Timber Creek

We decided to break the journey between Kununurra and Katherine at Timber Creek, where we stayed at the Roadhouse / Motel. Our Donga was quite comfortable, and the walls solid, which I was quite pleased about when we discovered some locals having some fun by dangling pork chops into the creek behind the room in order to attract crocs. They were successful too ! From Timber Creek, we explored the Gregory National Park, named after the explorer Augustus Charles Gregory, who had been commissioned to explore this part of Australia by the imperial Government. He did this by sailing up the Victoria river, which even in the dry dwarfs anything we have in Victoria, and establishing a base camp on the banks. At the camp, his men carved their arrival and departure dates into giant baob trees, and the inscriptions look today as if they have only just been carved. We visited Cockatoo Lagoon, observing the eponymous birds from behind a rather flimsy fence, which I couldn't believe would deter an even half hearted croc, let alone a hungry one. We climbed to a lookout above the Victoria River, which afforded marvellous views, and on our descent, literally bumped into our friend Di from Daylesford marching purposefully along the escarpment. Just a couple of days before our departure, we had met in Gracenotes Cafe, and exchanged plans over a cappuccino, and here we were, half way up a mountain in the Northern Territory, 13 months into our adventure, and 4 months into Di's. We were rather impressed by her tales of 4WD derring do, and felt a little embarrassed at sticking only to the bitumen in a plastic car. We are going to meet again in Daylesford in September to compare notes.

Crocodile Cecile

We stayed the night in Halls Creek, a pleasant town with some nice scenery on the banks of the Fitzroy River. When I mentioned to a fellow traveller in Derby that we were headed for Halls Creek, she said that on no account should we consider stopping there, but instead hightail it for Kununurra. It was interesting arriving in a town where the vast majority of the people are indigenous. Most of the aboriginal population seem to spend their time sitting around street corners, or in the parks and garden, doing nothing. My ignorance, if not my prejudice, was stimulated when we started to wander around the town. The Visitors information centre was manned by two ladies, one Chinese, and the other a Kiwi. The bakery was staffed by a crew of Chinese, except the lass on the coffee machine who was Scandanavian. The waitress at the cafe was Peruvian, and we had a jolly chat about her suburb in Lima, Miraflores, which I had visited. The barman was Thai. At the hotel, the receptionist was a white ozzie (I don't know how she got in - probably a mistake), and my coffee was delivered by a girl from Latvia. Does this all mean something ? probably not ! We had a lovely walk at the Geike gorge, the last certified 'saltie' free watercourse. I took a scenic flight over the Wolfe Creek meteor crater, which together with Meteor Crater in Arizona is the best preserved crater in the world. We flew down in an ancient Cessna 207, which I observed had a take off performance comparable to that of an airbus A380. The crater itself was formed when a meteorite weighing 50,000 tonnes impacted the desert, a mere 300,000 years ago.

After Halls creek, we set out for Kununurra, which proved to be a delightful 'company town' set up for the Ord River Scheme, but still flourishing today. Tourism is big business here, and we snaffled one of the last rooms available in the town. Lake Argyle, formed when the Ord river was dammed, once in 1962, and then again in 1969, has a maximum surface are of 2072 square kilometres, and to my eye, is less of a lake, and more of a sea. Unfortunately, the irrigation plans of the 60's to farm enough rice to feed all of China, have not been realised, as pests and heat accounted for all the crops. The original settlers of this part of the world were the Durack family. Their historic homestead would have been inundated by the new dam, so the authorities commendably disassembled the entire building, stone by stone, and re assembled it on a nearby hill. The hedge around the homestead is home to a bower bird, who busies himself collecting and arranging his treasures. He only likes pure white objects, plastic spoons are a favourite, and the lady on the desk told us that when her back was turned, he collected all of the polystyrene cups from the kitchen, and transported them to his lair. After viewing the magnificent lake and surrounding engineering works, we wandered across a bridge which spanned the spillway creek. The creek was in full flood (despite it being the dry) and it is no exaggeration to say that one could have white water rafted on it ...except... Cecile called up from the other end of the bridge, where I had been observing a large goanna swimming. She had found some crocs ! Now I have read that 'freshies' are not dangerous, but let me tell you that close up a 3 metre 'freshie' is deserving of respect - well my respect anyway. Just 2 kilometres beyond the township of Kununurra is the Mirima National Park, a sort of mini Bungle Bungle, full of glorious rock formations and interesting flora. True to form, we got lost on a bushwalk in the park and emerged from our adventure scratched all over by the spinifex.

Just a couple of other events worth mentioning. We almost had our first serious traffic incident whilst on the way to the Ord River. We came around a gentle bend with me at the tiller. We were travelling at 110 kms, and were suddenly confronted by a slow moving vehicle in the opposite lane, being passed by a car, now in my lane, despite not having any vision around the corner, and having a double white line. As I went for the anchor, instead of falling back behind the slow moving vehicle, or accelerating to pass him before I arrived, the driver of the overtaking car elected to exit the road all together, and speeded along the dirt adjoining the road. I therefore suddenly found myself passed on both the left and the right at the same time. Interesting. I read somewhere that the Northern Territory Government had trialled car mounted cockpit voice recorders imported from the aviation industry, to try to account for the level of carnage on their roads. Apparantly the most common final words are " Hold my beer and watch this !" Speaking of cars, I just changed the tyres again only 26,000 kms after the last new set I bought in Launceston. I was down to racing slicks, and this after rarely leaving the highway. We have driven 67508 kms, and the consumption is heading north again as we speed in the Territory, it is now averaging 6.2 l/100kms.
By the way, I see that Tony Abbott has achieved a miracle worthy of Mary Mackillop - he has made Malcolm Turnbull look like an honorable man.

Coming up to a cross in the road

In Fitzroy Crossing today. By the way, David thinks you all need to know that the Fitzroy River is named after Captain Fitzroy, captain of the Beagle, of Darwin's fame -well, now you know. Had a lovely walk in Geike Gorge (part of the Kimberley's Devonian Reef). We intended to take a cruise on the Fitzroy River but the official which we took to be the guide was so rude that we decided against it. But this is the exception, on the whole, the hospitality has been friendly, if often basic (we have had to stay in shared-facilities "dongas"as we refuse to pay $400 for a motel room)

As we said in this blog before, that is the price you pay for the mining boom. Again and again, we witness the contrast between the rough and ready mining and the wonderful, unspoilt National Parks. We see the 2km long trains taking iron ore to Port Hedland where impossibly huge tankers glide in and out of port. By the way, the truck you see in the photo is one single vehicle (53m), try and overtake that in a hurry! But as well as utilitarian Tom Price and Port Hedland we also visit magical Karijini Gorge, swanky Broome and hug wonderfully cuddly boab trees. We checked out the tides at Derby ( see the photos of the pier, 11 vertical metres difference between low and high tide). Derby experiences the second biggest tides in the world (1st is somewhere in Canada).

Tomorrow, Halls Creek. We will soon be back on the Stuart Highway in Katherine and then we will have to decide on a route back to Daylesford. Our only commitment so far is to be back in Melbourne on the 17th September for Julia's wedding. Maybe we will throw a pin at the map to decide.

Tom Price

Want to know what the mining boom is doing for the country ? We are travelling using a Lonely Planet guidebook for WA which we had purchased on our last foray west in 2006. Because it is school holidays here, we are booking our accommodation ahead, and I am glad we did in Carnarvon where we got the last motel room in the entire town. We can't get into Exmouth because the town is booked out as a consequence of the school holidays coinciding with the arrival of the whale sharks. I attempted to book a motel in Port Hedland, which turned out to be full anyway, the Lonely Planet was a little disparaging about it, down at heel etc... noting that the room rate was $40 to $50 per night. Today an unrefurbished room in this establishment is $380 per night !

We had an excellent stay in Carnarvon, which we found to be a charming town in a lovely setting.

After walking the historic mile long pier, we scaled the lookout tower which is a converted water tank, previously used to refill steam locomotives which serviced the ships at the end of the pier. We shared the viewing platform with a group of aboriginal kids all about six or seven years old. We struck up a conversation, and they told me about the recent flooding of the Gascoyne river. In the corner I noticed one young fellow scooping tomato sauce out of a receptacle, and using his finger to spread the sauce across the top of a pie he was eating. In a lull in the conversation he looked at me and said "Have you had a feed ?" I said that I hadn't. He promptly offered me the half of the pie that he had not eaten. I made the necessary excuses, but it did remind me of the story of the Englishman who returned from a holiday in Australia. A neighbour asked him if he had had a good time. "Wonderful" he said, "Lovely country, but best of all, delightful people, kind, helpful, honest and generous, they would give you the shirt off their backs. It was the white ones that I didn't like "

What a difference a week makes!

A week ago we left Albany behind in the rain. Today, we are soaking up the sun in Monkey Mia. David had misgivings about revisiting Margaret River as neither of us is interested in vineyards, but the region, and especially the Leeuwin-naturaliste National Park proved a natural wonderland. We particularly enjoyed exploring self-guided caves and discovered one of the most remarkable forest we have seen on our trip.

Once past Perth, distances between localities notably increased, and distressingly for David, so did distances between places offering decent coffee.
Coastal scenery has been jaw droppingly beautiful. Among many natural wonders, we have seen beaches made up entirely of tiny white shells, and stromatolites (look like rocks in the sea, but those bacterial colonies are the precursor of all life on earth).
The idea of Monkey Mia has always sounded so romantic. The reality, alas, is a slightly down at heel, minuscule, spartly appointed motel room, which cost a king's ransom. At these rates, we don't just want to look at dolphins, we want to take one home with us.