Across the Border

We left Darwin on a sad note as Tom and Mary, our on and off travelling companions of the past 3 months, had to curtail their trip for health reasons. We were relieved to get a message a fortnight later saying that after surgery Mary was on the path to recovery. We are hopeful that we will meet up with them on the road again late this year or early next year.

After leaving Katherine we camped for 3 nights in Gregory National Park. Having had a hectic month travelling from Alice Springs to Darwin then back down to Katherine it was good to slow the pace a little. Our camp was at a small National park camping area 10km from Timber Creek. We were fortunate to find a parking spot that received a little afternoon shade from the trees, as with afternoon temperatures reaching 38C and no power to run our air conditioner any shade was a godsend. Temperatures were such that the water from the tap was too warm to provide a cool refreshing shower. At the camp we were entertained by many bower birds, which are quite bold and constantly coming and going. We found a bower nearby that was decorated with the usual stones and bones, and we were amused by the inclusion of a small light bulb.

We went on a day trip to Bullita Station, which operated as a cattle station until 1990 when it was included in the National Park. The station homestead has been preserved and it houses lots of information about the history of the area. Bullita was originally one of the many Durack outstations from the early days of pastoral farming. The tales of hardship are amazing, with major flooding in the 1920’s taking the original wood and grass homestead away and in the 1970s a big flood took stock and everything else that wasn’t bolted down. The homestead was built in the 1960’s so could be considered as relatively modern, but it certainly lacks any modern refinement. It consists of three rooms and is made of corrugated iron, this includes the internal dividing walls and none of the walls are lined (photo). Our visit here gave us a good impression of the isolation of the remote stations and today we can get there by travelling 50km along a dusty and somewhat corrugated road in a comfortable air conditioned vehicle.

After leaving the Timber Creek area we crossed the border into Western Australia. This was like crossing into another country, as we had to go through a checkpoint where our truck and van were inspected for the presence of fresh fruit, vegetables and plants. To stop the spread of disease and pests none of these items are allowed across the border. We had been forewarned so what we couldn’t eat had been cooked and made into salad, so we were able to enter WA with only a quarter jar of honey being taken off us.

We spent a night at Lake Argyle, a huge man made lake formed by damming the Ord River. Some electricity is generated but the main purpose of the dam is to provide water for irrigating farms in the Ord River valley. Our next stop was at Kununurra, 100km further down the road and while we were staying here we drove through some of the land irrigated by the Ord river scheme and saw crops of melon, mango (unfortunately not in season), corn, maize and sandalwood. We also went to galleries where the local “zebra rock” has been made into jewellery and other items. This rock has bands of white and brown/maroon and the colours make a striped or dotted pattern.

We visited Wyndham, a small town at the confluence of five rivers and went to a lookout near the town where we were awed by the massive areas of floodplain and sand flats stretching almost as far as the eye could see in all directions. Near Wyndham is a nature reserve and we had a very interesting hour or so at a bird hide watching birds and crocodiles. Just as we were about to leave and find somewhere to have our lunch we noticed a crocodile that had caught a magpie goose swimming towards us, so we stayed to observe it. It stopped in some shallow water near the bank about 50 metres from where we were and over the next 30 minutes proceeded to eat the goose. While holding the bird in it’s jaws it shook it around until it flew into pieces which it then gathered up and ate. A whole wing, feathers and all went down in a gulp; we could hear the bones crunching. Within a few metres of this egrets and herons were picking up the very small bits and eating them while keeping a close eye on the crocodile. Needless to say we had a late lunch that day.

After leaving Kununurra our sights were set on visiting the Bungle Bungles National Park. We left our van at a roadhouse 40km from the turnoff to the NP. Access to the park visitor’s centre was down 52km of 4WD road and the information said this would take 2 hours (it was right). The slowness was due mainly to the road being very corrugated. After calling in at the visitor’s centre and paying our camps fees we went to an area where the beehive rock formations are. These are amazing and lived up to the expectation we had from seeing photographs of them. We walked to cathedral gorge, a gorge with towering cliffs terminating in a huge amphitheatre with a high domed ceiling and were lucky to be there when there was no one else around. On our way back to the car park we detoured to go to a lookout where we got more great views of the domed rocks and the valley. An interesting feature of this walk was the creek bed where we walked along big smooth slabs of rock (photo). We camped in the park overnight in our tent and next morning went to Echidna chasm, another amazing place. Again there were towering cliffs but between these was a narrow cleft on the rocks, in places less than a metre wide. We walked through this for several hundred metres before reaching the end and again had the place to ourselves having passed a tour group going out as we were going in.

We picked up our van and spent 2 nights at roadside rest areas before arriving at Fitzroy Crossing. We visited Geikie Gorge (photo) a limestone gorge carved out by the Fitzroy River. We braved another 4WD road and after 70 km of shake and rattle arrived at Tunnel Creek, where a creek has carved a 750 metre tunnel through the rock. The creek isn’t flowing at the moment so we were able to walk through the tunnel (photo), which involved a bit of scrambling over and around rocks and wading through pools a little less than knee deep. We saw stalagmites and stalactites bats and frogs. The tunnel is at the widest 15 metres and at the highest 12 metres.

Over the past few days we have come across many stretches of road works and this means kilometres of detour. The practice seems to be to bulldoze a dirt road a few metres from the road that is being worked on and send the traffic down this. Fortunately the detours are well maintained so a lot better than most of the gravel roads we have encountered. The detour road we took before arriving in Derby was 10km long. We found Derby to be a nice country town and were given a guided tour by the nephew of our Auckland neighbour. Derby is located on King Sound and is flanked by sandy tidal flats. The highlight of our stay here was a trip to the “Horizontal Falls”. A tidal flow forcing its way through two narrow gaps in the cliffs, 7 and 20 metres wide creates the falls. There was an 11 metre tide on the day we were there and this created a drop of one to two metres. We took a 30 minute float plane ride from Derby to Talbot Bay in the Buccaneer Archipelago, where the falls are located and after landing on the sea were transferred to a super-fast boat. a 12 seater boat powered by two 250hp outboard motors. The seating arrangement was unusual in that the seats and were like saddles and had two grab handles at the front of each seat. This arrangement did provide a very stable seat. We had several trips through both sets of falls before getting on a houseboat where we cruised along for a bit before stopping for a dip in a small pool. After a BBQ lunch of barramundi we had time for a spot of fishing (only a few small fish caught) before getting back on the fast boat for another trip though the falls. By this time it was slack water so there was no fall in the falls. We then returned to the float plane for our flight back to Derby. Our flights gave us superb views of the area – sea, inlets, islands, rocky hills, plains and the sandy tidal flats.