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Published: June 23rd 2009
Wyndham WA
From the Five Rivers Lookout (photo 1)We are trying to get back to reality now that we have left The Kimberley and living in a normal world, if you can call touring around and not working normal. As soon as we turned off the dirt road onto the bitumen, both of us felt our shoulders droop. Oohhh, boring bitumen, boring cars and caravans, oohhh we want to go back, we want to be part of the adventure seeking crowd again. It was such a lot of fun and we definitely are going back again so if you want to join us, get you camping gear, sun screen, big hat and get ready for one of the best trips you could do!
Overall we did 1300 dirt km and loved every one of them. No such thing as ‘ho-hum’ or boredom there. The most expensive diesel we bought was $1.99/lt, not bad considering where we were.
We headed up to Wyndham (on the boring bitumen) and saw the most wonderful lookout over the northern coast, at sunset. Five rivers empty into the sea in one area and the landscape is like no other we’ve seen. A lot of people say don’t bother with Wyndham but that
Wyndham WA
The rivers look like silk ribbons (photo 2) view is worth the detour any day. They’re famous for their barra burgers at the hotel and they are so good we went back the next day for another one.
We had wondered why there were not many sandflies or mosquitoes in Wyndham with it’s tidal mud flats, but we wonder no longer. While sitting back enjoying the warm evening, we could hear this loud noise getting closer and closer and before we knew it a truck was pumping some ghastly smelling cloud (of what we’ll never know) all over everything and everyone in the campground. We were in a pea soup fog. Our eyes were stinging and we had to sit in the car until the breeze took it all away. We could hear the truck for ages spraying the whole town. They don’t muck around when they do things in the north!
We picked up the van in Kununurra and are playing mum and dad tourists now… oh well, we’ll get used to it.
Litchfield National Park has some beautiful waterfalls and interesting places to visit and is only about an hour and a half south of Darwin. We struggled a bit initially, being at
Wyndham WA
The colours were soft and dreamy (photo 3) places with crowds of people and tourist buses, but we’ve sorted that out now. If we choose the harder to get to places, there aren’t many people so we can enjoy ourselves there for as long as we like; at the really popular places we have a look but it’s impossible to soak up any atmosphere with people everywhere. At Buley Rockholes we couldn’t even get a park. Going really early helps too, but even going before sunrise doesn’t guarantee you’ll have the place to yourself.
Wangi Falls is very, very nice but everybody goes there. At Walker Creek, we enjoyed lying in gurgling clear water with the little fish, and without a soul in sight - they were all at Wangi Falls. We could laugh and talk and these are the happy times we’ll remember whereas we can look at a postcard to remember the magnificent places…they’re better photos anyway, as ours all have strangers in them who for some reason didn’t clear the scene for our snaps.
Lost City was a fascinating place, made up of weathered rocks that looked like a ruined ancient city. It’s spread over quite a large area with “ruins” that are
Wyndham WA
Not a London pea soup fog but a Wyndham fumigation fog! hard to believe they were not man-made a few thousand years ago.
Only a few metres away from our camp is a bower bird who’s been collecting things for his impressive bower. A little while ago two brazen hussies arrived and there has been a lot of goings on, let me tell you. I guess he must have made a pretty good job of building that bower.
We were checking out a water crossing on the way to visit a ruined homestead when a 4x4 crossed from the other side. They got across then stopped and opened their doors to let the water out. Too deep for us we decided, but then they did a six point turn and drove through it again. Blow me down, on the other side they turned around again and came back. I thought it was a silly place to be playing in the water as there were signs warning of animals with big teeth. We left them to play there by themselves.
Next stop, Darwin.
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