💌 Dear family & friends,
📣 Newsflash !
There will be a little change to the blog address, I’m sorry about that. Due to limited remaining digital space, I’m going to split the blog into two parts. The original blog will remain accessible, as normal, with this newsflash as its last entry. ❤
Part 1: Jan-Aug: intothewild2015.wordpress.com
Part 2: Sep-Dec: intothewild2015x2.wordpress.com
🙈 Sorry for the inconvenience. Part 2’s first blog, up now, is called Green Again, good luck.
💚 Shirley & John xx
💌 Hi family & friends, love to you all xx
🚗🚎💨 The Savannah Way is like a road trip traversing the top of Australia from west to east, Broome to Cairns. The different sections all offer alternate routes on either dirt or bitumen, if you’re lucky. It doesn’t matter which roads you choose, it’s all part of meandering your way along the Savannah Way. After crossing into Qld we headed north to pick up the section promising world heritage listed dinosaur fossils, gorges to canoe, the Gulf of Carpentaria and miles of Qld’s outback landscape.
💿First though, we had a problem. We would be spending hours in the car and previous attempts to swap The Slap, our audio book, had been unsuccessful as it contained bad language. We didn’t really like it ourselves but the guy that had swapped with us had said it was great. 👎He saw us coming. Now we were stuck with a vulgar story that narrowed our target market to people who looked like they swore and who didn’t have kids with them. At a roadhouse there were a few road trains pulled up and John thought to ask one of the drivers if he listened to audio books. ‘Maaate’, he said, ‘I love em, check out my library’. 🚚🚎🚎🚎 How good was that. 🎬
The turn north involved 200ks on dirt, which we had factored in, until we heard how rough it was, but one man’s opinion is another man’s argument. Corrugations don’t phase us, just get your speed up and you hardly notice them but it’s difficult to decide who to trust. So we opted for the safest route by driving on past Mt Isa, to take the tar road turn off to our destination, Boodjamulla National Park.
Wow, a big town with food! 🍋🍄🍫 Famous babies were Greg Norman & Pat Rafter but, apart from that, Mt Isa didn’t do much for us except make us feel like fools. Enquiries revealed an estimated 7 hours to our destination or, only 3 hours if we turn around and drive back an hour to the first turnoff. Far out.
Boodjamulla National Park is popular and Mt Isa’s Info Centre lady convinced us we should pre-book. As is currently happening in NSW, you need to book National Parks camping spots over the internet. In Qld, to book online you need to have joined ParksQ. To do that you need to have received a password via a confirmation email before creating your account. Blah blah blah. The nice lady advising us suggested I enter my own details to speed things up so next thing, I was behind the reception counter facing customers, using the computer, accessing my email, booking the site and printing out our permit. Casey, they didn’t even make me a coffee ?
These dusty whirly things suddenly appear like little tornados and disappear in a flash, but I was ready ⤵
We found a secret river crossing with little swimming holes, smooth river pebbles and an endless supply of fresh water, so we stayed a few nights, with only 2 cars a day driving past.
🚗🚎💨 Riversleigh Fossil Fields are a working archeological site, with only Site D open to the public. On the way to Boodjamulla you just pull over, open a gate and follow the path up and around the hillside. The Kronausur dinosaur had teeth the size of large Qld bananas. 🍌Trying to imagine pre-historic animals and ancient rainforests exhisting here, as well as a shallow sea that preserved the fossils in layers of sediment, was almost possible …. ⤵
🚗🚎💨 Boodjamulla National Park is an amazing outback oasis with Lawn Hill Gorge supplied by multiple freshwater springs. On the outskirts of the park is Adels Grove, developed in 1920 as an experimental botanical gardens. 20 years later, over 1000 species of exotic and native plants, shrubs and trees had been planted, supplying Botanical Gardens around the world with their seeds. The property is now a campground resort situated amongst many remaining flora species, as well as its own airstrip, flying in tourists & archeologists/students working the fossil fields.
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No fire that night, something very important was on TV☝
Normanton’s main claim to fame is a natural cloud phenomenon, Morning Glory. John was hoping to be in the right place at the right time, Spring and clear weather.
Karumba, where the outback meets the sea, is level with Cairns, sitting at the bottom right corner of the Gulf of Carpentaria. It’s a major fishing destination as well as a base for the prawn and fishing industry. If you haven’t got a boat, you’re in the way. 🎣 The only rule: only 5 Barramundi’s each, a day.
Ok, the Savannah Way was a real surprise but so, so hot. Some wives of holidaying fishermen told me they had been there since March, 5 months. When they’d arrived it was humid and 45°. Omg, go home!
We’re outa here too, even though the road trains hauling cattle will be a hassle. You have to either hang back or suffer the consequences, 55 metres of long haul trailers with projectile, poohing cattle, so keep your windows up. 💩
Lot’s of love from us both, stay safe Casey, Ally & Jason xx
Shirley & John xx
Dear family & friends xx
There are a lot of kilometres involved in seeing the Red Centre and the only way for us to check it out was to drive a thousand kilometres south then turn around, and drive a thousand kilometres north.
We were glad we’d waited for winter, heaps easier hiking around without urgently needing to cool off. We arrived at Kings Canyon on the 1st Aug, after that massive detour back through Alice. It’s like a taster for the other 👑 King to come. The rule here is to complete the Rim walk in a clockwise direction.
The whole place is geared for surviving fatigue and Summer, with emergency phones around the rim, drinking stations, warnings to complete all walking trails by 11.30am if the temperature is expected to hit 36°. As if anyone would want to be exerting themselves in that heat.
John & I were climbing around in our sturdy, super strength bush walking thongs and people were overtaking us with snow poles, acting as if they were all extra sturdier than us. A family of four, with 8 shiny poles between them, tried to overtake us on stairs … mate, go for it. Your poles are smelly, anyway.
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There were very special visitors meeting us at Uluru, royalty in fact. John’s mum was flying in to see 👑The King of Rock, for the first time, with us. 💂With special attention and 5* co-ordination from Jennifer, Maisie will feel like an absolute Queen. No fold out caravan beds or deflated air mattresses for her, they will be spending 4 nights at Sails. All accommodation for Uluru visitors is at the Yulara Resort complex, offering everything from unpowered camp sights to beautifully landscaped hotels.
Seeing Uluru together was … aMaising xx
Lights out, love to you all,
John & Shirley xx
Ps: Does anyone have a copy of Yellow River by I.P. Daily. or, Rusty Bedsprings by I.P. Nightly ?
💭 Casey, Jason & Ally, we miss you all heaps. It’s getting exciting heading towards Qld, back to the east side xx
Hang on, before we cross the border we just want to say farewell to the amazing Northern Territory. Total wow factor, thank you. 💟
🎬
✋ Hi family & friends xx
We hoping everyone is well and you’re taking good care of yourselves xx
Is this place for real? .. the middle of Australia .. all soft and pretty? Lilac coloured evening skies, stripey mauve rocks, little purple flowers … feels like the 70’s. 🍭
This red dust has different textures, sometimes it’s like talcum powder sticking to everything. Other times, it just brushes off like clean beach sand. Directions to one camp spot said to continue driving around behind the dunes, the red dirt ones. Then, at sunset, we climbed to the top and found Augusts’ amazing blue moon rising ⤵
The soft looking pretty spinifex and other straw coloured grasses are deceiving, with your feet and ankles either cut, stabbed or 🔪 sliced as soon as you step out of the car. 😷 The 30cm ends stay inserted until you remove them, reminding me of accupuncture every time. But even though it’s free, the pain doesn’t go away. 👎 The fine dust disguises spinifex injuries with its unusual, haemoglobin shade of red and bruising is camouflaged, amongst all these lovely mauves. 💡 Hey Jackie, we should give the first aid clinic a makeover … red & purple. 👆
Alice Springs and Darwin seem to be the only towns in the Northern Territory that provide competing supermarkets and department stores like Kmart, to rival the limited versions of Target Country. The distance apart is 1500km’s, imagine the disadvantage of trying to buy groceries and household items within budget, on top of fuel prices.⛽ That probably helps.⤵
🚩The local Arrernte peoples’ indigenous name for Alice Springs is Mparntwe. ✂ There is a college in Alice offering Salon Management but the two teachers have left, so one day a week a teacher flies in from Darwin. 🍣The sushi shop runs out of stock by 2pm and ♣Lassiter’s Casino has the best Thai food in town, but you’d need a stack of black poker chips to eat there. 💰 💭The local hairdresser confessed she hasn’t seen Uluru yet, even though she moved to Alice Springs 12 years ago.
Surrounding the Alice township are high, craggy hills and approaching from the south, the Stuart Highway cuts through The Gap, an epic and severe looking break in the eastern end of the West McDonnell Ranges. We often drove through it from our campsite, acknowledging the epicness … being on our gap year, and all that. 😸
After leaving Alice we headed into the West MacDonnell Ranges. They start just out of town and continue west for over 160ks. What a surprise they were, extremely pretty, it was impossible to avoid feeling all overcome and dreamy while soaking up the scenery. 🙏
Cruising along the Red Centre Way, between the Ranges, it was such epic scenery on both sides, with heaps of different places to check out. We spent 3 days out there but as it’s only a stretch of 150ks, you could do the return trip from Alice in a day, just picking out a few of the best spots to see. You would call that a fabulous roadtrip for sure, up there with the big guns like Uluru.
The MacDonnell Ranges are about 340 million years old. All the animals were just lazying around happily being prehistoric when suddenly, two massive tectonic plates collided underground causing rocks deep down to twist and fold together before exploding upwards. 💥
Northern Territory’s tallest mountains are here and I read that the MacDonnell Ranges’ Larapinta 223km Trail is ranked as one of the planet’s top 20 treks. 🌏🎿
After spending 3 days in the Ranges we’d planned to keep heading to Kings Canyon but it meant taking a 200km dirt road that everybody was shaking their heads at. John was still keen until an off-road tour bus driver told us the road condition was the worse he’d ever seen. 🎬
😇It was time to be sensible, there’s no phone reception out there, we were already 200ks west of Alice Springs with hardly any people on the road and knowing spare tyres don’t grow on trees. So we changed our minds, even though it meant backtracking 200ks just to Alice, (the same distance via the dirt to Kings Canyon) then another 500ks travelling on tar = 700km detour.
You could rate the West Macdonnell Ranges up there with the big guns, a fabulous road trip full of surprises.
Bye for now everyone, stay safe and lot’s of love,
Shirley & John xx
ps: 💙 Wherever you are Casey, we’re thinking of you, darling 💙
Cooooeeeeee famileeeeee xx
If you fold a map of Australia east to west, the crease would be the Stuart Highway. Travelling south it’s like a time warp with pre-historic landscapes, Australia’s first people’s culture and heritage acknowledged in every direction, natural wonders that blow your mind, all available in the current day … and all leading you towards the ultimate, the incredible … Uluru. 🎉 That 600 million year old outy, Australia’s most ancient belly button.
There was goss about an antarctic ❄ freeze ❄ hitting the southern states, possibly even reaching the NT, but as we turned south from Litchfield, baking hot at 31°, it was hard to imagine even feeling a breeze.
The small township of Adelaide River was Northern Territory’s frontline in WW2 and ‘almost’ safe from bombing raids. 📈Numbers swelled with the mass-exodus of Darwin’s residents, earning an unofficial title of the 🐴Adelaide River Stakes. US and Australian combined forces also increased numbers, by an additional 30,000. Safe, until the early hours of November 12, 1943, Japans’ final air raid on NT dropped one last bomb, on Adelaide River. 2015, Adelaide Rivers population, 159 📉
📰We’d read an article about Umbrawarra Gorge, just west of Pine Creek. When the articles’ author first visited, he was approached by a bloke who said it wasn’t worth the effort, hardly any water and to turn back. Determined, he checked it out, fell in love and has returned many times since. He recounted hiking in further and finding little sandy beaches, clear swimming holes and incredible rocks to clamber over. As we drove south we saw a tiny sign 🔜Umbrawarra. John, turn … turn … NOW 🚗💨💨🚎
⛺When we arrived, the first thing we did was ask a friendly looking couple how far to the track. He advised we needn’t rush, it wasn’t worth the effort, only stagnant water and not much to see. Geez, what about the sandy beaches? I showed them the magazine article but they just shook their heads and looked at us, incredulously. 🙅
We can do determined and the further we went in, the better it got. We found it all … beaches, sand, couldn’t wait to jump in, it was too good to be true. We could have written the identical article, so how weird is that. Party poopers everywhere and, just for the record, Umbrawarra Gorge was one of our most fun surprise swims ever, you just needed to keep exploring.
There are only a few more swimming spots on the way south so if this freeze is on the way, we’ll do them all as we are … sweltering 🌞🚗🚎
🚗🚎 Mataranka is a small town with 3 big attractions: Bitter Springs, Mataranka Thermal Pools and the infamous Mataranka Meat Pie. Rumour was it’s a local culinary treat of gigantic proportions, an outback gastronomic delight, not to be missed. So huge & yummy … we nevernever thought we’d eat again. 🍅
✋ Sharon .. maybe a little like Ewan Ponds ? Not as deep or large scale but amazing clarity. We’d read it was a spring fed thermal stream that meanders for over 300 metres. You just walk through a dense palm tree jungle, pick a palm to hang your stuff on then immerse yourself and start floating. Most people walk back to the beginning, a few tried to swim but it wasn’t easy and sort of spoiled the tranquility with their thrashing against the current. It was such an unexpected adventure, completely unique and I was floating along in amazement just wishing I could teleport you there mum, you and Al would feel 21 again. xx
If anyone feels the urge to splurge .. Fly to Katherine, hire a car and drive south on the Stuart for 100ks. The Springs are free, byo noodle and a Mataranka Pie is $8 a pop .
Floating vertically down Bitter Springs, the water was crystal clear, I tried to touch a rock below me with my hand but it was metres away. It was like floating in space, you couldn’t feel your body, it was so warm and peaceful, I was almost in a trance. As the current carries you, you don’t have to move a muscle, just watch as everything passes you by. Who would normally notice the brilliant tiny blue dragon fly landing on a lily pad … like a miniature helicopter. 🚁⤵
I wish I’d taken a pic of the rake leaning against a palm tree, not your every day rake. Maybe 12 foot long and used to pull the surface greens aside because if they left it, the entire surface would soon be overgrown. There are no fish present due to the low levels of oxygen. The water felt thinner, not as buoyant as other fresh water, it felt silky.
Written in 1905 about Elsey Station, We of the Never Never was Jeannie Gunn’s revered book, placing Mataranka famously on the map. The Homestead below is an authentic replica constructed for the film version. If Ms Gunn could see her house now, she’d be cleaning and scrubbing for ever and ever.
Walking a further 500 metres past the Homestead, Mataranka Thermal Pools bubble at a constant 34° with Rainbow Spring ⤵ funneling 30.5 million litres a day. That little pond ?
🚗🚎100ks before reaching the big guns, The Devil’s Marbles, we spent a couple of nights at the cutest camp ever, The Devil’s Pebbles. Culturally significant and a sacred indigenous women’s site, you are not permitted to climb over them. It had a special feel to the place, we both really liked it, the night sky was amazing and we slept like logs.
These places are all just sitting there, next to the Stuart Highway, just like that, beautiful landscapes and incredible natural wonders.
Karlu Karlu, The Devil’s Marbles, blew us away 😈👿💨🎺
Declared a Conservation Park in 1961, 🎂an excellent year, the marbles continue to erode by exfoliation, known as onion-skin weathering.
Dave ! .. anyone … who loved Barbra Streisand in What’s Up Doc, would instantly recognise the mineral names that make up these marbles, grey quartz, shiny mica and whitish feldspar, and if you haven’t watched that movie, geez 👉. It’s right up there with the other classic, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. 💋
Sorry .. too many marbles? I couldn’t decide x
After Uluru, we will be turning around and heading north, back up the Stuart Highway, all the way back to Tenant Creek, so we can turn east. Some of these places we’ll revisit but I’ve included them in this ‘letter’ because it keeps it consecutive.
We received a sad news phone call and John needed to fly home, so rather than drive back to Darwin, we’ve been heading to Alice Springs earlier than planned. John’s good friend and boss, Micheal, suddenly passed away and John went home for the funeral. Every Thursday since we left home in January, Mike’s been phoning John for a chat and a guess at our locations. He was a really lovely, thoughtful man and will be missed very much xxxx
I’ve been camped in a nice little C’van park on the outskirts of Alice Springs this week while John’s away, but after our first nights temp dropped to -4°, we knew the antarctic freeze had arrived. We bought a hot water bottle, a jacket for me then pulled out every blanket we had. I got up before daylight next morning freezing so we could reboil the kettle for the hot water bottle, but there was no water … the pipes had frozen. ❄ Geez ….. it’s a freeze ❄
Hi family & friends 💕
150ks south of Darwin, we took the road to Litchfield National Park, our destination for camping with Jason & Ally. ✈🎉 It’s the middle of Northern Territory’s 4 week school holidays so our fingers were crossed we’d find a good spot. Driving in early, we passed a few vans heading in the opposite direction, so we were encouraged … & excited. The attraction of Wangi Falls campground is it’s small, the only camp in Litchfield that allows vans, they have showers, camp fires are permitted and… a cafe 🍔☕
Driving in we passed a turn-off to Rum Jungle. The name has nothing to do with any WW2 stories of soldiers going AWOL, which was my first thought, it actually dates back to a major accident in 1871. A bullock wagon, fully loaded with Rum, was on its way to the construction gang camps. Copper & tin mines plus pastoralists all required men for labour and those men all required Rum. The wagon got totally bogged in the croc filled East Finniss River … so the ‘bullockies’ untethered the oxen🐃… and began working their way through the precious cargo of Rum, apparently enjoying one of history’s most glorious binges. 🍻📃
We’ve learned not to continue past a good site looking for a better one, it’s our newest rule. Such a great rule.📋 The spot we scored at Wangi Falls was a good size and so lucky as the campers behind us, for sure, would have bagsed it. The next nearest camp ground with facilities was 45ks away, so we’d struck gold.
After the wet season ends, NT Rangers spend time clearing the swimming areas, trapping and relocating crocs. Wangi Falls was given the all clear and it was such a beautiful place to swim, we knew J&A would love it. Before we left to pick them up in Darwin, it was 32° so we strolled down for a late afternoon swim. Huh ? 🚧’Closed for animal protection purposes’ 🚧 The rumours spread fast, a small crocodile had been spotted by swimmers who, unbelievably, encircled it. Naturally, it felt threatened and a womans’ arm was injured as the croc tried to escape. How inconvenient !
The Rangers’ directorate is to spend 2 nights locating and capturing a croc, otherwise leave it be so after confessing to J&A next morning, ….
… we walked down to find the falls open. It was so hot and all 4 of us were keen, how blase is that … we had a fabulous swim .. easily able to ignore the fact a croc was in the water too.🏊🐊
Until now, there hasn’t been a travel guide published or entries into any Ripley’s Believe It Or Not editions that records the number of trips made by one family, in one holiday, between Lichfield NP and Darwin, a 260km round trip with half on dirt.
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Category 44: Incredible Journey Repetitions.⤵
A fearless young couple have travelled between Litchfield NP and Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia’s wild outback, an incredible 7 times in one week. The cumulative distance totalled 1000km with their odometer spinning as fast as the fuel pump. A new tyre needed replacing after becoming a casualty of the incredibly dangerous off road conditions. This gutsy couple navigated crocodile infested creek crossings in the dark, suffered sleep deprivation, isolation and severe withdrawals as all modes of communications including ’emergency calls only’ were unavailable.
Would they do it all again ? ‘Yes’, they announced, ‘for the family xx’
7/7/15 Edition
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We dropped Ally & Jason off on our final trip to Darwin and then had a look around town. It’s well set out, easy to get around and the city seems divided into two compact areas. The backpackers and street side bars are on the high side while the waterfront precinct has a more modern style of dining and entertainment. It’s balmy and a pretty place to walk around and with the arrival of troops from America to play joint war games, Darwin was about to get pretty busy.⤵
On the 1st July you could buy fireworks across the entire state and combined with NT Day, Darwin had a huge event planned. Hopefully the US troops were forewarned or there may have been confusion and possibly… return fire. One shop assistant described her fireworks night injury, a nasty sparkler burn. Do you remember those days ? It was always so cold on fireworks night, the Katherine Wheel at mums didn’t explode as anticipated after it had finished spinning, so we waited a suitable amount of time before checking it …. then suddenly 💥 So fun. Remember the packets of throw downs, little round things like mini targets, Tom Thumbs? I remember standing on our driveway holding a ball shooter, pointing it at the house opposite, geez, so dangerous. Anyway, NT still does cracker night 💥🌟
John and I checked out Darwin’s Museum/Art Gallery, not far from the CBD.
Actually, I remember she went on about how everything was bigger and better in Darwin. Of course, she would have been so homesick and isolated in NSW but now that I’ve been there, she was right. The mosquito’s, ants and flies are absolutely huge 🐝🐜
🚩 Half time Stats:
Miscellaneous:
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It was so amazing spending time camping together, Ally & Jason, thank you for coming all that way to see us and better luck next time guys, in challenging us to your boardgame … Settlers of Catan. xxx
Casey … we were all wishing you could be there too, stay safe 💑
Love to our lovely mums and thinking of everyone ✋
John & Shirl xx
Hi family and friends 🌼
Thinking of you all ☔
Entering the Northern Territory, it was hard not to notice the roadsides and landscapes blackened by fire, with toxic looking smoke often on the horizon. Now the wet season is over, it’s full on hazard reduction and the NT rule is … ‘don’t bother reporting fires until August, unless property or land values are threatened’.
We arrived in Katherine and absolutely raided the supermarket, guzzling chocolate milk in line and drooling over a trolley loaded with fresh food. What a luxury. 🍚🍄🍅
We found a 💭secret camp spot about 20ks out of town, just near Katherine Gorge. The sun was setting and the surrounding grasses were golden and blowing in the breeze. Our little underwater camera didn’t quite capture the moment but, behind John, you can see a little. ⤵
One afternoon, sitting around reading and fire spotting on the opposite ridge,🔥 we noticed our secret spot was getting pretty smoky. Casually looking over our shoulders, we beheld a sky obliterated by dense smoke. ℅®¥^°:¥’&*+!
As John checked the ridge, I panicked up, I mean packed up and phoned the Helicopter depot just up the road. The guy reassured me … it was the usual reduction burn to annihilate long dry grass, it wouldn’t jump the main Gorge road but, because no-one knew we were there, maybe consider moving ?🚗🚎💨
First thing next morning we headed in to Katherine Gorge.
From the cantilevered lookout we could see people swimming across and after climbing back down, the rangers asked if we could point out where the swimmers were. They then headed down river to search for them. 🐊🐊🐊
🚗🚎
Plan A: 📞Thanks, Jennifer, for organising our 📷 replacement camera battery from Erina xx A courier collected the parcel from Frank’s work in Sydney, a pilot flew it to Darwin, a truck driver drove the parcel 300ks to Katherine and the Info Centre lady signed for it. Nobody involved will ever know it was the wrong battery, except for the lady who sold it to Jen. 👎
Plan B: 📢 By-pass Kakadu, drive straight to Darwin to buy a camera as it would be an absolute gamble visiting Kakadu with only a 2″x 3″ underwater toy. 📷 Jason & Ally are flying up to come camping with us soon, so we’ll check Darwin out then . ✈😸
The Kakadu turn off sign was fabulous. We hadn’t yet charged the camera to take a pic but these were the 3 exciting words … ⬅Humpty Doo⬅Kakadu⬅Jabiru.
This is going to be all about the animals, soo exciting 🐃🐍🐦🐢🐞
Along the northern Arnhem Highway end of Kakadu, Window to the Wetlands was a fabulous interactive learning experience. There is a ladder to climb in the dark to stick your head through a hole and experience life as a mudcrab. As I turned my head around in crabmazement, too late I realized a large hungry wetlands bird was behind me … so fun. The Ranger gave a little talk and one lady asked if the mosquito’s were normally this bad. 30 itching, mozzie ravaged visitors went quiet as the Ranger said yes, and announced we had all now become part of the Kakadu food chain. 🙉
Fogg Dam was on the way to our crocodile boat trip … it was like being thrown intothewild. Someone had scrawled 🐊 ‘Do not get out of your vehicle’ on the single lane road surface that crossed through the dam, which was ominous, considering we were already part of the food chain. The narrow road was only a metre above water level with beautiful wetlands all around and we still had the van behind us, which looked ridiculous. Who cares, we were suddenly taking pics of wonderful birds from the car window and fighting over the binnocs, totally chanelling Jane Hathoway from Beverley Hillbillies.📷
🚗🚎💨 Adelaide River Croc Cruise
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Shady Camp was worth the 100ks round trip on dirt, it had the lot, everything you would hope to experience. A crocodile hide, river side camping, fishing if you were brave and danger everywhere you turned. The only way to cool off was stand on the ‘barrage’, a causeway across Marys River. There were Rangers relocating crocs as one of the farmers was losing too many cattle. A chopper pilot counted 137🐊’s surrounding the bait at one of the billabongs. Mary’s River NP has the highest concentration of crocodiles … on earth.🙊
From the hide, we saw 5 massive crocs sunbaking on the opposite bank. No pic as camera was charging and the next day the big Crocs were elsewhere, bumski. 👎 The hide gate I’m trying to shut had a broken latch, would it make much difference ?
The next destination was also dangerous, Kakadu’s only bakery at Jabiru was low on sausage rolls and the bus pulled in just before us.
🚗🚎💨
Nourlangie, unexpected beauty ahead, a foliage tunnel led us through to ⤵
🚗🚎💨 Maguk
We heard on the the grapevine the long hike up top would be worth the climb. Our friends Dawn & Paul swam in some amazing rock pools during their big trip so we were keen to make the effort.
🚩 Our new address is ⤵
Rock Pool Cascades, Maguk, Kakadu Highway, Kakadu, NT, 0822.
On the walk back to camp, this little guy was hopping along in front of us.
Kakadu seems a modern day dreamtime experience, the sounds are loud like we’re all used to, just different. The kookaburra’s laugh, but in a different dialect. Thanks for taking a peek, it was fabulous… hey xx
Love from John & Shirl xx
PS: I don’t know how to deflect any links I’m sorry, they are not authorised. xx
Fitzroy Crossing ▶ Halls Creek ▶ Pernululu National Park 🌻
Hi everyone, xx
Being able to share the trip, as well as keeping an accurate timeline for ourselves, is a really enjoyable little holiday project. The whole trip was based around our moving out and moving in dates, so a week at a time seemed a good plan for staying in touch. 📅 11 months = 44 weeks = 44 blogs.
Plus, by the end of this Bungle trip our camera had an irreversable meltdown with our SD card possibly wiped, so apart from missing a few pics needed to finish this one, the fun holiday project has turned into a lifesaver with pics included from everywhere we’ve been. 👫
Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek were as you would imagine, pretty dusty and full of history. They are both on Highway 1 (Great Northern Highway) so you can’t miss them. The massive width of Fitzroy River justifies the massive bridge but a month after the wet season finished, driving across, we looked over the railings to see only ‘gallons’ of sand.
Hall’s Creek has a monument to the 1880’s goldminer, Ivan Fredericks, nicknamed Russian Jack. He never struck it rich, no matter how many years he spent pushing his worldly possesions around the Kimberleys in a wheelbarrow, looking for gold. He did earn legendary status though by pushing an injured man 300ks, across the Great Sandy Desert, to medical attention.
After the statue had been commissioned, an investigative historian published his own ‘true’ story, by declaring RJ only pushed the patient 50ks. It’s 32° here in winter so, whatever time of year RJ’s bush ambulance occured, that historian should have pushed his own wheelbarrow filled with patients for 50ks to decide if it was worth discrediting such a fabulous tale. 📢 boo
🚗🚎 Finding the Bungle Bungles meant we would have to consider changing our personal camping rule. 🚩 Rule 101: never unhook the van and leave it abandoned by the roadside. 🚎
From the highway turn off, you open a gate and drive 53ks on corrugated dirt, before even reaching the entrance to Purnululu National Park Informatiin Centre. Then it’s a further 30ks to reach the Bungles. No probs except for the challenging condition of the road, which is why they advise leaving caravans behind. So we unhitched and drove off, with our fingers crossed the van would be there when we got back.
As we were to discover, it was excellent advice to unhook and, for once, we had listened. The bush telegraph is working beautifully, near the turn off that day there were around 40 ‘abandoned’ caravans. 🚎🚎🚎 no exageration. 👓🚬 For security reasons I can not reveal the exact location.
It was exciting, adrenaline pumping stuff … sharp turns like the wild mouse 🎢 steep downhill mogul style sections like Coney Islands’ big dippers, water holes that were as deep as the rails. We passed fairly recent wreckage, an off-road camper trailer sitting on it’s axle in the dirt after having lost a wheel. A big high top Ford transit van on a dangerous lean with it’s suspension blown. We had let our tyres down but it was really slow going and the 53ks took almost 2 hours. Johns’ & the cars’ efforts were amazing and, in hindsight, I think my high pitched cautionary alerts probably didn’t help much.👄
World Heritage listed only in 2003, the Bungle Bungle facts are pretty crazy when you consider how old these ‘bee hives’ are.
Within the Purnululu NP, the BB Range covers 45,000 hectares, they are made from sandstone deposited 360 million years ago, they assumed their amazing orange and grey stripes 340 million years ago, they are the world’s most exceptional geological example of cone karst formations and, after all those millions of years, tourism commenced just 30 years ago. 📷
We hiked around with about 50 explorers that day, we all had a basic map assuring us everything would be well sign posted. The domes seemed to be a gigantic maze. One guy announced everybody should proceed left while another man disagreed, suggesting the trail veered to the right. With nobody in charge, conflicting opinions, dry hot conditions and surrounded by awesomeness, we surely resembled the original expedition.
⤴It was truly a magnificent ancient landscape, silently turning 360°, gazing around in awe, we eventually realised we were alone, isolated, hey … where did everybody go?
Making it back to the gate by sunset, parking next to the van and uncrossing our fingers, we toasted the fact we had a nice cold fridge to come back to. 🍻
Turkey Creek apartments, c/- Warmun Roadhouse⤵
Kununurra is the last town before crossing the state line into NT. Water supply was guaranteed by the completion of the gigantic Ord River Reservoir, Lake Argyle, in June 1972. Thanks to a couple of extremely wet wets, the ten year estimate for it to fill was cut by more than 8 years, full in under two. 🏆
At opposing ends of Lake Argyle is the Argyle Diamond Mine in the south and the Lake Argyle Resort in the north, reputedly the real jewel of the Kimberley 💎 … we’d found our raincheck.
Before checking in and with only a few days left in WA, plus a Quarantine Station looming, we made sure we didn’t get carried away by the smells of fresh fruit & veg in Kununurra’s supermarket. 🍆🍄🍌🍓 The next big town is Darwin in a few weeks, but having already learned the hard way, our fridge will be empty. We’ve been spreading honey triple thick and with 3 tomatoes left, one for each day before crossing the border, we are ready for inspection. 🍅
Having arrived in WA via the epic Nullabor and leaving WA via Lake Argyle, it was almost too good to be true. ⤵
Talk about 💙 el relaxo, fairy lights, beer garden, green grass, sprinklers, help yourself book swaps, cappucinos, views, hot showers and between 4 & 6, they turned the WiFi on.
We camped next to newly weds from Tasmania, their story was incredible. They had married ⛪6 weeks earlier in Sydney, ✈flown to Qld for a honeymoon, sold their owner built Tassie home, bought a new off-road caravan sight unseen from Melbourne, bought a 4 wheel drive, ✈ flown back to Tasmania to pack up the house, left their jobs and life in Tasmania, 🚚 placed everything in storage, said goodbye to their family and friends and with their car packed, queued up for the 🚢Trans Tasman Ferry.
Sailing over to the mainland they got a call saying the caravan company had gone into receivership and their van was in a holding yard. Imagine getting that call in the middle of Bass Straight. After some heavy discussions and paying 💰excessive additional costs, it still had to be registered. Receiving keys from the yard man wasn’t the formal handover or tutorial promised but they hitched up and drove all the way to Lake Argyle, in 2 weeks flat, straight up the middle. Their plan is to travel the top end during the dry season then the rest of Australia for as long as it takes.
As we approached the Quarantine Station we were thinking how amazing WA had been, more than we’d ever hoped to experience 💋 Those newly weds certainly have the world at their feet 👣
…. would you believe nobody stopped us … so as we drove across into NT with the only acknowledgement coming from this cute little Bower Bird building his home ⤵
Lots of love to you all, everybody stay safe,
Love us xx
🐃 PASSWORD 👫 Respect ? 🐃 ✔ 🚗🚎
Hi family & friends xx
We approached a big corner on this trip, at Derby. The turn right seemed really significant, 📌 marking the furthest distance we would be travelling from home. 🚗🚎
Just before Derby, we visited the Boab Prison Tree which is around 1500 years old. This Boab was reportedly used to withhold young indigenous men, for various ‘unofficial’ reasons. It holds significant value within the indigenous community and is to be respected.
There are Boabs all over the Kimberley but this is the only one we’ve seen so far with such a massive girth. In fact, no Boab resembles another, they seem to grow to their own unique conditions. My favourites were the two independant but intertwined young boabs we drove past the other day, they appeared to just adore each other.
Dusty old Derby had the best fish & chips but before ordering, we checked out the big curved jetty at the end of town. Derby is at the bottom of King George Sound which means it’s water is hugely tidal and sadly, murky …. permanently. On a clear day, if you use binnoculars and stand on someone’s head, you might see a glimpse of blue on the horizon, kilometres away. So no swimming and as we walked towards the jetty there was another reason not to swim. The huge muddy tide was absolutely flooding in when John just happened to be looking in the right spot at just the right moment when .. ⤵
I missed it … but the fisherman catching mud crabs did back John up. 🎣
We’ve been in two minds about driving towards Darwin via the infamous 660km Gibb River Road and finally decided on a compromise. Turn left to experience the first 150ks …. turn right to drive 160ks to see Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek, before meeting up with the main highway.
The Derby Information Centre was so busy, people were 3 deep in front of the Gibb River Road wall map, deciding on how many scenic gorges they planned to visit, calculating the total kilometres involved and the distances between fuel stops which ultimately dictates the options, dependant on how much fuel you can carry.
The deciding factor for us was hearing that one of the fuel stops, Imintji, had closed. ⛽ So … we bought our fish & chips and started driving.
We camped high on the banks of the Leopald River, sharing the spot with 1000’s of fabulous screeching Corellas. They flew in to sleep in the trees by the river each night then flew out each morning … to go get brekky 🌿
We haven’t seen an actual crocodile ourselves yet. Sitting by the fire one night we heard a couple of big splashes, omg, so we shone our torch down in to the water. Peering down the bank, hoping we were high enough, we spotted a pair of eyes reflected in the light … is that a CROC ? The eyes were really scary, never blinking and moving slowly slowly along … so exciting … holding our breath ..
👎 false alarm … 🐱ferral cat.
We were now wondering where and when we’d actually see our first crocs, hoping we would be ready and in total control.
💙 Windjana Gorge
Carved out of the 350 million year old Devonian reef system, rising dramatically admist flat plains, the Napier Range – reputed to be one of the best exposed fossil reef complex in the world 🌏 is home to the indiginous peoples of Bunuba.
Windjana Gorge has fish fossils from the Devonian times when this whole place used to be coral reefs .. suddenly I crave cold Devon.
🌑 TUNNEL CREEK
WA oldest cave system, 750 metres of water worn tunnel beneath the Napier limestone Range. How could a black hole beat your first crocodile experience … we were pumped and hot, so .. feeling cooler was a major reason to enter … the blaaaaack hole 🌑
It was hard to believe nobody would be monitoring our safety. Tunnel Creek is a 1.5km return walk beneath monolithic rocks, in total darkness, wading through water sometimes thigh deep, while remembering to stay on guard as crocs may be in the water too.
The pamphlet advised wear shoes that could get wet, take a torch and .. good luck.
Which way to the car park, John? Back in. Through the tunnel ?… yes 👊
Driving on, we just have to turn left onto the main highway, find somewhere to camp and 💤. Thanks for coming with us,
Love us xxxx
ps. love to Casey, Ally & Jason xxx
💌 Hi everyone, love from us both xx
Broome is the destination, the plan was to time it around the local phenomenon, Staircase To The Moon. When the tide is extremely low and the sky clear on a full moon, the reflection on the exposed mudflats of Roebuck Bay creates the optical illusion of a golden staircase … leading all the way up to the moon.
🚎🚗 Port Hedland ▶ Broome
Port Hedland had the usual termite mounds bordering Highway 1, some of them with a Pilbara twist. After an evening of moral boosting 🍺🍺 it appears maybe 50 of the local miners came up with a plan. 💭 psstt .. ssshhh .. guys, let’s cap termite mounds with our helmut’s 😀 👷👷 Wish I could include that pic, looked funny.
Around town Cyclone Warning signs are everywhere, with adjustable status levels. Roundabouts, shopping centres, wherever the busiest areas are and for a visitor. Seeing the current status say ALL CLEAR, even seemed a little scary. After passing one as we went around a roundabout I asked John if he could go around again so I could take a quick pic 📷 but I was too slow turning the camera on. One more time please, John ? We’ve got a big caravan behind us, we’re looking a bit foolish and he’s being extremely patient then would you believe I pressed the off button by mistake. 👎 … who wants to see a cyclone sign anyway.
It was easy to admire Highway 1’s roadsides … all beautifully mown.⤵ After a while though we started thinking it couldn’t possibly be all the farmers’ efforts. So we clocked it .. a shocking 400 kilometres, both sides. Fire break ? More time to avoid animal collisions ?
Everyone stops at Roebuck Roadhouse, or should, it’s the best roadhouse ever. 🏪
Cup of coffee = coin donation ☕
Amenities = clean as a whistle 🔍
Clientelle = glamorous ⤵
We picked up supplies in Broome had a quick look around then headed straight for Quandong Point … to wait for the moon.
North of Broome the road to Quandong was a 50k stretch of hard corrugated red dirt. There are no facilities, so conserving our fresh water became pretty important the minute we turned off the engine, as we’d already decided we would only be leaving Quandong … once.
For a fairly remote spot it was all action. Beautiful stars 🌌 by night and exciting helicopters by day 🚁 transporting tourists and workers between the pearling farms, resorts along the Dampier Peninsular, Buccaneer Archipelago and the infamous Horizontal Waterfalls. The brochures describe the helicopters as local taxis 🚁, we’d see maybe 6 or 7 a day. The Pearl lugging boats were moored out in front so, with binoculars, we kept a tab on what was going on. Lot’s of little boats surrounding the main ship, divers doing their pearly thing.
🐊 First day there I phoned the Info centre in town to see if it was ok to swim at Quondong, the lady was negatory when she said .. ‘You’re in crocodile country so no, I wouldn’t swim there’.
A couple of hours later, 33° and with a friendly local fisherman up the beach saying it’s ok, we talked ourselves into running down for a quick dip but Jason .. I totally planned to break your PB if I saw a croc …. see you later, alligator 🐊
The Kimberley coastline has the biggest tides in the southern hemisphere, a massive 10 metres or so.
One day a guy drove over from his camp in the next bay to ask if we had a satellite finder. John lent him ours but an hour later he came back asking John to go with him to help. When John returned he had his satelite finder in one hand and a bag of fresh Mackeral fillets in the other. 🎏
All the time we were watching out for 🐊 Crocs, but the fisherman was true to his word, we never saw one. Swimming at Quandong was nerve racking though, short and sweet.
A week later, 3rd June, we woke to clear skies and the water gauge flashing empty, so we headed back into Broome to have a proper look around before … Broome’s Moon.
Exclusive Pearl shops mixed in with cafes and older style establishments ⤵
Stats:
– The Kimberley region was home to the indigenous peoples for at least 30,000 years prior to William Dampier stepping off the decks of The Cygnet and on to Broome’s shoreline, in 1688.
– 1850’s european sheep farmers 🐏 discovered the giant silver-lipped pearl oyster, Pinctada maxima, the largest pearl shell in the world. Prior to plastics, the industry it generated was mother-of-pearl buttons with Broome producing 80% of the world’s supply .
– 1955, after plastics replaced mother-of-pearl buttons, an American/Japanese venture started culturing pearls, reviving the value of Broome’s pearl industry. In 1960 though, young Australian Lyndon Brown became the first non-Japanese person in the world to figure out the ‘cultured pearl secret’.
– 1889 An undersea telegraph cable linking Australia to Java and the crest of the world came ashore at … Cable Beach.
– Actual Dinosaur footprints located around Broome are recognised as the most significant in the world. Tracks stretch for 80km, 120 million years old with over 20 species involved. The Brachiosaurus’ prints are an unbelievable 35 metres long. Visible only at certain low tides we don’t have our own pics as we didn’t get to see them, but you could Google it. I don’t even believe it and the brochure is in front of my face.
I was standing outside the Broome laundry waiting for the noisy washing machines to finish when, out of no-where, a full sized massive passenger plane came flying directly towards me, just above ground level. At the last second the jet veered up, presenting it’s entire underside and revealed the end of the runway just across the car park and road, separated from the laundry by a couple of cars and a chicken wire fence.
The Broome night markets coincide with the Staircase to the Moon event so we had plenty of time to check out Cable Beach and have a swim before making our way there. It was so good not having to worry about 🐊 as life guards were on duty.
Pretty impressive, you get about 10 minutes to try to capture the effect before the moon rises too high. We were pumped, it was good fun then a nice walk back to the van via fabulous Boabs along the waterfront.
We were so pumped we decided to break the golden rule of not towing caravans after dark by heading out of town for a cool evening drive. 100ks later we pulled into a roadside stop for the night with a convoy of 8 army vehicles, full of soldiers, driving in behind us. What’s going on … who would have thought soldiers would set up base camp alongside backpackers and caravaners.
What did they eat? Sausage sangers. Where did they sleep? On the dirt. Did they get a shower? No. But John and I slept like logs that night, surrounded by our own personal security detail.
Thinking of you all, we miss everyone and in the next few days we’ll be turning the corner at Derby to start heading east. Getting closer ❤
.. geez xxx
intothewild2015 