Kalumburu

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The next day we set off in the direction of Kalumburu. We stopped off on the way to look at some aboriginal rock art and arrived at Kalumburu late in the afternoon. The road into Kalumburu was quite rocky and rough in parts however, the Carson River was just a puddle! This is the main water crossing we were concerned about! Again the corregations were horrendous! I'm half expecting bits and pieces to just start dropping off the car as we go - everything is shaking so much I have visions of like In The cartoons where the car stops, everything falls off and the driver is left just holding a steering wheel! Haha.

Coming to Kalumburu is something that I have been looking forward to, especially coming with mum and dad. It is a community that has a special place in their hearts. (Mum and dad lived and worked in the mission at Kalumburu for a total of two years). Dad helped to construct the museum and the rock wall outside the museum so I was eager to. See his handy work and see where they lived and worked. I didn't expect to meet so many local community members who remembered mum and dad and were obviously pleased to see them again!

When we first arrived we went straight to the mission shop to buy some bread. There was a brolga outside the sho and Gav and the boys handled him and patted him, he was really friendly! From here mum and I went over to the community shop to get some tomatoes and straight away local members of the community recognised Mum and there was great excitement to see her back in the community.

We checked Into a place called McGowans for four nights and camped right on the beach.

I had said from the outset that I wanted to go out to the old mission ruins for a look and when we asked about them we were told that the road had been closed because people kept camping out there and leaving a mess. We decided to ignore the road closed sign and just go anyway!

Day one we travelled out to the old Pago mission ruins. The mission at Kalumburu was originally set up at Pago approx 20 Kilm's from the present day site at Kalumburu. The mission was moved in 1932 to it's present site due to the lack of a constant, reliable water supply.

The ruins were fascinating and it didn't take the boys long to find the old water wells that had been sunk. One of them even had stone blocks built in as steps to walk down into the well!

We were wandering around having a look when the strangest thing happened! These two young indigenous boys just wandered out of the bush!! This place was about as remote as it gets, the nearest community was at least 20klms away and they just wander out of the bush to see what we are doing!!! We said hello all introduced ourselves and mum said "hang on, Gertie's house is near here isn't it? Are you boys Gertie's grandsons? I remember you two, you were only little when we were here, you have grown! Is Gertie home?" Well the reply was yes she is home so we all followed them to Gertie's house!! Out in the bush!! The boys hung off the side of the car and we drove a short distance through the bush to come upon a small house with Gertie sitting on the front verandah. It was the strangest sight! Here we were the middle of nowhere and there's this little correlated iron house with a massive satellite phone tower out the front! Anyway, Gertie recognised Mum and Dad straight away and was over the moon to see them! So there we all were sitting on the front verandah having a chat with Gertie. Gertie is one of the community elders, she lives here six months of the year and during the wet lives in town. Geetie is the custodian of the land within this region of The Kimberley's, so to her people she is a pretty important woman. She was really lovely and made us all feel very welcome. Her grandsons, Julian and Dudley are about 10years old and they had been spearing fish so mum asker if they would mind taking Jack and Luke spear fishing that afternoon. So we went home for lunch and then came back as the tide was going out and Gav and the boys spent a couple of fun filled hours with Julian and Dudley spearing fish. Gav said they had small sharks swimming between their legs, mullet nearly flying into them and stingrays flapping around everywhere - they even saw a sea snake! The boys assured them that the salties don't come around here - very much!! What a great afternoon they had. By the end of the day they had one rock cod and one large mud crab. We let Gertie and the boys keep the fish and the crab for their dinner and said our final goodbyes. It was obvious that she thinks highly of both mum and dad as we said goodbye. Gertie was a really lovely woman and it was a privilege to have met her.

Day two. We went into the Kalumburu mission to have a look around. On the way in we stopped off to look at an old World War Two plane wreck behind the airport and the kids watched a small plane taking off while we were there. Mum and Dad wanted to catch up with a man called Micheal who lives and works at the mission. Michael was a really great bloke. He was stunned when mum and dad walked in and happily very shocked to see them both. He welcomed them with a big hug and we all sat down for a cup of tea and a chat. It was a great opportunity for a catch up for mum and dad. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the mission. Mum and dad have us a running commentary on where they lived, how they worked and dad showed us the museum and the rock wall he helped build. The kids helped Michael collect eggs from the chickens and we had a really great time listening to mum and dad's stories about Kalumburu and their time here. Seeing it all in context was amazing and something I will never forget. It was obvious that Mum and Dad are very proud of their work at Kalumburu and I was proud of them both while looking around and hearing their stories. LOTS of photos were taken and we left to return back to camp.

Day three was spent on the beach around camp. The boys fished, we cleaned up abit around camp and mum and I cooked a couple of meals for along the road. We had a really relaxing day - just what we all needed. A break from the corregations was definitely needed!!

Day four we packed up and headed back into town. We left McGowans and made our way back into Kalumburu. We had to get a few more supplies and go into the community office to gain permission to travel the Carson River Track back down to the Gibb River Road. We took this opportunity to ask them about the track also as we were getting really mixed opinions from people we spoke to. Some said the track was fine to travel, others said it was a goat track and we would never get through. Some people said it would take us about 6 days to get through and others said it would take two or three days. No one was able to tell us how long the track was and the map didn't show any distances. All these varying opinions made mum very concerned about heading down the track so she wanted to check with the people at the community office and trusted their opinion the most. They said the track was ok and gave us permission to drive it so we fuelled up and set off down the track.

This track traverses the Carson River Station. This station is owned by the local indigenous community however, they have chosen not to work the station so there are wild cattle roaming everywhere! We were really surprised at just how many there were. We stopped off at the homestead (which is now in ruins) and had abit of a look around before heading off. The track was pretty good with no major issues, the Carson River wasn't flowing too deep so the water crossing was fairly shallow and we all crossed without issue.

As we were rounding a bend I noticed that dad's trailer was sort of at a right angle to his car. Hmmm, that just didn't look good. Mum and Dad had stopped and were both getting out of the car to check it out. Uhh ohh you know there is a problem when they both get out to look!

Dad had driven over a big wash out in the track, he had placed both wheels either side of the washout the car made it over with no problems "however, the trailer wheel had slipped into a big hole and had caused one of the D bolts connecting the springs to the axle to break and the springs had slipped backwards. Gav and Dad did a road side bush mechanic dodgy fix by using a ratchet strap to hold the spring in place on the axle and we headed back to Kalumburu to see if we could find a D bolt large enough to replace the one that had broken. So we covered about 140klms and ended up right back where we had started!! Haha everybody fell into bed ready to start again in the morning.

The morning saw everyone up early and Dad and Gav began repairs to dad's trailer. The Mission at Kalumburu were good enough to let them have access to the workshop to use any tools and resources they needed. Dad and Gav changed the hangers on the springs and modified an old bracket and plate to replace the broken u bolt under the trailer. They both laughed that the new modifications were stronger than the original! We set off confident that the repairs would hole and determined to at least make it back to where we had turned around the day before.

We found the track again and continued down, passing lots of wild cattle again and saw a dingo in the way as well. The fire from the night before had pretty much died out and was now just a smoking, smouldering, black landscape. One time along the track there was a wild dog who ran in front of the car for about 500metres before finally deciding to run off into the bush.

About 4pm we decided to look for a place on the side of the track to camp. We found a clearing near a dry river bed and Gav suggested we camp in the sandy river bed. Note that I said SANDY river bed. Sand and cars don't always mix well and this was one occasion they definitely did not mix well. Poor dad ended up terribly stuck in the sand and needed Gav to pull him out. (Great idea gav - NOT!!!). After an hour of "playing" in the sand we decided that I fact the area above the river was a much better spot and set up camp there instead! Haha. It was after we had set up that Gav found his bottle of Jim Beam had mysteriously disappeared. The night before it was in his tool box on the trailer. Now I'm not making any suggestions as to what happened to that bottle of Jim Beam but it was a little curious that the night before we were camped at Kalumburu and some of the people living there had $800 in cash and a few personal items stolen on the same night as Gavs grog went missing...... Hmmmm.... Well enough said of that I think.

It was an absolutely beautiful night spent camping out in the bush about as far away from anything as you can get. This is the sort of camping we love the best.

Day two saw us up early and keen to continue on down the track. What was starting to happen was the track was starting to divert off in all different directions and our map wasn't detailed enough for us to know which one to take. This resulted in us going down the wrong track on two separate occasions. We were just lucky that the track ended and we had to turn around because it didn't go on any further. Towards the end of day two Gav was becoming more and more concerned that we didn't have a proper map, we weren't sure on how long the track was and we were venturing deeper and deeper into the bush. We were at serious risk of becoming hopelessly lost with three young children and mum and dad in tow so he made the decision that we should turn back the way we came while we still had enough fuel to do so and knew the way out.

In the end that turned out to be a very wise decision........ So in the end We went 150klms down the track (that took us two nights!) and decided to turn around and go back. It was funny because the way back it took us forty minutes to travel what had taken us six hours the day before! (Amazing the difference knowing where you are going makes!). We became stuck once and both Gav and Dad had to winch themselves out. In hindsight we were under prepared for this track. We will definitely come back and do it again one day but definitely made the right choice to turn around and come back to Kalumburu.

We headed down the Kalumburu Road towards the Gibb River Road and Kununurru. You wouldn't believe it - the bloody trailer shock absorber ripped off its top mounting and we AGAIN were doing road side dodgy repairs to try to limp back for help at Kununurru. Gav used a snatch strap and recovery D shackle to support the trailer where the shock absorber should be. We managed to get to Mitchell Plateau and camped there for the night. Woke early the next morning to sett off for Kununurru. We expected to spend the whole day stopping every few kilometres to put the spring back in the trailer but knock me over with a feather if I'm lying, that snatch strap held! We don't know how, the road was heavily correlated but it held! Until.....

We were only approx 5klms from reaching the black road into Kununurru and the stub axle gave out. Gav did a quick roadside replacement of the stub axel and we arrived in Kununurru about 6pm. Thank god That didn't happen whle we were down the Carson River Track!!!!

The second half of the Gibb River road was much more scenic than the first half. We passed the Cockburn Ranges and wow are they stunning! The most beautiful ranges we have seen so far.

We even passed the man walking from Derby to Kununurru again!

We are now camped in Kununurru for repairs and a rest. From here we will head to The Bungle Bungles and Wolfe Creek.





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Photos

Spear fishing
The boys loved spear fishing with the locals

Sunset
On The Carson River Track

Carson River track
The hole that caused the damage.

Kalumburu
World War Two plane wreck

Mission Church statue
This statue is carved out of the one whole piece of timber. Really beautiful.

Kalumburu
The house mum and dad called home.

Kalumburu
The museum and stone wall dad helped to build.

Kalumburu
The mission is like a beautiful oasis in a hostile environment.

Kalumburu
The ramp the barge comes to to deliver supplies to the community.

Kalumburu
Pago mission ruins

Kalumburu
Pago mission stone bakery

Kalumburu
Meeting Dudley and Julian for the first time

Comments

[Amanda Stellino]

Kalumbaru
So nice that you were able to go back to Kalumbaru with Nanny and Grandfather! Looks so good and Grandfather should be very proud of the museum! Ahhh those roadside repairs, not having much luck with the trailers. You must all be doing some pretty serious off road driving.