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Published: August 9th 2010
Where to begin? So much has happened since the last time I wrote. So I was on my way to Monkey Mia which is a kind of national park with a posh resort on it which Dolphins have been coming to of a morning to get fed for many years. I stayed in nearby Denham which is cheaper and then just rode up in the morning. In the old days you could get right into the water and everyone used to be able to feed the dolphins, nowadays however with the resort and the number of tourists coming up to see them only a few are picked out of the crowd to do it. The dolphins that come here are completely wild, they come in for a feed two or three times in the morning and then leave not coming back til the next day, you never know how many will turn up or for how long they will stay. It’s interesting when they come in they are genuinely interested in you there’s a video with one of them swimming along staring out at all of the people there to see them. It was nice to see dolphins so close up
but I can’t say it was an amazing experience or that it would have been terrible to miss it, if you’re in the area go along if not don’t worry too much. Right so Dolphin experience box ticked, on to Coral Bay home to the Ningaloo Reef which is only metres (actually about a hundred but lets not quibble) from the shoreline. People come from all around to snorkel here. It's actually quite a strange place, it's just one road about two hundred metres long which leads to the beach, coming back from this are a couple of caravan parks, a cafe or two, a hostel and a small shopping centre. The water was cold, I don't like snorkelling and I got sunburned because I forgot to put on sunscreen it being so long since I've had to use it. I did however realise something as I walked on the beach, I haven't been on a relaxing holiday in a very long time. After a couple of hours on the beach however I remembered why, I get bored very easily. It did make me think of how hard it find it to relax, my mind is always ticking over, thinking
about something past, present or future. I think I need to find a way to turn off. I'll have to work on this one.
Ever since I got to, in fact I think before I got here, people have been telling me about Karajini National Park in North West Australia and as such it became a definite on my list of places to visit. Karajini has a series of Gorges running through it and in the dry these become safely accessible. In the wet the rivers running through this area become huge dangerous flows that can flash flood in minutes, the death of a member of the rescue team working here a decade ago just proves how unpredictable this place is. Having said that in the dry it becomes a beautiful series of waterholes where you can swim, the water is a bit on the cold side however. To visit some areas of the gorges you have to wade through water that can reach up to your waist but it’s nice to have to work hard to get these places as when you get there you have the feeling you have earned it. Some of the gorges are only
Karajini
More Gravel...accessible by 40 Km's of gravel road so I had fun traversing that over a period of about an hour and a half, it wasn't as bad as Natures Window but it was still an arduous time in and out added to which just before I left it started to rain, I was worried at one point as to whether I would make it out before the track became impassable for me. I did but it rained the whole way back to the Campsite, I'm sure had I not had a fantastic day both on the bike and wading through the gorges it would have been horrid in the cold, damp tent in my wet clothes but that day nothing could bother me and once I had made a cup of tea and something to eat on the stove I felt a million dollars. Leaving Karajini I had my first Dingo experience, As I sped along a dingo slowly crossed the road and sat on the side watching as I approached, I slowed down in case he ran into the road and as I passed him and started to speed up I looked in the mirror to see him stand
Karajini
Looks inviting, actually its bloody freezing suddenly and run after the bike, I guess chasing cars is in their blood.
Port Hedland home to a salt processing plant from the Dampier salt plains, home to a huge iron ore mine, home to no hostels and only a 'Big 4' campground that charges $35 for a tent for the evening. There’s nothing to see here, move along.
Everyone always talks about the Nullarbor as being a challenging ride of nothingness, it’s nothing compared to the journey between Port Hedland and Broome, there is nothing at all on the way except a couple of roadhouses other than that there are huge plains with not much plant life and no animals it’s a grim, boring and difficult ride. Broome, what a place, not very big not much there but people seem to like it. People talk of the cosmopolitan nature because of the pearling history. The pearling industry brought in many Chinese and Japanese, both have a cemetery in town, amongst other nationalities. Maybe it's the fact that this is another holiday town that makes it difficult for me to feel settled here. Time to move on again I think. Derby’s not famous for much other than
the biggest port tide in the world, but not the biggest tide that is a record held by Canada (18 metres), here it’s 11 metres. I came here only to go to a Corroboree, which is a traditional Aborigine knees up. Lots of dancing, that kind of thing. I have been searching for a positive Aborigine experience for a while now and I had waited round Broome an extra few days in the hope that this would be it. Having no comparison it’s hard to tell whether these Corroborees are always quite disorganised and the dancing half hearted, I didn't much mind the disorganisation but the lack of effort put into the dances bothered me, this wasn't to be my positive experience.
The journey from Derby to Darwin was to be one of the worst and the best so far, the orad had recently been shut due to unseasonal rains. They had diverted traffic to a mudtrack onthe side onthe road while they worked on the main section of the road, which of course is fine as long as you don’t get torrential rain, which you normally don’t in the dry. It was open when I passed luckily but
Karajini
camping again there was still 8 KM’s of dirt to traverse on the way, the mud had dried with the heat and so I merrily made up it to 60KM/H when suddenly I felt the hard layer of mud crack and drop me on wet slippy mud I could just feel the control go from the bike I knew if I put on the front brake I was going over, I knew if I put the back brake I was going over the only thing to do was to very slowly come off the power until the bike gripped again, hoping that I could hold the bike steady until it did. I managed it. I am quite impressed because I know not so long ago I would have been straight on the front bike and on my arse, it certainly got the pulse going and the adrenaline pumping.
The bike isn't good enough for me to take it through the Kimberley ranges including the 'Bungle Bungles' and that is a major reason to come up to this area and this plagued my whole journey through the area. It was difficult to know I couldn't see any of the amazing things that
were over the horizon to my left as I passed through more plain, uninteresting landscape. But the landscape as you get past the Bungle Bungles starts to get interesting as mountains shoot up and Brumbies, wild horses, start to appear constantly on the side of the road. It felt amazing to be there and it felt right, it felt like this was exactly where I was supposed to be at that precise moment, I've never felt that way before. I decided that I would definitely be coming back to this part of Australia to do all the things I can't do this time, either with a 4WD or on a trail bike with someone in a 4WD all I know is I will be back.
As you get towards the turn off for Kununura and Wyndham if you follow the road to Wyndham for about 20 K's you reach a turn off for the 'Grotto', it’s well worth the detour. A miner in Port Hedland told me to go there, good advice. The Grotto is a swimming hole whose depth is unknown but is suspected to be over a hundred metres. In the now searing heat of the top
Karajini
Apparently the waterfall was warm. end there is nothing better than getting into the cold water here and having a swim to cool yourself off. Don't worry about that brushing against your leg even though we're in Croc country now, no thats just a monitor lizard, harmless as long as you don't piss ‘em off.
Some of the Roadhouses have simple campsites attached and for normally about 7 bucks you can camp for the night, Victoria River has one such roadhouse. The setting is amazing a beautiful river running through jagged mountains with palm trees running around there bases. What an amazing place to camp for the evening.
I knew that up through the west and the north it would mostly be about national parks and nature. Next stop was Litchfield National park another series of waterfalls and water holes where you can spend the day cooling off from the incessant heat. Unfortunately as its the school holidays everything is rather full of kids bombing, splashing around and generally being annoying, still I spent a couple of days looking round at all the waterfalls and relaxing in the water. In the photos there are two spider pictures one of a golden Orb spider,
the thing that’s hard to tell from this picture is that the thing is the size of my hand the other picture an out of focus pic of a small green spider that looks slightly alien with its huge eyes that it turns to follow you with as you move, that’s not the freaky part though, it’s out of focus as while I was taking the shot it jumped right at the camera, cue a girly shriek and dropping of the camera from me and all over a spider that is probably less than a centimetre long!
Out of Litchfield and up to Darwin, Broomes bigger brother, it feels very much the same. It’s full of not much but has one street dedicated to pissed up backpackers and if you can't beat em...well you join em! And that’s where I'll leave it for this one me in Darwin spilling oil all over a backpackers car park as I do a much needed oil change and preparing to go into Kakadu National Park. I will just say this one thing I was terribly sad to leave Western Australia it has been without doubt my favourite part of Australia so far,
from top to bottom it has so much to see and while I couldn't do everything I'll definitely be back.
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