Day 57 Broome, WA

It's turned cold!  We reached a maximum temperature of just 18 degrees and it got down to 12 degrees over night.  We both complained of being cold last night but neither of us reached for the extra blanket so it can't have been that cold, or we were just too lazy.....

So what do you do on a rainy day in Broome?  For me it was finding a hairdresser.  It's been nine weeks since I last set foot inside a hair salon and highlights needed to be re-highlighted.  I found a hairdresser by the name of Trevor and his salon was called "Shaggahs".  Great name hey!   He runs the salon by himself which is no mean feat.  He gave me the perfect colour and just a little trim so I was more than pleased.  I was not, however, pleased with the price.  It was almost double what I pay my hairdresser.  

We were warned by fellow travellers that everything in Broome is very expensive and I am starting to believe it. Diesel prices have increased from $1.96 in Kununurra to $2.36 in Broome.  It seems so strange as you would have thought it would be the other way around with Kununurra being more isolated.  I can only think that Kununurra gets its fuel out of Darwin.  

The tour that we had booked for tomorrow has once again been postponed due to the weather.  We are now booked for Saturday.  Fingers crossed the rain will have disappeared by then.  Tomorrow we are going to wander around the Town Centre.  It looks so interesting, particularly Chinatown.  My hairdresser also said that the Museum is a must see as it gives a good insight into Broome's colourful history.  I am also intrigued by The Sun Picture Gardens that is the world's oldest picture gardens still in operation.  I have booked us seats for Friday to go and see Top Gun, Maverick - Tom Cruises latest movie.

My laptop is now back in my hands and the technicians couldn't find anything wrong with it.  It's a relief but also a worry. Why was it overheating?  Anyway, they suggested I go to K-Mart and purchase a laptop stand with fans to see if that helps.  It was cheap at $15 and it actually feels great having the laptop elevated a little.  It feels better on the wrists and if it keeps my laptop cool, well it's a win/win.

(Just remember "Laptop not Included" 😂😂😂)

We, once again, ate in, and today Philip grilled some Pork Chops on the Barbie and I tossed a very quick salad together with Mixed leaves, Pomegranate, Feta, and pecans that I had caramelised earlier today.  The very tart lemon dressing was also the perfect salad dressing to cut through the sweetness of the pecans.

It's time for me to have a shower and see if I can watch the news.  There is still a lot of cloud cover so I'm not hopeful.  I will be interested to hear more about the Horizontal Falls accident last week.  Philip seems to think that the boat must have slammed into the rocky cliff face because the boat didn't overturn and no-one fell out of the boat, but most people on board had some sort of injury and some more severe than others.   I hope that the relevant government agencies complete their enquiries into the cause as quickly as possible and get the tour up and running again.  It would be devastating for the tourism industry to see the tour shut down.

Day 56 Broome, WA

 Todays post will be short and sweet as I finally found a place to have my laptop serviced but they need it overnight to run the diagnostics.  I’m typing this on the I-Pad and it’s not exactly user friendly when it comes to keyboards.

The predicted showers for this area came in as expected overnight and will be with us for the next couple of days.  The rain has not been heavy though and we would appreciate a downpour to wash some of the dust off the top of our van, particularly the solar panel, as we may need it to be clean for the next couple of stops we have lined up on our journey south if we do free camping. We have extended our stay in Broome another couple of days because the rain has hampered our plans slightly and we will need the extra days to fit in the things we want to do i.e. more walks and definitely more of Cable Beach!

We started our day with a yoga practice. Anyone poking their head in our doorway would have had a bit of a laugh as Philip and I lay side by side on the small floor space we have available in the van and practised “Downward Facing Dog” 😭😭

Next on our agenda was grocery shopping. I just love shopping groceries…….not. Having said that,  the Coles store we visited in Broome’s town centre was one of the best I’ve been in.  Everything seemed to just flow.  It’s the first time that I have been in a Coles store that has ALL the cold goods behind closed doors and I mean everything, including cheese, milk and butter. It’s not a bad idea at all. 

After we arrived home and unpacked the groceries it was time for lunch. I had taken some crumbed steak from the freezer so I boiled up some baby potatoes and tossed them with a creamy mustard dressing and added a few slices of pancetta, grated some beetroot and added orange zest and tossed that with some Vino Cotta and served both dishes alongside the crumbed steak steak and before you could say “bingo” lunch was served. 

This afternoon was the perfect weather to curl up with a good book and later in the day we played a couple of games of Sequence.  I won three out of four games that is a first for me. I usually play this game very poorly as I tend to overthink the game. Right now we are curled up in bed and trying to watch TV but there is so much thick cloud that the satellite dish can’t find a signal so it’s back to our books.

Day 55, Broome, WA

Who would have expected to wake up to a foggy morning.  Not us, that's for sure, but by the time we headed out the door for our walk at 8am the fog was still quite heavy.  It's not cold, but the air is filled with moisture. They are predicting storms on Tuesday and I can see that happening.  We mapped out our day last night.  We would go for a nice long walk, breakfast, then a swim on Cable Beach followed by lunch at Matso's Brewery.  

Our walk took us almost to the town centre, a mere 3km, but we stopped so many times along the way that it took us well over an hour for the return trip.  We passed the playground at Town Beach and admired the playground equipment ingeniously made from timber off-cuts that not only looks right at place but it is also a great way to re-cycle.

It was almost high tide when we walked and the mudflats that we looked out over yesterday, were now covered with water.  It was a totally different view and quite lovely to see the boats that were stranded in the mud yesterday now sitting in a sea of blue water.

Once we arrived back at the van and had a light breakfast we made our way to Cable Beach.  It is of course Sunday, and the beach was very busy.  There was a Nippers lifesaver carnival on the southern end of the beach that certainly added to the numbers.  We hired an umbrella and sun lounge and quickly made our way to the waters edge.  We were expecting the ocean to be cool but it was actually very pleasant and we splashed around in the azure coloured water for quite some time.  The waves were perfect size, and only intermittent, so we weren't pounded by them.  The sand under our feet was soft and the surface was incredibly even so that when you walked out of the water you weren't sinking into holes like we experience at Palm Cove and Port Douglas.  It is most definitely the best beach we have ever been to and beats by a smidgen the beach on Tortilla in the Caribbean followed by Whitehaven in the Whitsundays that we swore were the best ever.  The azure blue ocean at Cable Beach against the white sands, that just stretch endlessly into the horizon,  is a place you imagine when you are day dreaming or meditating.  It is simply perfect. 

We didn't stay as long as we would have like at Cable Beach, because we had a lunch reservation at Matso's Brewery.  I first tasted Matso's Ginger Beer at Kakadu and here in the north it is readily available at most bars, restaurants and bottle shops.  But today I wanted to try their Mango Beer.  We were quickly shown to our outside table on the cool verandah of the old renovated Queenslander that was surrounded by tropical plants.  The menu that we were handed was not extensive but that is sometimes a blessing.  My choice was the grilled Barra and salad with a ginger beer dressing while Philip decided on the Hamburger with the lot.  We also chose a side of fries and calamari and of course the Mango Beer to wash it all down.  The meal was faultless.  The seafood tasted like it had been hauled from the ocean just this morning. It was certainly fresh and had never seen the inside of a freezer.  The accompanying salad had all the crunch that you would expect and the ginger dressing I will try to copy sometime.  The Mango Beer was refreshing and we ended up purchasing a six-pack for our fridge.  We also decided to try some of the other beers that they brew and the best way to do this is with the beer paddle taster.  My favourite from the five was the Lemon Beer and Philip enjoyed the Kimberley Lager.  It was an exceptionally good meal at a an exceptionally good price.

 

This afternoon we (and half Broome!) drove to Cable Beach to watch the Camel Train move over the sand on Sunset.  You actually drive you vehicle right down to the beach to do this and we will go back again and do it properly next time.  It appears the done thing is to bring table, chairs, your beverage of choice along with a cheese platter and sit and enjoy the sunset.  There were dozens of cars lined up along the beach to do just that, and why wouldn't you end you day doing that.

Day 54, Broome, WA

Today it was just 222k from Derby to Broome.  The long drives seem to be well and truly behind us, not that we had that many.  The two longest drives for us were from Hells Gate to Boroloola and then from Boroloola to Daley Waters.  

We have now left the Kimberleys behind us as we start our journey south along the Great Northern Highway.  This highway has recently been upgraded from Broome to Kununurra and it is a beautiful road to drive on.  There are a lot more caravans on the road as peak tourist season kicks in.  We have also found that the caravan park prices have increased dramatically coming into peak season. Where we are staying at Broome, it has jumped by almost $20/night as of the 1st June.  Perhaps we will start looking for a few more free camps to offset the high prices.......maybe.....

About 100k from Broome, we passed the recently re-opened Kimberley Meat Co-operative Abattoir.  It is a tremendous boost to graziers at this end of Australia to have this mothballed facility re-open as cattle were being trucked 2,500k to the nearest abattoir in Perth.  It seems so ridiculous in this day and age that there are so few facilities in the top end of Australia where the vast majority of cattle are run, and how much better to slaughter the cattle where they are grown and have the meat shipped out in boxes.  Commonsense is in short supply sometimes, but in all fairness with cattle prices as high as they have been, the profit margin, at the time the meat works was mothballed, would have been minimal and hard to justify.

Just a few kilometres past the abattoir we came to Thunderbird Operations Mineral Sand Mine.  From the Sheffield Resources website I read this:

"Thunderbird is the first significant heavy mineral sand deposit to be discovered in the Canning Basin and is one of the largest and highest-grade minerals sands deposit globally.  The deposit, hosted by highly weathered Broome Sandstone contains valuable heavy minerals including ilmenite, zircon, leucoxene, rutile and anatase". Interesting. 😁

Our arrival into Broome has an edge of excitement.  The place has always held a certain charm and no doubt all the photos we have seen over the years of the camels walking along Cable Beach at Sunset have added to that charm.  Once we were settled into our caravan site we took a drive around Broome and of course the first place to visit is Cable Beach.  The water just looks so inviting and we are looking forward to a few swims on this glorious beach.  We then drove around the town centre, trying to get our bearings, but it is a fairly easy city to negotiate.  We are having lunch tomorrow at Matso's Brewery that turns out to be just a five minute drive from us.  Later this evening we walked along Town Beach that our caravan park sits adjacent to.  Cable Beach it is not, but nonetheless when the tide is in it would be nice to go for dip under the shadow of the jetty.  

Surprisingly we don't have a lot planned for Broome.  I need someone to look at my laptop that continues to overheat and we might do a tour to one of the Pearl Farms.  We do have a Hovercraft tour booked for Wednesday that skims over the tidal flats to visit historical sights, dinosaur footprints and on very low tides, the wrecks of flying boats sunk during WW11.  I will keep you posted.

Just to show you what my travel day looks like,  I took a photo of the lap table that I use in the car.  I try to research as much as I can while we are driving along, mostly using the Lonely Plant Guide to Australia.  It is a great book to travel with and I have seen it sitting on many a dashboard!  I also have my notepad handy and of course a good map.  My camera usually sits here as well as the GoPro.  It's a decent sized lap table.....

 

 

Day 53 Derby, WA

The Derby Heritage Trail, that we walked today, was very interesting.  There are 29 interpretive panels along the 2.3km Heritage Trail and they give the reader an insight into the beginnings of the town of Derby. When William Dampier landed in King Sound in 1688 it would have seemed to him a very inhospitable place and it wasn't until Alexander Forrest made the first journey of overland exploration in 1879 and sent back glowing reports of the pastoral land and then the subsequent establishment of the port of Derby in 1880 that the area started to grow, albeit slowly. No doubt the early settlers would have been hampered by the isolation and rugged, inhospitable conditions. 

Ask me anything about Derby and I can probably give you the answer 😂 

The beautiful Kimberley Colourstone adorns many buildings in Derby

The walk took us almost two hours but that included a couple of detours along the way to have a closer look at some silhouettes sitting on the mud flats. I really enjoyed the walk and feel I have a better understanding of the early history surrounding Derby.  Modern day Derby is quite a nice town with a population of 3,325 with at least half being indigenous.  I love the Main Street with its line of Boab Trees running up the centre and the wharf area is very interesting.  It's a shame that they are working on the wharf and that we couldn't walk along it.  We watched a Semi-Trailer unload its freight onto a waiting ship and then he had to back all the way off the curved wharf.  That's no mean feat with the wharf being not much wider than the width of the truck.

The tides in Derby are remarkable and can reach up to 11.8m and are the second biggest tides in the world.  We watched the tide come in today and it comes in at almost walking pace.  Quite incredible.  Apparently many people of have been caught with the rising tides!

This afternoon we drove the short 7km out of Derby to the Prison Boab Tree and Myall Bore with the longest trough in the world.  They are situated close by each other.  Apparently the 120 metre trough could water 500 bullocks at a time when the bore was still flowing.  Since the bore stopped flowing, the water is pumped into the trough via a Windmill. It is still quite impressive.

The Boab Prison Tree is the second we have seen on our journey across the Kimberleys and each time I am a little haunted by the way the aboriginals were rounded up, chained together, made to walk up to 40 - 50km a day and then imprisoned for sometimes nothing more than stealing a beast for meat.  Quite a few were rounded up for slave labour in the pearling industry.  It's a shameful history. Sorry doesn't seem enough.

By the time we had finished reading the history surrounding the Boab Tree it was time to head back into town to watch another sunset.  Be warned you will be seeing a lot of these photos while we are on the west coast 😜.  Today has been a little cloudier than other days (no rain) so I knew that the sunset would be full of colour and I wasn't wrong.  It was a gorgeous sunset and being at the wharf made it a perfect setting for sunset photos.  Enjoy.

 

Day 52 Derby, WA

Another small day for us with just 257 km to travel from Fitzroy Crossing to Derby.  There was no need to leave early but we were still on the road by 8am.  As we drove out of Fitzroy Crossing there must have been one hell of a party last night because near the roadhouse there were bottles, cans, paper bags and any other rubbish you can think of, strewn on both sides of the road.  It wasn't there yesterday.  Can't say I'll be sad to say goodbye to Fitzroy Crossing and I was pleased that our caravan park was well out of town.

The road today was one of the straightest we had travelled on and there were very few hills.  It is almost a surprise when we come to a bend in the road. It is for the most part lightly timbered country with some open spinifex downs.  We are certainly back in Boab country again and they are huge at this end of the Kimberleys.  We stopped at one massive Boab so that I could give it a hug.

We could see Erskine Range in front of us that seemed to break the monotony and the road wound its way between two of the mountains and the red soil that I am still finding inside the van, seems to cling to everything, even roads! 

Today, when we reached Derby on the West Coast of Australia, we clocked 10,000 kilometres since leaving home 52 days ago. It really doesn't feel that far but when I look at the wall map the kilometres are all there.

The van park in Derby is small but quite secure.  The gates are locked at 8.30pm and opened again at 6.30pm.  There is a high fence running around the property with razor wire along the top.  Theft is a big problem in the top end and we were told to call the police if we saw any suspicious persons.  Later this afternoon we drove to the information centre where we picked up a Heritage Walk brochure so we have decided to do that tomorrow.  We then drove out across the vast mud flats towards the circular jetty but it is closed for repairs so no walking there.  I wanted to get a sunset photo looking out over the mudflats so we found ourselves a spot out on the flat and settled in with a chilled beer to see out the day. It was a lovely way to end the day.

Day 51 Fitzroy Crossing, WA

Last night at Halls Creek was the first night, in 50 days, that we have been able to sleep without our air-conditioning and we woke to a quite cool (for us) 16 degrees.  I slept very peacefully.

Todays journey takes us to Fitzroy Crossing, a very easy 280 km journey.  The landscape continually changed today.  We started with flat downs country interspersed with red stony rock hills with prickly spinifex and then the scenery changed to what we were so used to seeing around the Cloncurry area.  There was flinders grass, mimosa and coolabah.  We would then come into heavy timbered country but then just as quickly the trees would disappear along with the hills.  It made for a very interesting journey.

We pass Nicolsons Gold Mine at "Lamboo" Station that is both open pit and underground and has been producing gold since 2015.  We can see the Mueller Range with its extensive outcrops of flat-lying massive sandstone that form striking rock features.  At some point we cross an invisible line that separates the East Kimberleys from the West Kimberleys.

We crossed the Mary River that heads 25km south of Halls Creek and flows west into Margaret River that then flows into the mighty Fitzroy River.  There is a camping area at Mary River and we drive the short distance in to have a look.  It is quite lovely so we stretch our legs and take a walk down to the old Mary River bridge.  It is only 10am and there are lots of caravans parked up here.  Perhaps they haven't seen the sign that says 24hr camping only.

We return to the car and further down the road we see, too late, a sign pointing to Ngumban Cliffs.  There is nowhere to turn around so we just have to imagine how lovely this place is.  It is also a free camping area and even from the road we can see that it is packed with vehicles.  Sitting high on the cliff, from what I read, it can be very windy.

Onwards to Fitzroy Crossing where we are staying at the Fitzroy River Lodge.  The reception area and lodge is very upmarket but the van sites are pretty ordinary, and it is one of the most expensive places we have stayed at.  While we are driving I am usually doing research into what we might find at our destination and the Danguu Geikie Gorge tour along the Fitzroy River, looks like it might be interesting so I booked seats on the 4pm cruise through Parks and Wildlife.

It is an easy 20km drive along a sealed road to Geikie Gorge from Fitzroy Crossing and Philip comments that it can't be much of a gorge because there are no mountains!  He's right but soon enough we do come across some rocky outcrops.  We stop at the well laid out open air visitor centre to do a little reading about the gorge formation before we are called to the boat ramp.

We walk the short distance to our waiting boat and set sail.  Within minutes we are totally gobsmacked.  This is like no other gorge we have ever seen.  It is absolutely mind boggling beautiful.  As we cruise slowly and silently through the very still waters we are mesmerised by the formations that wind and rain have cut into the sandstone walls.  The differing colours are simply astounding and I just can not find enough adjectives to describe the scenery.  Maybe the photos will do it some justice.

We spot lots of freshwater crocodiles, maybe a dozen, of differing sizes.  There are also kangaroos to keep the little ones on board the boat happy.  The bird life is prolific and I read on some of the signs in the information centre that there is a large variety of fish inhabiting these waters including the elusive sawfish.   There are around 20 people on board this boat and everyone is just so quiet as we glide along the water.  We just want to breath in this stunning scenery.

We return just as the sun is setting and the sun paints the walls of the gorge a brilliant red. Our tour guide talks about some of the aboriginal stories relating to this gorge but a sobering thought is that this place is also the site of one of the biggest aboriginal slaughters in early Australian history when more than 100 aboriginals were shot dead on a sand bar just in front of us. 

We disembark our little boat and make our way back to the car.  Both Philip and I agree that this tour is, hands down, the best gorge tour we have ever done.  Remember the name, Geikie Gorge, and try to get here if you can.

Day 50 Halls Creek, WA

 After eight days in Kununurra we said goodbye to the township and started down the highway towards Halls Creek, a journey of 360km.  We followed the magnificent Cockburn Range, with its rugged beauty, before reaching the junction that would take us south towards Halls Creek along the Great Northern Highway.

The soaring red mountain ranges that we had been so used to looking out over the past week were now changing to smaller ranges but no less beautiful.  The vegetation changed a little to Coolibah, Native Bauhinia and Boab's and the grasses in between these trees looked to us like it would be good cattle pasture.  It was also a steady climb from Kununurra at an elevation of 47 metres to 422 metres at Halls Creek.  The road was spectacularly good for 90 percent of our journey today. It looks to us like it was upgraded fairly recently. Another great thing about this highway is the phone service.  There are mobile towers right along the highway and you are rarely out of signal.  Queensland take note. 

We came upon the turn-off to Ridges Mine that shutdown a year or so ago.  It was owned by KMP (Kimberley Mining Project) and produced lower grade iron ore that was not feasible to mine when iron ore prices dropped. 

Our journey took us past the properties newly acquired by Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest agribusiness, Harvest Road.  Mabel Downs and Springvale together with Texas Downs run 35,000 cattle over 1.5 million acres.

The little township of Warmun, that is home to the Wungkul people, was the next place we drove through.  It is quiet and tiny and well kept.  We then passed a sign pointing towards Frog Hollow Wurrenranging that is another small aboriginal community close to the Savannah Nickel Mine.  The mine, in conjunction with Gija Trust, have come up with a project that is helping kids who have not met the early literacy standards. It involves having a full time teacher on site who conducts one-on-one lessons with the students.

It surprised us when we saw a sign pointing to the left,  Bungle Bungles Savannah Lodge"- 71km.  We have driven a long way south but we didn't realise we were so close to the Bungles.  It was tempting to turn down the road 😉

Once again we crossed the mighty Ord River that starts in the Albert Edward Range. It winds its way through the Kimberleys for over 500km. After 5 hours on the road and a short lunch stop, we arrive into Halls Creek. Halls Creek sits on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert and is a small services town with communities of Kija, Jaru and Gooniyandi peoples.  First opinion of Halls Creek......I like it!  

We unhitched the van and did the same old same old setup and then Philip suggested we go for a drive.  We needed fuel so it was a good opportunity.  I had read about the China Wall just 6 kms outside Halls Creek so that was our destination.  This is the online description:

"China Wall is a natural vein of sub-vertical white quartz rising up to 6 metres above the surrounding country in places.  This striking formation transects the country for many kilometres, rising high out of the ground and then disappearing back into the earth again."

It was worth the drive. It is both unusual and unique and very striking.  The white quartz can be seen from a great distance away. We didn't have the right shoes on our feet to walk very far and we could see that clambering over the rocky surface would be tricky in thongs. So we wandered where we could, and then made our way back into town.  

We stopped at the local IGA for some fruit, because all I could get in Kununurra yesterday was oranges.  What a pleasant surprise to find this store stocked to the brim with every variety of fruit available for this time of the year, even plums!  I now have enough fruit to make a large fruit salad to go with my yoghurt tomorrow morning.  We don't have to set sail too early tomorrow as it is only 289 kms to Fitzroy Crossing, our next destination.

Here is a very short GoPro video of Halls Creek.......