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Published: April 29th 2007
Vlaming Head—Exmouth
Days 36/37 — 30/3/2007—31/3/2007 Picked up mail and returned schoolwork / extra schoolwork / extra library books for kids and some info from Amanda’s folks. Always good to get mail—real mail that is—email is nice but real mail is better!!!
Rhiannon bought her first Bikini in Exmouth (or got it bought for her). Apparently tried on a few before she found “The One” and then promptly wouldn’t take it off for the next few days!
Found some fresh turtle tracks on the beach and a beach where the turtles obviously lay eggs. Went back that night for a while to see if we could see any make their way up onto the beach but we were apparently outside of the true season so our luck was out. The beach where they obviously favoured laying their eggs was a real moonscape where the turtles had layed their eggs in the sand. They dug quite large nests and the dunes above the high tide marked was literally pockmarked with small craters of previously dug nests.
Exmouth—Nanuatrra—Onslow
Day 38 — 1/4/2007 After a slow start we did the shopping run in Exmouth and
then headed northwards. The scenery changes quite markedly along this stretch of road as you move form the Coral Coast into the Pilbara….and much for the better. The Pilbara is looking fantastic at the moment what with three late season cyclones adding to the rainfall load the area has received for the wet season.
We stopped at Nanutarra roadhouse—which surely has the highest priced fuel in the country at 165 cpl—and fuelled up. As we were making up our itinerary as we went along it was prudent, albeit costly, to do so. We ended up deciding on heading in to Onslow and hoping that our mail package for the kids had arrived rather than having to go into Millstream NP and then backtrack to Onslow. Apart form an area on the way which looked like a termite farm Onslow doesn’t really have a lot to offer. Although Im sure if you stayed there longer there would be things to see/do.
Onslow—Pannawonica—Millstream Chichester NP
Days 39 (Monday 2-04-2007) After trying to book the car in for a service at Karratha - which was like pushing the proverbial uphill with a pointy stick (They were taking bookings
for the 30th of the month!!! and Port Hedland was about the same). We worked our way towards Millstream via the less used road in from Pannawonica. We initially tried to use the old road but having traversed this small track for a while , heading thru a river crossing we came to a sign which stated that a mining operation was now in progress and access was denied—bleedin mining companies think they own the place!!!
The new road goes in via Pannawonica townsite (which wasn’t on the maps we had). The road in was really quite scenic and with some storm clouds brewing lent it a bit more of an ethereal feel to the whole experience. Unfortunately as we were travelling this road we staked one of our near new tyres (for those that get into the tyre argument it was a BFG All Terrain). Luck of the draw. Arriving at Millstream on sunset we took some pictures of the sunset from a lookoutand then proceeded onto the campsite at Crossing pool—to find it deserted and that we were the only ones there!!! Amazing. As you can see from the photos it is an absolute magic spot and
Braydens big Catfish
48cm catfish - about as big as they come in this region apparently. the boy is pretty happyyou could definitely do worse for a campsite!!!
Millstream Chichester National Park
Days 39—43 — 3/4/2007—7/4/2007 Woke up to one of the best camp sites we have been in—just pristine...with the added bonus of having it all to ourselves—although this was only relatively short-lived. Crossing Pool is an absolutely fantastic place and a great campsite—grassed area with great swimming / kayaking. Certainly made us feel that we made the right decision coming away. The full moon was still in the sky with the sun beginning to rise and the reflections of the snappy gums mirrored perfectly in the still water of the pool (see photo) - it just doesn’t get better than this. To cap it all off I threw the old lure in and started catching catfish of around the 30cm mark. Cant complain at that.
Our first impressions were soured somewhat when we went to the visitor centre which was the old Millstream homestead. About 6-8 kids of indigenous origin were essentially rampaging thru the old house (it no longer serves as the ranger headquarters) with a few of them hoiking rocks onto the roof. Amanda endeavoured to befriend them but this simply seemed to
encourage them. As we went on the small walk adjacent to the homestead around Chinderwarriner Pool all we got was verbal abuse and ultimately a few rocks thrown in our general direction. I sent Amanda and the kids on whilst I chased them down and had a few words. Needless to say they left us alone and I was inspired to make a few comments on the national park comment sheet. We spoke to the ranger the following day who was mortified that we were subjected to that behaviour and promised to ensure that he would take the appropriate action. Given that the kids were offspring of one of the trainee Aboriginal rangers I found this extremely disappointing…..apparently there were a few “blow-ins” as it was easter and school holidays—not that this condones any of their behaviour.
The Homestead walk and the accompanying commentary on the radio brought you back in time to when it was a substantial station and an economic powerhouse in the region. With its assured supply of water it would have to rank as one of the better patches of land to call your workplace / home when transport was limited to camel trains from the
coast a couple of times a year.
Brayden caught a huge catfish (48cm) which is near the upper limit of these type of fish in these waters so he was pretty chuffed. I filleted it and we had one fillet steamed and spiced and the other BBQ’d. General consensus was that the BBQ’d taste was better but it certainly wasn’t a fish you would target to eat on a regular basis. With Easter upon us our quiet little campsite filled up rapidly over the space of a couple of hours to the point that it became quite crowded. It certainly took the gloss off the place. The rangers had closed off the other main camping area at Deep Reach with no immediate plans to have it reopened so that means a huge National Park with only a limited amount of campsites. Apparently this area is up for redevelopment in the near future with a bitumenised road from the North West Coastal Highway—so get in quick if you are keen on a really nice experience before tour buses and long termer grey nomads have the place locked up .
We had gotten quite friendly with the
ranger who put us onto another place that the general masses don’t know about (and wont be disclosed here) with aboriginal art / etchings. They were very faint and it took me a while to get my eye in but once we started seeing them we could see them at most places we had just walked past. Would also have been a great place to camp—so we went for a swim as we seem to do whenever we can at any decent body of water, as that normally suffices for our wash for the day! The road out via Mt Herbert was also amazingly scenic—again made more so by the recent rains and the veritable explosion of flora highlighting further the marvellous contrast between the rocks and the plants. No wonder people fall in love with the Pilbara Finished the day at De Grey River north of Port Hedland and finally had our first campfire!!!
De Grey Camp—Cape Keraudren
Day 44 — 08/4/2007 After the Easter Bilby had found the kids and the small scale hunt was over we packed up and travelled only a small distance to Cape Keradudren. Having been passed several times before on
Cape Keraudren
Great spot but the sandflies were friendly... previous trips we decided to go in and camp. To be greeted by green rolling hills and azure / turquoise waters was a pleasant experience and we made camp in an area overlooking the cape. We were able to scavenge a bit of wood from other campsites and so we were able to have our second campfire of the trip—which was definitely needed as midgies / mozzies and sandflies were most certainly making the most of the recent conditions. The full effect of these friendly little mongrels was not felt fully until a few days hence when itching became a pastime of major occupation for us all. The kids in particular were badly affected with Brayden looking a little like a pin cushion on his lower legs a few days later.
As much as it was a nice place (despite the biteys) we had limited time available due to the car being booked in for a service at Broome following the Easter holidays.
Cape Keraudren—80 Mile Beach
Day 45 — 09/4/2007 Small drive to 80 mile beach and decided to stay. Unfortunately by the time we set up and got organised we had missed the majority of
80 Mile Beach
Great Beach fishing but we were on too much of a time schedule and missed the tide.Bummer the tide and hence a very good fishing opportunity. Saw a bloke who had caught a 1.2m + Mulloway. Very nice. By the time we had got our fishing rods / bait / rerigged almost everyone else was of the beach—I think that might have been saying something ...we were on a hiding to nothing to catch any fish and the tide was on its way out. Next time perhaps…..
Nice little spot to go back to (as apparently a lot of people from the Pilbara do).
Again just an overnighter on our way to the ubiquitous type example WA holiday spot of Broome….
80 Mile Beach—Broome
Day 46 — 10/4/2007
Broome
Days 47 — 11/4/2007 — Day 53 16/4/2007 Broome was our major defect / warranty / fix it location with replacement of staked tyres / failed batteries / failed diff lock / car service / book exchanges/ haircuts / etc etc.
After the logistical dilemmas we also did the type example Broome Icons of tourism…….
¨ Camel Ride at Sunset
¨ Pearl Farm Tour at Willie Creek
¨ Amanda bought a small pearl (cheaper freshwater imported pearl...cant quite afford
Comparo
OK OK your truck IS bigger than my truck... Australian made product at this stage)
¨ Cable Beach sunset
¨ Restaurant dinner looking over Cable Beach (my 41st Birthday)
¨ Drive on Cable Beach to swim and watch the sunset
¨ Visit the dinosaur prints at Point Gantheaume
¨ Malcolm Douglas Croc Farm (Brayden is now sporting a croc tooth necklace)
¨ Lugger Tour
Kids did some school but as our stay at Broome coincided with school holidays we were a little more relaxed with the kids schoolwork. Accordingly they spent a fair bit of time in the fairly salubrious pool at Cable Beach Caravan Park.
Already Broome is quite full and the amount of building activity and the ever increasing amount of resorts is simply astounding. Unfortunately the wholesale profiteering by the tourism industry appears not to be supported by that industry—in terms of investing in additional infrastructure such as housing for workers that are supposed to staff all these flash resorts. Rents are almost outstripping payrates so staff turnover is phenomenal with restaurants being particularly hardhit. I would hate to be there over the May / June / July / August period where getting anything done in Broome would be a very time consuming queue forming
drama as the place would just be absolutely chokkas!!! The place almost seems to be a very outer suburb of Perth with much of its character now stripped away from what it once was. Its really like an amalgam of Cottesloe / Scarborough and Midland-Guildford all rolled into one with a bit of red dirt thrown around for good measure! Cable Beach will be requiring traffic lights with the amount of vehicles driving up and down it.
Having said all that it was an enjoyable stay with all the facilities a decent sized town has to offer. We were however still keen to get away and onwards to Cape Leveque….
Broome—Cape Leveque—Broome
Day 54—17/4/2007 Left Broome early and headed out to the Cape Leveque road ready for the long and bumpy ride to the Cape. There were several decent washouts along the road along with corrugations all placing stress on man and machine. Unfortunately as we were but 25 odd km into the track our bike rack succumbed to metal fatique and a lack of strength and decided that now was a good time to lay down and die. This it promptly did!
Luckily I happened
to be watching closely in the rear view mirror and noticed that the angles were not looking quite right and watched as the bike rack gave up the ghost. It was also fortunate (in the overall scheme of things that is) that the fatique was not totally catastrophic in that one edge of the square tubing was still intact and that when the rack laid over for a rest the wheels of the bikes rested against the back of the trailer and not on the ground—otherwise four bikes would have had slightly asymmetrical handlebars and convoluted wheels. We reconfigured the bike rack with the age old method of getting things from A to B….the trusty old length of rope (of which you can never have enough) and strapped them to the trailer over the nose cone. It might not have been pretty but it did get us back to Broome where the search for a fabricator who could reweld and brace up the bike rack began in earnest. Luckily we did find a mob who was able to do it within a reasonable timeframe and had it fixed the following day. By the time the rack was ready it was
a little late to make a start along the Cape Leveque road so Broome it was for another night.
We did a few more touristy things and went on the pearl lugger tour during the day (which was good and quite informative) and then went to Sun Pictures that night. Sun Pictures is an open-air picture theatre that is one of the oldest around so it was great to go and see a picture there (Mr Beans Holiday no less)...complete with planes flying in low over the open-air theatre and completely drowning out the sound!!! All part of the deal you get which is at no charge!
The following morning Cape Leveque was waiting so we tried again ...take 2…..
Broome—Beagle Bay—Middle Lagoon
Day 56 and 57—19/4/2007—20/4/2007 A little more forewarned this time and with a fair few stops for checking on the overall bike rack arrangement we progressed up the Cape Leveque road to Beagle Bay where the beautiful Sacred Heart Church is an absolute must see—there not being much else to view in Beagle Bay...although the availability of many parts for older falcons/commodores / landcruisers and patrols was quite plentiful if you are
in that market.
The church is a building marvel given that it was built in 1921. The interior is decorated with mother of pearl and other shells and the ceiling made from flattened kero tins (the original timber ceiling falling prey to our voracious little termite friends).
We continued on to Middle Lagoon and luckily scored one of the best sites around overlooking the lagoon. Having heard that the mozzies up here were fairly thick on the ground and became particularly friendly at around dusk we decided to put up the old screen dome as our refuge. This was a very good move as we later found out…..
The middle lagoon area is a 20 hectare aboriginal run area which is pretty well looked after and offers camping and various forms of basic shelters at reasonable rates. It is situated pretty well directly overlooking Middle Lagoon (funnily enough) and has good access to a number of other scenic bays close by.
The serenity was disturbed somewhat by the young bloke who lived there who had got a motorbike for Xmas. He obviously loved his little machine cause he rode it up and down, up and down,
up and down all bloody day. This got just a tad tiresome after a while and coupled with the old genset (read loudest lister diesel you have ever heard) we decided that 2 days was our limit.
Although we tried we didn’t manage to catch a fish of a decent size at several sites...in fact we didn’t get a bite on the fishing lines and only managed to score a couple of fish with the gidgee. Another one of those spots “where even a blind man can catch a fish” - but we couldn’t manage a nibble!
I’m told the ocean has fish in it that are large enough to be legal and big enough to eat but Im starting to have my doubts. Perhaps this whole fishing industry has been founded on the misguided story that some bloke called Jesus fed a whole swag of characters on two fish and the little lies have just kept coming from then….
Middle Lagoon—Kooljamon (Cape Leveque)
Days 58 and 59 —21/4/2007—22/4/2007 The drive to the tip of the Cape continued in much the same vein as before with washed away, corrugated roads interspersed with pristine bitumenised
sections. This kept our speed down to generally the 50—60kmh mark—always mindful of our bike rack flicking around on the back of the camper trailer probably being effected by 2-3 times the force we were feeling in the car as we went over washaways in the road.
We booked in to the “remote wilderness paradise” (well that’s what it says on the brochure) but a patch of grass is a patch of grass when you are camping. As seems to be the case with Aboriginal owned, but white fella run, operations prices are…..well lets say they seem to attract a premium. That’s what you get at a “unique wilderness style luxury camp” I guess. Although the safari (jump on soapbox...I hate the word safari when referring to Australian tours/accom—just my myopic narrow minded biased opinion) tents looked fairly salubrious with the pick of the views out over the cape we didn’t enquire as to their nightly tariff. No doubt they would slug you a fair bit for the privilege.
We had a swim and then went back to camp to do our nightly dance with the little winged creatures of the evening...the ever-present mozzie. Roast was the order
of the day although we had neglected to buy up on potatoes so an important part of the meal was missing but we had more than enough to keep our bellies full. I have to admit our Cobb cooker (like a small scale webber BBQ) does an absolutely brilliant roast. I even whipped up a quick batch of scones to be cooked immediately after dinner. Might not have been up to ol’ Flo Bjeke Peterson’s pumpkin version but they were certainly good enough for the bush.
The following day saw us head out to Hunter Creek where, yet again, there was supposedly good fishing. At least this time we did catch some fish—albeit too small for the pan. A couple of estuary cod and a few small spanish flag. All this on the rising tide but nothing of a sizeable nature unfortunately. Perhaps the croc that is supposed to live in these parts had been particularly hungry of late and had taken all the ones worth having. We did our usual hook/line and sinker sacrifice to the fishing gods (as we do a couple of times at most locations). Accordingly we had to lower our flag to the greater
Bike rack laying over for a little rest..
THe bike rack that didnt quite make it and forced us to turn back to Broome for repairs. expertise of mother nature and her creatures and admit defeat...yet again
Another swim on the way home and we then watched the sun set—as you do (admittedly sunset photos are pretty plentiful in our collection of photos).
Kooljamon (Cape Leveque) - Lombardina—Broome—Willare—Derby
Day 60—2/4/2007 Amanda is still keen to move on and get out of WA so we left Kooljamon early and trekked back along the Leveque Rd. We could not pass the Lombardina sign without poking our nose in—and we were glad we did. This is a really well run place that is neat tidy and clean….with the added bonus that they bake bread.—and we were just in time for the morning run. After a quick tour around the community and a look at their church, art gallery, craft shop and the like we bought the first loaf off the bakery rack. This was Lombardina style, that is, with a burnt top. This is apparently the way the community members like it. Perhaps harkens back to cooking on an open fire maybe? Either way it looked pretty good so we whipped out the butter
and honey and had warm bread and honey for morning tea. Again not bad for being in the middle of nowhere.
With a big day still ahead of us we pushed on thru and back to the Cape Leveque Rd for the long trip back to Broome and thence to Derby. Saw our first real rain on the trip in but luckily it was only a localised small scale thunderstorm. T he trip back in didn’t seem to be as bad and we arrived back in Broome to again check the post office for kids school stuff and for me to go and get another battery as I knew our existing one was playing havoc with the charging regime and the trailer battery. $230 later I met up with Amanda and kids to do some final shopping and, despite it being fairly late in the day, head on up to Derby. We just couldn’t stand the thought of having to do another one nighter in Broome.
After a slowish trip along the Broome—Derby Rd (given that it was on dusk and cattle were out and about) we arrived in Derby around 7.00 pm to stay at the recently
Damn
The catastophic failure due to fatigue, washed out roads etc etc acquired establishment of an ex workmate of mine…. the West Kimberley Lodge and Caravan Park. This was to be a bit of a rest stop and schooling catchup whilst waiting for the grading of the Gibb River Rd to progress and before the authorities allowed it to be open.
Derby
Days 61—65
24/4/2007—29/4/2007 Having let the kids schooling slip a little over the last few weeks it was time to prop for a bit and drag the kids back into school mode to get a bit more done. Although the schooling is not easy it seems to be paying dividends with a marked improvement in Brayden’s spelling and reading and Rhiannon just seems to devour books at the moment. Getting her to concentrate on other schooling activities presents a little more of a challenge. Whilst it seems to still be a fairly onerous task and it does take up a fair bit of time my guess though, is that they are both probably going to be better placed than had they stayed in the school system for this year. At least in the basics (spelling, reading, maths) where we had to play a little catch up.
Additional to that, of course, they are getting exposed to all sorts of wondrous things as we go along…best of all they can both now make and cook pancakes—just have to get them to whip up a good flat white and bring it in to bed for us and we’ll be set!!!
We splurged a bit whilst in Derby and decided to book a trip to the Horizontal waterfalls. This was initially via seaplane, landing at the falls and getting on a boat to go thru both the falls a couple of times. Whilst this is an expensive side trip it as an absolute must do because it is just a great thing to see and do. Also did a bit of fishing and we all caught fish with—Amanda catching the biggest of the day a 52cm estuary cod. This also means she has caught the biggest fish of the trip to date so is up there with the bragging rights!
Apart from flying there is almost no other way to access the region unless you work for the pearl farmers. From the air is the only way you realise the magnificence, and appreciate the beauty, of the
West Kimberley coastline—just brilliant. At $395 per adult and $350 for kids it is by no means a cheap option but still worth the money...but bread and water then for the next two weeks…!
We also visited the School of the Air, which is based here in Derby, and the kids saw that they use basically the same material as what they have got through the School of Isolated and Distance Education. We also sat in on a lesson with four young students and you soon recognise the advances in computing and mobile communications must have been an enormous godsend for the kids in isolated communities and the teachers themselves. Apparently the school funds all the materials and communications infrastructure (at about $12,000 a pop for sat dish and computers - so it appears that they are well resourced). We donated a book to the school so Rhiannon and Brayden’s names appear in that book when it gets sent out to various kids.
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Monique
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Derby reply
Thanks for the fantastic effort your putting in to your journal. We love hearing about your adventures and seeing the fantastic pic's. Well-done to Amanda the Fisherman!!! We miss you guys heaps. Brodie loved the croc's!