grey River is tonight’s camp site.  The still, deep river pools were a perfect, and private, bath in which to wash away today’s dust and sweat. The day’s heat radiated back to us from the river stones, the sky diamonds glowed over us and the fire prettily saw to dinner.  We sat back, enjoyed a cold drink and the absolute joy of being alone in the marvellous magnificence of the now.

De Grey River

 

The water pump was working intermittently.  Mark is pretty sure he found the problem!

80 Mile Beach

August 20

Day 37

80 Mile Beach

I HATE WINDOWS!!!  They sent out a profile update which has locked me out of my computer and turned it into an ugly piece of excess luggage.  I have tried everything short of using it as a Frisbee – and that is not entirely out of the question! It is disgraceful that users are held at ransom to conform to Microsoft’s demands.  The ‘request’ was to update security, but it was only a few questions which were essentially about marketing.  Because I had no access to internet, the update could not load and, bingo!  Black magic turned my laptop into a paperweight.  It was hard enough getting my blog uploaded, given the limited and slow wifi availability, currently it is impossible.  I know, I know, first world problems and all that, but, dam it, that’s where I live.

Anyway, back to the lovely holiday. Just backtracking a little bit…..On the road out of Derby, we startled two flocks of budgies.  They flew up from the side of the road flashing in the sunlight like a shower of emerald sequins.

Sunset, 80 Mile Beach

After topping up the fuel just a little at Sandfire, we continued on to tonight’s camp.  As we headed out, a convoy of bikers rode past.  There were maybe 20 or so in the group.  At the tail end was a sight which left us speechless! The final biker was doing at least 100kph.  He had his feet  on the handle-bars and his hands behind his head!!  Mark and I looked at each other and back at the rider.  Neither of us had any words.  It was one of those sights that you don’t believe what your eyes tell you is true.  If we both hadn’t seen it, we would not have believed each other’s story. This guy wasn’t even wearing leathers or a full face helmet!! What could possibly go wrong?

80 Mile Beach caravan park, reminds me of the Easters we spent at Moore River when we were kids; it has the same family holiday feel about it.  We have a lovely shady site, plenty of grass and chatty neighbours in the way of caravan park inhabitants.

 

 

EEWW!!!

We wandered over the dunes to check out the beach.  It is really tidal and the tide is waaay out.  The water at the far horizon is the clear turquoise of travel brochures.  Closer to the shore it becomes milky as a result of the sediment stirred up by the retreating tide. The seabed beneath our feet shifts between firm white sand to a chalky sucking clay, which I found somewhat disconcerting.  At times we sunk down to mid thigh.  The mud itself isvery fine and feels quite nice, I just don’t like not knowing where my feet are.

But at least we weren’t driving!

There were hundreds of tiny hermit crabs busily jostling around the sand hauling their homes along with them.  Every so often we’d come across a little crab love-in or feast.  There would be dozens of them all congregating at a single point other crabs bearing down as fast as their little crab feet would carry them. The other creatures in profusion are sand dollars.  I don’t know what the real name is for the flat disc like shell fish with the pretty star or flower design on their shells, but there were hundreds and hundreds of them.

Derby – Barn Hill

Day 37

August 19

True to our word, we were up and on our way before 7.30.  We have become quite accustomed to the ‘early to bed, early to rise’ routine.  We are generally in bed before 9 and up well before 6.  I really hope it’s a camping thing and not an age thing!

Prison Tree, Derby

On our way out of Derby we stopped at the Boab Prison Tree.  Depending on what you read, it is either a place where Aboriginal ‘prisoners were stowed before they were incarcerated in the Derby gaol’, or it is an ugly myth.  Either way, it is an enigmatic, ancient, squat tree.  It is easily as large as the cells at the convict built gaol in Albany, and at an estimated 1500 years old, would definitely have been around at the time in question.  It is gnarled and knotty and there is something about it; especially in the bronzy early morning sunlight.

Myall’s Bore

In the same area is Myall’s Bore and the 115 metre long trough that could water 1500 cattle at once.  This was a major watering hole at the end of the drove from the East Kimberly.  There are also a few other historical artifacts including Frosty’s Pool. This is a small concrete pool built during the war years to allow for some, I imagine, welcome relief from the unrelenting heat.  Today it’s just a concrete pit with a few feet of uninviting, muddy water in it, but in its day, I bet it was heaven in an open sided cube.

We are trying to work out where the Kimberly – non Kimberly divide is.  We have come to the conclusion (rightly or wrongly), that the Kimberly is where the Boab grows.  On that basis, Broome is the end of the Kimberly.  The Boabs here seem to be less ‘free range’ and more ‘landscape design’.

Tonight we are at Barn Hill, on the beach.  We didn’t realize how much we had missed the sea until we were back beside it. There is a cool sea breeze carrying the salt smell of the sea. Down on the shore there are the most amazing technicolour rocky cliffs.  There are red and pink, white and grey cliff faces in an amazing array of fantastically eroded shapes.  Closer to shore there are marshmallow striped rock pools fringed with verdant green sea mosses.  At one of the deeper pools a group of long-termers were having aperitifs beach style; bums on rocky ledges, feet in sun warmed pool; perfect.

Barn Hill

The bower bird in me meant that those perfect pink, red, purple, black and white stones simply had to be picked up.  When I asked Mark to carry a larger pink and white icing style rock back to the campsite, he baulked claiming ‘rules against that sort of thing’.  I’ll grab it tomorrow!

Tonight, Shane Delia, eat your heart out.  Lamb marinated for two days in cumin, coriander and garlic, slow cooked and served with cous cous with pistachios, Sicilian olives, garlic, lemon and spices – yeah baby.  Roughing it….. as you now know…. is over rated!

Derby

Day 36

August 18

At the Norvel Gallery

Sandflies are miniscule black specs of bastardry. Smaller than a grain of sand, they bite like a bitch and leave a welt the size of a 5 cent piece.  Of course, they love me!

We decided to stay an extra night in Derby so we could have a decent look around.  Well, that occupied us until about 10.00.  Then we had a coffee, looked for a car wash ($20 for ½ hour’s use of a high pressure hose!!), thought better of it, picked and tasted Boab nuts, (a bit like sherbet, apparently they have high levels  of citric acid), went to the library to post a few more blogs, pub for lunch, Mark cleaned out the increasingly dusty interior of the car, I tidied away the shopping…….We’ll be out of here before breakfast tomorrow.

We did call into the interesting Norval Art Gallery run by ex-teacher husband and wife team.  Mark Norvel seems to be the personality beind the gallery.  His own very talented skills are on display in all sorts of styles (not to mention very high stake prices if you were in the market).  Over the years he has worked with members of various Aboriginal communities.  In some cases he has provided an outlet for their work, in others he has reconected people to their artistic culture.  He runs workshops at his gallery as well as going into Kimberly communities to teach, guide and counsel.  A group of women were working on a beautiful modern dot painting dominated by a large Boab design.

We went to the ‘Dinner Tree’ tonight to watch the sunset.  It is a huge Boab tree at the point where the drovers used to rest the cattle after the long overland drove before they took them to the wharf.  Today there is little to suggest this area held any significance at all.  There is a parking area, a concrete picnic bench, and a small information plaque.  Behind the tree are miles and miles of mudflats.  I guess there is only water there at the height of the wet.  Tonight there are a couple of car loads of friends enjoying their own sunset bevy.

Our final Kimberly sunset.

At our last Kimberly sunset we watched the sun redden, slide below the horizon and vermillionise the sky as it left.  The mighty Boab became a magnificient and picturesque silhouette.

 

Tunnel Creek – Derby

Day 35

August 16

Tunnel Creek

We got up and went straight to Tunnel Creek.  We were the first to arrive and had the tunnel entirely to ourselves. No wonder Jandamarra was able to hide out here for a few years; if you didn’t know the tunnel was there, it would be very difficult to find.  From the outside – at both ends- it looks like a rock collapse and as there is nothing beyond the rocks.  It did take a little slipping and sliding to get past the beautiful maroon and cream boulders polished smooth by the waters and hundreds of other hands reaching for purchase.

All the photos of Tunnel Creek are taken at or near the entrances.  We knew on a theoretical level that we were entering a tunnel and it would be dark and had brought torches.  But, once we were away from the entrance it was completely dark.  Added to that we were walking in water with no idea where we were going or how far the walk was.  Up ahead we could see tell-tale red glow of croc eyes.  I have to admit to being a little bit frightened.  Under just about any other circumstance, if someone had suggested that we walk into a cave, with a river running through it, that was home to crocodiles and bats and several species of fish, I would have told them to take a flying jump.

I was surprised at seeing crocs.  One of them was quite large.  They were sitting so still on the river banks, that if it weren’t for their beady red eyes shining in our torch lights, we wouldn’t have seen them, or worse still, stepped on them!

The ‘Cave of Bats’ is a cavern near a collapsed section of the tunnel where, I guess at sunset, the bats stream out of the cave into the night sky like some horror film herald of doom.  As it was, one of the bats moved from one perch to another, knocking its wings against the roof of the cave.  The sound was like a deep knocking.  My heart echoed the knocking.  I wasn’t sure if it was a pre-emptive rumbling of an about to collapse cavern wall, or some creature from the black waters about to rise up and devour us!  Okay, so maybe the dark and unfamiliar surroundings were working on my imagination. But if walking through the Wanjana Gorge was like entering Saurum’s Keep, then walking through the deepest, darkest part of the tunnel was reminiscent of Gollum’s cave.  However, once back out into the sunlight and with everything back into its appropriate perspective, we felt much braver and actually really happy that we had had such a special experience.  I don’t think many people get to walk Tunnel Creek on their own. A little up and around from the exit of the tunnel is a small piece of Aboriginal art.  It is the first we have seen.  I expected to see heaps up here, but ….

As we returned, a few people were starting their journey.  They were probably only talking in normal voices, but the acoustics of the tunnel amplified them to reverberating shouts.  The quiet, somewhat spooky atmosphere was completely destroyed, and I suspect, the crocs had vanished.  Back in the car park two tour buses had disgorged their passengers and about 60 people were milling around, all armed with torches ready to mount an assault on the site. Getting going early has many benefits.

We packed up and drove into Derby.  From Windjana to Derby the road is really good and quite a bit of it sealed.  Bye-bye barbaric Gibb.  We survived you!

Derby is a surprise.  I had fairly dire expectations, but it is a tidy well kept town.  Down the main street there is wide green median strip planted with boabs.  It looks beautiful.  We are staying at the Kimberly Entrance Caravan Park and, joy of joys, they have washing machines.  We had three loads of filthy, red dust impregnated, sweaty clothes and linen!  There are some things that will never recover this trip.  He red dust stains something shocking.  Getting things really clean isn’t assisted by the quick, cold wash cycles to which caravan parks set their machines.

In newly clean clothes, we went down to the Derby Wharf to watch the sun set and the famous tides come in. Neither disappointed.