Dampier/Karratha/Samson Peninsula

We initially planned our next stop to be Karratha, but we heard this is very industrial, and that there was a nice caravan park at Point Samson, about 60 km away. Point Samson is a quiet beach resort and fishing port, although judging by the application to build a 112 room resort displayed next door to the caravan park, it is set to become a bit less quiet. Not far from Point Samson is the ghost town of Cossack, you can see by the photo here that there isn't much there, although some of the major buildings such as the old courthouse, schoolhouse and customs store have been restored. The rest has basically disappeared into the sand dunes, a sad fate for a town that in the late 1800's was a bustling port serving the pearl industry and the Pilbara gold boom. However the end of the gold rush and the building of a better deep water port at Point Samson saw the rapid decline of the town. We had an interesting half day wandering around the restored buildings and the ruins of the rest of the town.

The rest of the area is typical Pilbara mining and industrial support. Dampier hosts the landside operations of the massive North West Shelf natural gas production, as well as iron ore and salt exporting, while Karratha is the dormitory town for all of this activity. The natural gas processing plant is huge, and although you don't get to actually go inside they have a very interesting visitor centre and lookout over the plant, as well as the memorial sculpture pictured.

Late August signals the start of the famous Western Australia wildflower season, and although the heart of the wildflower area is further south, the Pilbara coast also provides a surprisingly colourful and varied display. Not being much up with flowers and plants, we tend to call them names such as 'purple ones', 'small white ones' and 'fluffy yellow ones', however we can identify the spectacular Sturt's Desert Pea, which pop up all along the road verges and paddocks. There is a patch of them in the bottom right of the mining memorial picture above. Their brilliant red flowers with glossy dark centres are unmistakable and a real treat in the barren Pilbara landscape.

Port Hedland

According to the locals, Port Hedland is the engine room of the Australian economy. It is the biggest export port in the country, once stuff is dug out of the ground it is sent here by train, loaded onto a ship and sent off to China. Mainly iron ore (which to the untrained eye is indistinguishable from ordinary dirt) but lots of other minerals as well. There is even a salt mine here, which is appropriate as Port Hedland is the sort of place one can imagine being sent to for punishment. Despite being a bustling town of some 16,000 souls, the services and shopping on offer are woeful - no butcher, baker or candlestick maker, and not even a hardware store. As we found to our dismay, there certainly isn't a tv repair shop either. The locals presumably spend all the considerable amount of money they get working for BHP and the other big mining companies here on supermarket meat and rent - we had a quick look in the estate agent's window, and a 3-bedroom investment house was advertised at $730k, boasting 10.6% return on investment. That works out to several multiples of the rent we are getting for our lovely house in trendy Williamstown. It's no wonder that half the shops in town had signs up advertising for staff, we can't imagine how people could afford to live here if they aren't on mining company wages.

We managed to fill in a few days here quite comfortably. There was a tour of the iron ore export facility, which disappointed a bit as we weren't allowed to get out of the bus, so all our photos have a reflection of the photographer from the bus window overlaid onto the picture. However, it did give an interesting overview of the export process. We watched several massive iron ore boats being either brought into port or taken out to sea by the very busy tug boats, you can tell the ship in the picture above is unladen as it is sitting very high in the water, the full ones are right down on the plimsoll line, so none of the red part shows at all. We also did the history walking trail around town, which would have been more interesting if more of the old buildings mentioned in the brochure still existed, rather than just being 'the site of the original ......'.

On the third day here we drove out to Marble Bar, about 200km away from Port Hedland, which claims to be the hottest place in Australia, based on a heat wave in 1923/24 when it didn't drop below 100 Fahrenheit (37.8 C) for 161 days. At this time of year it was a very pleasant low 30s, but it would get pretty unbearable in Summer when the average daily maximum is 41! The town was named when an early explorer found what he thought was a seam of marble in a stream just outside town, but it turned out to be jasper (don't ask us what the difference is), however the name stuck. In the picture on the right Wendy is leaning against some of the jasper rock, it looks very pretty and certainly very marble-like to us.

Television Woes

Readers may recall that our tv broke down just before we left Darwin, and that we were told it couldn't be fixed. After many phone calls the manufacturers agreed to replace the set under warranty, and said that a new one would be waiting for us at Broome, which was the next place we would be getting to where they had an agent.

3 weeks later when we got to Derby, and the first mobile phone reception we'd been able to get since Katherine, there was a message waiting for us from the tv people, asking for proof of purchase, despite the fact that this had all been discussed and covered while we were in Darwin. Several phone calls later they agreed that, yes, they would definitely be sending the set to Broome. Needless to say when we got to Broome a few days later there was no set waiting for us. The agents were very helpful and chased up the manufacturers, who said it had definitely been sent and supplied a consignment note number. Days went past, and on the day before we were due to leave the set finally arrived, just in time for the start of the final and deciding test match at The Oval. Not only that, because our original set was a superseded model, the new one could receive High Definition.

We excitedly got it out of the box, read the instructions and did an autotune. 4 analog stations and 10 digital! Mind you, most of the digital stations are still showing the same thing as the corresponding analog ones, but exciting nevertheless. We turned the set off to standby and continued with that day's activities. That evening, just before 6:00 (one advantage of the WA time zone is that the cricket starts earlier here), we turned the set on ........ or at least tried to. No response when we pressed the on button on the remote control, no response when we pressed the power button on the set. To cut a long story short, it took us most of the evening to figure out that the set is faulty - once it warms up, nothing works any more. If we leave the power cord out, then a couple of hours later you can turn it on and get crystal clear reception - for about 10 minutes. Then the picture fades to fuzz and all the control buttons stop working - the only way to turn it off again is to pull out the power cord.

The next day we'd planned a long trip to Port Hedland, but we knew the agents opened at 7:30 so we called in there on the way out of Broome, only to find that all the technical staff were at Perth on a course, and the office was manned only by the receptionist. We tried to ring the manufacturer, but as we had found previously it was impossible to actually get to talk to anyone apart from the receptionist, so we left a message for someone to ring us back and set off.

It was quite late in the day when we arrived at Port Hedland, and we weren't surprised to find that the tv people hadn't returned our call. We sent them an email telling them the situation, and said we would be looking to get the set fixed and sending them the bill. We then checked the online yellow pages for tv repair folk in town. 2 options were shown - the people we had already spoken to 600 km northwards in Broome, or a company nearly 2,000 km southwards in Geraldton. Who'd have thought that a town of around 15,000 people wouldn't have any of them capable of fixing a tv set?

So now we're in the situation of still not having a tv, and no prospect of getting one for at least another 2 weeks until we arrive in Geraldton, and even then it will only be if the fault in this set can be fixed. Another game of cards anyone?

Broome

As soon as we drove in to Broome it felt like a holiday resort, and we figured out that even though it has the same weather as everywhere else we've been in the last few months, the difference is that Broome has palm trees - obviously a sure subliminal signal of 'tropical holiday'. Home of the famous Cable Beach, Broome is very much a tourist town. See the photo below for miles of golden sand, with all the bathers huddled between the flags outside the lifesaving club, except for the ones at the nudey part of the beach a discreet few hundred metres away. Mind you, when we compare it with our memories of Brighton Beach in England - deckchairs on every square inch of pebbled foreshore - we appreciate what we've got here in Australia. Not being much into bathing, we confined our Cable Beach activity to a relaxed lunch in a foreshore cafe.

Before it was a hedonistic tourist trap, Broome was a bustling pearling port, and it is still the hub of a large pearling business. While in the past the main product wasn't the pearls themselves but the mother of pearl shell, in this day of plastic buttons the industry concentrates on seeding pearl oysters to produce beautiful jewellery pearls. We did a very interesting tour to a pearl farm (see photos above), where they showed us the massive oysters used (if you look closely you can see the crab that was living inside this one before its home was wrenched in half), the seeding process and examples of the finished product. Unfortunately they counted them before passing them around for us to look at, no slipping one into your pocket!

We also did a day trip North to a small aboriginal settlement called Beagle Bay. Here there is a beautiful church with an altar made from mother of pearl shell, wouldn't be surprised if it is one of the most photographed church in Australia.

There's quite a good golf club here in Broome, and quite by chance we found that the Broome Open was on while we were here. While neither of us played very well, and didn't collect any prizes, we had fun, met some of the locals, and got 2 rounds of golf for the $40 entry fee versus $37 for the usual green fees, so it was pretty good value! We won't be seeing grass greens again for a while on our journey south, so we took advantage here and had another round as well, before we go cold turkey for a while.

Derby

We spent 4 days in Derby, and played golf for 3 of them. This is probably more a reflection of the alternative attractions on offer here than of the quality of the golf course, although having said that the course was quite nice. Named 'The Boabs' for obvious reasons (a magnificent specimen shown at left - and not a bad tree either), although only a nine-holer (well ten holes actually, they had a different par 3 for the 12th than for the third) it is well grassed and in pretty good condition.

On the other day, we went up the Gibb River Road to Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek. Windjana Gorge was a bit of a disappointment, apart from seeing heaps of fresh water crocs (and we're a bit over crocs at this stage), a longish, fairly dull and very dusty walk up the gorge was about all there was to do there. Tunnel Creek, however, was really good. As the name suggests, it is a creek that has bored itself down into the limestone and formed a tunnel, which you get to walk through. The tunnel is about 750 metres long, but the roof has collapsed about half way through so in fact you don't walk in full darkness for very long. A good torch and an old pair of runners are essential - you can't get more than a third of the way in if you aren't prepared to

wade. The water is surprisingly cold, and at its deepest just under knee high (although I guess this depends on how tall you are). You cross the creek 4 or 5 times, with the widest crossing maybe 5 metres. The roof is mostly quite high, although at one stage it comes down to only a couple of metres above your head, but the tunnel is at least 12 metres wide so you don't feel too enclosed. It was really fun, lots of stalactites and stalagmites, and a colony of bats that don't appreciate the constant disturbance of intruders. Luckily it is nice and hot here in Derby, it took us 2 days to dry our runners out afterwards!

The 120 km or so of the Gibb River Rd we did to get to Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek weren't quite 'one of the last great 4wd adventures' that the tourist info had lead us to expect. In fact, we were surprised to find that it was sealed for most of the way to the turnoff, but the extra 60km or so to the gorge and on to Tunnel Creek were a little rough. I guess the other 600km of the Gibb River Road through to Wyndham must be the adventurous bit!

Halls Creek - Fitzroy Crossing

We spent only one night at Halls Creek, we'd been toying with the idea of spending a couple of nights and going to see Wolfe Creek Crater, but the thought of over 4 hours (return) over rough roads to look at a hole in the ground put us off. We did go out to have a look at Old Halls Creek - apparently some time last century they moved the town to the current location, but it is such a dud of a tourist attraction we couldn't even find out when it happened or why. There were almost no buildings left, not even bits of ruins, and hardly anything in the way of information boards. If we come back this way we'll be going straight through Halls Creek without stopping!

Fitzroy Crossing is a little better, we spent half a day at Geiki Gorge, on a reasonably interesting boat cruise up the Fitzroy River, then we did a walk for an hour or so. At least the Fitzroy Crossing caravan park has nice grass sites, Halls Creek was nothing but dust. Unfortunately the local supermarket here burnt down a few weeks ago, they have rigged up a makeshift shop in the local sports pavilion. Luckily for us we had heard about it in Kununurra, so stocked up with meat and fruit & veg before we left there.

Kununurra

Kununurra is a new town, founded in the 1960's when the Ord River Irrigation Scheme was started. It is surrounded by farmland, irrigated by an endless supply of water from the massive Lake Argyle - about 21 times the size of Sydney Harbour, and so huge it is classified as an inland sea. Southerners enduring drought conditions would be hard pressed to imagine how much water is held in Lake Argyle, and how little of it is actually used. After nearly 50 years, work has finally started on Stage 2, which will basically double the area under irrigation from 16,000 hectares, although the dam has been designed to irrigate at least 70,000 hectares. Our afternoon boat cruise on the lake covered more than 120km, exploring the far reaches and checking out some of the amazing bird life that lives in the creeks feeding into the lake. The water is completely still, perfect for photos of the tops of the drowned hills that poke out above the waterline.

We also did a day trip to Wyndham, about 100km from Kununurra. This is a port city, used chiefly for live cattle export from the vast cattle stations in the Kimberley, such as the one featured in the recent epic film Australia. The photo of John was taken from a terrific lookout, the port of Wyndham is behind him.

This part of the top end has a lot of boab trees, weird looking things that appear to have roots growing out of the top of them. There is a very large one not far outside Wyndham which was used as a makeshift prison during pioneering days! See the photo below, it dwarfs our Patrol.

And in case you're wondering about the top photo, no this isn't the dam wall of the Lake Argyle Dam, it is a ford across the Ord River downstream from the dam, we crossed this on the back road to Wyndham.

Purnululu National Park

Purnululu NP is a couple of hundred km South of Kununurra, and the home of the Bungle Bungle Ranges. Apparently the latest Qantas ad was shot in the Bungle Bungles, we haven't seen it yet as we still don't have a TV. It's on the must see list (the range, not the ad) for all visitors to this area, but is quite hard to get to as the 52 km access road is apparently very rough and doesn't cope with caravans. After much discussion we decided to fly down for an overnight stay. This gave us the spectacular scenic flight down and back, 2 days of guided walking, plus a night at a private 'eco-lodge', in this case run by APT tours. The downside was the cost, nearly half our usual monthly budget, but every now and then you just have to throw caution to the winds.


We were picked up outside our caravan park at 8:30am on Saturday and taken to the Kununurra airport. There were plenty of people also taking flights, around half a dozen planes worth, ranging from 10 seaters down to our 7 seater (including the pilot). We had to tell them how much we weighed when we checked in, and John being the heaviest was pointed to the seat next to the pilot. The 2 other couples took the 2 rows behind and Wendy was left with the dicky seat at the back, with her knees up under her chin. The flight down was terrific, over Lake Argyle (created by the Ord River Scheme), across a huge cattle station and over the spectacular Bungle Bungle Ranges. Unfortunately it was rather windy, so by the time we arrived an hour later we were both feeling happy to get our feet back on terra firma.


We were met by the tour guide and loaded into our 15 seat 4-wd bus. We were the last to board, and Wendy found there was only 1 seat left, so John sat up front next to the driver - once again getting the best seat in the house. The rest of Saturday was spent walking up several gorges and through the famous spectacular domed geological wonders. The walk wasn't particularly difficult, although the people who had only recently arrived in the Top End struggled a bit with the 32 degree sunshine. If you haven't seen photos of the Bungle Bungles before, the first one above shows a classic vista of the domes. We had been provided with boxed lunches which we ate during the walk, in a spectacular natural amphitheatre.


After the walk we were taken to the eco-lodge, where we were surprised to discover that almost all the people who had flown up that morning were returning back to Kununurra. Most of the people who stay at the lodge are customers on longer tours the company does of the Kimberley or of Northern Australia, this being just one of the stops made by their tour group. When we had booked the trip we had been told they only had twin rooms left, but there must have been a miscommunication because we were actually given a king size bed in a superior class room, despite having paid for a standard twin room. We didn't complain, for a tent it was very luxurious! The real treat for us caravanners was the ensuite bathroom, so we luxuriated in hot showers before heading back to the communal area for a very nice 3 course dinner. Everyone was tired after the day's walking and lights were out all over camp by 8:30!


Next morning we were up fairly early for a sumptuous cooked breakfast, as we had been told it would be an 8:00 start to get to the Northern end of the park for that day's walking. We had the same guide as the previous day, but surprise, surprise we were the only customers on that walk. So we had a private tour of some of the most spectacular walking we have ever done. This part of the NP doesn't have the same dome formations of the more famous Southern end, but we walked up several stunning canyons, with incredible red walls glowing in the sunlight. At times they were so narrow that there were fallen rocks wedged just above the trail (see photo below) - you didn't want to spend too long underneath them looking up as they could have continued their journey at any time! This day's walking was a lot tougher than the first, which is probably why fewer people do it, but it was just an incredible experience. The guide was obviously used to people who walk a lot slower than us, he had indicated that of the 2 possible lookouts we may get to one of them, but we did both lookouts and were still back at the lodge for afternoon tea an hour before we had to get back to the airport for the return flight to Kununurra.


Once we did get to the airport, we found that we were on the same plane as the flight up the previous day, with the same pilot. There were only 4 of us on the flight this time, and the pilot said that the weight distribution wasn't as important, so asked who wanted to sit next to him. Before the other couple had a chance to open their mouths Wendy leapt forward waving her hand and shouting 'pick me, pick me!'. It was an absolutely spectacular experience (I know we seem to be overusing this word, but it is just so appropriate to the whole trip). The wind had died away and instead of heading straight over the mountains as apparently the flight usually goes, the pilot dropped down to barely more than 1,000 feet and flew next to the mountains along the Western shore of Lake Argyle. The other 2 planes that took off at the same time took the same route, and it was just magic to see them seemingly hanging in the air against the mountains. If you expand the last photo below and look very, very hard at the top left corner you'll see one of the other planes against the watery backdrop.


All in all it was a wonderful weekend, and we are very glad we made the decision to go.