Coral Bay

It was about 230k's to Coral Bay. We've come from a place where we were the only people on the beach, to Coral Bay and into a van park with 300 sites, one of two parks in town. Each park is full, so that's roughly 1000 adults and 2300 children.... Perth must be deserted.

The marine and other life here is pretty exotic The fish are friendly and Rose is becoming very proficient with mask and fins.  We spent an hour in the water swimming with the fishes, rays and other creatures today. We could have spent a lot longer.

We can't get over the different shades of green's and blue's in the water here. It's also very clear. Rose went for a walk along the beach to Mauds Point this morning and took this snap.







The word is that places further south are pretty full of holiday makers. We'll We'll likely move on tomorrow to Carnarvon and catch up with our nephew, then on to Shark Bay for a couple of days after which we'll likely head a little more inland. We enjoy the free camps over these huge parks.

I'm sure Coral Bay would be better with a little less traffic, still it was worth coming if only for the dose of reality, and it is really a very nice place.

Cape Range National Park

On the western side of the Exmouth Peninsula is the Cape Range National Park. Camps are $10/p/n. We stayed for 3.


The park is alongside the Ningaloo Marine Reserve and provides some great beaches, coral, marine life, walking, cycling and snorkelling. The sites are generally within 150m of the beaches and fairly well protected although we did pull our awning down one evening when the wind turned southerly at about 20kt's. We saw some good sized fish, turtles, a large Banded Krait (sea snake), and at sunset each evening we sat and watched the whales playing as they were heading south about 300m off the beach. It truly is a pretty spectacular place with names like Oyster Stacks, Turquoise Bay etc.

This little guy called on us each morning and afternoon. He had one leg and walked using his beak and his good leg. He used to land and "beak trot" over, then squawk to let us know he was there. We'd give him some bread and he'd fly off to the next site. He was there spot on 4pm each of the 3 days we were there.

















Rose and I rode from one end of the park to the other whilst we were there, a distance of some 46km's each way. Our camp (Kurrajong) was about 2/3's of the way in.

I'm starting to put some k's in with the Cape to Cape MTB ride happening later this month.

We're off to Coral Bay now, packed up already for an early start before the wind gets up and via Exmouth to buy diesel and to stock up. There's not much to be had in Coral Bay we've been told...

Exmouth

We put in a long day on the way to Exmouth and pulled over at a free camp just north of the Exmouth turnoff from the Northwest Coastal Hwy. A dusty place by a dry river. We's just pulled up and some dutch people we'd met pulled up alongside.... they just wouldn't stop talking. It wasn't a late night but we covered a lot of ground...!!!

Exmouth was quiet. They were expecting the school holiday rush but it just never happened. It's a nice sleepy little place with plenty of new infrastructure but I don't think I'd assume Exmouth to be a destination. It's more a place you might stop, stock up and move on. Nearly everything happens on the Western side of the peninsula where we were headed.

We did find this marvellous little beach about 14km's north. We were the only people on it and saw lots of fish, a couple of turtles, a whale breeching and a shark or two. The coral beach was hard to walk on, but the water was clear as crystal...... and Rose fiiiiiinnnnaly got her Emu picture.

Cleaverville

We had a big driving day today. Arrived in Roebourne about 3:30pm expecting to stay at the Information centre. We payed the gold coin donation and went through the old goal. We were then informed that we couldn't camp and there was no free camping allowed in the shire. We were deciding whether we were going to drive on when we were told of a place called Cleaverville (the last time I'd heard that name was on the TV series "Green Acres"). "It's just 12km out of town, turn right for 13km's of dirt, oh except for the bitumen section across the salt flats, when you get to the boat ramp, turn right and camp in any free spot. The Ranger will be along in the morning. We arrived, found a site on top of a sand dune with a nice breeze.

The site was awesome with views right around the bay. The Sunset was superb.

Sunrise was likewise. 

DeGrey River

Our last stop before Hedland was the DeGrey River. This is a free camp that could hide about 50 vans when full. Everyone stays there because it's close to the highway has a dump point, toilets, etc.

A different sort of person stays at free camps. They are generally more outgoing, more frequently travelled, ave generally been on the road for longer... and are always up for a chin wag.

Eighty Mile Beach

We're now about 170km south of Barn Hill. The road between was excellent and with an easterly blowing the rig just floated along. The road in to Eighty Mile Beach is 6km of dirt, very wide and without gates. The park maintain the road themselves. Each day or so they tow several truck tyres up and down the road behind a light vehicle. The tyres knock the tops of the corrugations. The road is as smooth as ....

We caught a fish, not sure what it was, but it looked small, relatively speaking, so it went back. While I was pulling in this monster, not 3m in front of me, a shark (2m) swam by chasing bluey's. He was in about 20cm of water with his dorsal and tail well out of the water. I had a thought about dragging him out by his tail... but the thought passed pretty quickly!  

 Rose enjoyed her time on the beach adding to her great collection of shells.

Some people have these enormous motorhomes. The guy in the photo actually also towed a trailer. On it was his car and above the car also on a trailer was his boat. 

Barn Hill

A few stations are opening up to travellers these days. Barn Hill Station have done that. It's very laid back. Everyone helps each other. Strictly cash only.

We're now 128km's south of Broome on our way south.

The road in is dirt and sand with a couple of gates. The 10k took us 30 mins.
I pressed the 4WD button in the car. I'm told it does something. I suppose one day I'll discover what... it just seemed the right thing to do is all!

Our site was on an escarpment overlooking the beach about 100m away. Our van is the one you can see on the right.

The fishing was mediocre but the sunsets were absolutely stunning.

Imagine waking up to this each morning, we are!

The facilities are elemental.... someone said that you don't need a permit if it's not under a roof...!

Rose discovered a couple of frogs

The lines are still there from the last game.... maybe they need a sponsor!

We were fogged in early one morning..... yet....

.... only one hour later... simply stunning!

Broome - Horizontal Falls

Broome is a good place to leave from if you're heading into the Kimberley's. We went north from Broome to Talbot Bay in the Buccaneer Archipelago. With 9 others we were picked up in Broome at 5:30am and loaded into a truck and driven a couple of hundred k's north.

We went via Beagle Bay, home to a magnificent church built in the 1800's by Germans and locals, and on to Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm about 100km further north where we had breakfast, a tour of the farm and got to handle some pretty expensive items.

Our ride arrived in the form of a float plane and 35 mins later we landed on Talbot Bay.

We were there for lunch, a tour up and back through the falls, and some nature study on Cyclone Creek.

We got to experience "Kimberley Massage", a water takeoff and landing, a ride through the falls, etc. Some great food, the awesome landscape and to find out a bit about pearls.








We returned to Broome around 4:30pm by air.... a great day.

Broome - Dragon Boat Races

Put a few paddlers in a Dragon Boat and tell them to paddle 500m straight off the beach and around a buoy, then paddle back.... simple hey? Well maybe not so... Four boats lined up. Two boats went straight for the bouy. The third boat (Broome Hash no less) headed off to the right and took out the fourth boat. It was about 9am, so they may have been a little under the weather..... well it is hot!

Broome Hash (the red boat)

We had lunch, a couple of drinks, a bit of a chat to some locals, and had left by the time they returned to the beach.

Broome - Dinosaur footprints

Dinosaurs used to live here. That's for certain. They left their footprints in the sandstone. The tides have to be pretty low to expose them, but we were lucky and the tides were very low.

Gantheaume Point.

Broome

Yep!. It's like we've died and gone to heaven. We're back on the coast. The temperature has dropped about 8 deg and there's a light breeze blowing.... every day...!!!!!

We're camped in a park 200m from Cable Beach and about 4km from Broome (the town). We could easily come back for 2-3 months each year. I've even glanced at the realestate.







I don't know how we've done it, but we've arrived bang in the middle of the "Shinju Matsuri" Festival.... and it's been awesome with Dragon Boats, fireworks, cultural displays, food, music and other festivities.

Technical:

We may have solved our electrical problems. We had the van built with a second battery. It seems that the second battery was treated as an "add-on" and was attached to the original battery by 2 x 30amp cables only. We had a professional have a look at it and he's remarkably increased the size of the cables linking the batteries and altered the wiring from the charger so that it now reacts to the condition of both of the batteries. We've been through several discharge/charge cycles and the batteries are now pretty well balanced and we're getting far less "peaky" demand. We've also bought a portable 120watt panel to help supplement our existing solar capacity. We now have 430watts.

Fitzroy Crossing

The weather is starting to heat up. 41 deg the day before yesterday, 40 yesterday and 39 forecast for today. Two free camps sitting in the shade and we're ready to spend a day or two with the air conditioning on, so the Fitzroy River Lodge it is. It's also close to Fathers Day.  It's a little Oasis. The only place for miles around with grass and shade, and it has a pretty good restaurant as well. Not much else here in the area except Gieki Gorge.

A couple arrived in the park today with a car problem. It's a Mitsubishi Tritan I believe. They were on their way back from Tunnel Creek, towing a 2.5t van, had about 250kg's in the back with a tent on top. His wife heard the chains rattling so they stopped. He'd actually broken his chassis. It took them 4 hours to crawl back to the highway (40km's). Their chassis cracked along the welds used to hold the cab mounts. Fitzroy Crossing is not the place to have that happen.

Mary's Pool

What a place. This has got to be the "ducks guts" of free camps. It's a great half way point between the Bungles and Fitzroy Crossing. To get into it you traverse a narrow dry season bridge (causeway) across the Margaret River. Yes, there are crocs (Salties). Once on the other river bank it's first in best dressed.

We arrived about midday and found 6 others there. By 2pm I said the Rose, "have a look at this"... 50 others had arrived but unlike a caravan park, everyone had enough room and shade. We went for a walk about 5pm, we walked about 50mt and returned to the van 2 hours later... Gee some people can talk.

Bungle Bungles

We're now on the Great Northern Highway heading toward Broome. Last night we stopped at Spring Creek Rest Area. As it's name suggests it's right alongside a creek. What a great little spot. We arrived just before midday and drove right in to the last remaining possie down by the creek. There were a couple of people from the veteran car rally and their cars also there. This is the place to stay when you don't want to pay the $50/night at the Bungles Caravan Park 1km down the road. A better kind of people free camp!

We were in part shade and I had to run the generator for an hour on the second day just to get enough juice in the batteries to see us through the second night.

We took the day tour of the Bungles, left the van locked up and walked to the van park. The 53k trip in is best done in someones else's vehicle.









Our guide "Billy Goat". Doing what he does best.

Wyndham

Busted the bikes out today, got out early... well pretty early and rode the first 40k to Wyndham. Rose came by at exactly the right time with a cold towel, hot lemon drink, cold water, clean clothes... do I get looked after or what.

Finally, back by the Sea. This place has some history. It's one of the few places where 5 rivers actually meet, it was where several great aviators based themselves. The WA government had a large meat works there until the 60's. It now exists on revenue from tourism, mining and livestock exports.

We found this little gem of a Cafe in the town. Clean, modern and in stark contrast to the rest of the place. Rose had the local Barra and chips and I had a Greek salad. Arguably the best feed we'd had in the area.

El Questro

El Questro came to prominence as a very up market remote travel destination a number of years ago. The station itself is on the other side of the Pentacost River about 80km's of sealed road, 16km's of unsealed from Kununurra. It's now owned by the yanks and from a travellers point of view offers little more than can be found cheaper elsewhere in the Kimberley's.

We visited Emma Gorge and Zebedee Springs, as well as the Station.... Yes the VW got it's feet wet crossing the Pentacost.

Kununurra - Ord River

The Ord River irrigation setup is amazing.

Some stats:

The Dam wall is 335m long, was built commencing in 1969 and cost $22m. It's all that holds back a body of water equal to 19 Sydney Harbours (it used to be 21 but Sydney did some remeasuring and they discovered it to be slightly bigger). It is about 1000km2. In 2011 it reached 9m above it's usual level and spanned 1600km2. It contained 38 Sydney Harbours at that time. It is not an irrigation dam but rather keeps a steady supply of water to Lake Kununurra as well as generating some power. Lake Kununurra is the irrigation dam and services about 10000 hectares. Indian Sandelwood, Rice and etc are the main crops.  

It's 55km by river from the Dam wall back to Kununurra town. We travelled down it in a boat powered by 3, 250hp V8 outboard Yamahas. It was a nice ride.

Lake Argyle

This place needs to be seen to be believed.... positively awesome!

We pulled in about midday. Seems to happen a lot... pulling in around midday I mean. Someone recommended we stay at the resort. It's the only place to stay. It's not cheap but neither is it expensive. The grass is green and washing cars and vans is actively encouraged.
We took up their offer and spent the day getting some of the dust out of the gear inside and out, and then went and lazed around the pool for the rest of the day... well someones gotta do it!

One of the guys pointed us in the direction of a lookout, a perfect place to watch the sunset. We did just that. Took a couple of chairs, some cheese and bikkies and drove the k or so through the dust, over fallen logs, rocks and rivers to get to this spot..

Victoria River

We're on our way West. We stopped in Katherine for a day to top up on a few things. Our first gas bottle had finally run out. Holiday traffic has thinned a little so we're confident of finding a place at most camps or parks.

The Victoria Highway is a great road. We once again have the wind behind us and we're drafting a motorhome in front... what a ride!

We stayed at the Victoria River Homestead. The Homestead at first glance is a really dusty place to be, but get down by the river and there's shade and it's a really nice place. The Homestead is part of a working station and there's lots to see and do. We took a walk out to one of the escarpments. The scenery from on top was stunning. Throw in a rock Wallaby or two and Boab trees which are starting to appear

We met a great old couple, Ron and Helen. Ron used to drive trucks in the area, is about 70, no teeth, crook hips, a defined limp, and a keen sense of humour. We got to talking one evening about how Rose doesn't do dirt. "Neither did Helen", he said. "Then when we were driving North out of Alice Springs a couple of months ago, I said to helen, there's a rest area up ahead, let's stop there for a cuppa. We turned left and kept driving for a while looking for some shade. Turns out it was the start of the Tanami Track so we just kept going... 1000k's later we hit the bitumen again. I wasn't popular for the first 10k or so but she was right after that".

The wind was very gusty the morning we left the Homestead. It was blowing in our direction so we decided to try it for at least 5k's or so, and if it's too strong return and stay another night. As it turned out we got blown all the way to Lake Argyle. The fuel consumption was down in the 13's. We had a great run.

I said to Ron on the way out of the park, "you're going to be burning some fuel today". Mate he said" I'm not budging in inch". It was about 8:30am and he was feeling pretty happy about staying.

Edith Falls - Revisited.

We liked Edith Falls so much we came back for another look. No, that's not entirely true. We ran out of cash the first time in, and promised to come back and pay them for the free night they gave us.

We hiked up to Sweetwater Pool the following day, a distance of 4.8k with full packs. We're in training for our Cradle Mountain walk in Tasmania next year so we walked out, overnighted at Sweetwater pool and walked back the next morning. We actually walked past Sweetwater pool and about 5k further along the "Jatbula Trail, then back to Sweetwater. We probably covered about 15k on the way out, and 5k on the way back

Key learnings:

We camped in the shade of some trees. The trees were fruiting. They were full of birds. We had bird piss all over the tent, our backs, in our hair, just about everywhere. Don't camp under shade that is fruiting.

I dozed off at the pool itself, I woke to find that I had company. A water monitor had ben watching and moved to within a metre me. His head was out of the water, and no doubt working out his strategy! I don't know who got the bigger fright, both of us exited in different directions. Don't sleep by the pool.








We arrived back at the campground the following day to find the track had been closed earlier. There was a fire in the area. We didn't smell, see, hear any smoke or flame. We were east of the main fire. It was travelling West, but it was back burning to the east as well. We discovered the following day that the fire had come to within 100m of the campground and no one knew it. Be aware of your environment.

Pine Creek

A nice place, cheap diesel, a railway museum and an old mud brick pub. Like many small rural towns, they are struggling to survive. They are about to lose another mine in the area. It's being "paused" like many others.

We happened to arrive the same day as a vintage rally arrived. They were driving/riding from Adelaide to Darwin. Some were in trailers but many were being driven. This 1911 Triumph was ridden all the way. Note the seat padding.