Fremantle - Leeuwin Naturaliste National Park

4 nights in "Freo" (Fremantle); lively, but wet stay in a town centre caravan park, trying to use their dodgy wireless internet, it rained alot, we spent a lot of time in the camp kitchen, I serviced the car and bikes, we met a nice old hippie Rollie (King Rollo to us) who gave me a little light in exchange for a can of VB, Em went on a bike ride along the wharf whilst I slept in the afternoon, we had coffee in Capuccino Strip and went out for a few beers in Freo one wet afternoon!  Nice to be in civilisation for a bit I guess (after I had got over my sulk about the speeding ticket and the puncture).

A few hundred kms South of Fremantle down the coast - 4 nights in Leeuwin Naturaliste NP; Conto Campground, finally a camp fire again (its cold enough to have one!), I nearly took the end of my finger off with my tomahawk (I may tell you more about this, but only to your face and only if you ask as it is embarrassing), Em did lots of baking including pizza & scones in the camp oven, visited the Margaret River wineries (absolutely gorgeous wineries - Xanadu, Leeuwin Estate and Voyager - Em got a bit pissed on tastings, but we felt like deros as we came straight from the NP and smelt like fires!) and surf beaches, renowned as some of the best breaks in the world - I dont have a board anymore, so didnt try any out - not that I would have anyway....the swell was big and there was a bit of a pro-looking crowd out there.  Maybe next time...This is the rivermouth at Prevelly:

On our way out, in the rain, we checked out a local recommendation of visiting the 4wd access only beach at Boranup which was well worth it for the view of the aquamarine coloured sea, the beach and to watch a rain filled squall roll in off the sea and hit us in the face. 

And went to get a photo of this place in the National Park, simply because I love the name and Roald Dahl called not have done better:

It all started when I stubbed my big toe...

Sandy Cape & Cervantes; birthday, stubbed big toe, wind picked up, cold, rain, massive fry up, packed up, drove in rain to the Pinnacles, booked a cabin for the night in Cervantes, got in at 1pm, spent all day watching tv, listening to the wind and rain outside!  First time in 4 walls for over 2 months.  Lovely porterhouse for tea.  More tv (it's a novelty and a luxury!). Comfortable bed.

Fremantle; caught speeding outside of some p*ss-ant town I dont even know the name of...78kms in a 60.  "Nice" PC downgraded fine from $150 and 2 points to just $75 fine (why were there 3 cops catching people in this nice big straight stretch of road - which I was driving perfectly safely on, even though it was over the limit, it was only another 20 metres til it was an 80 zone - yet when we called the police in Broome, in fact two people did, for an assault and witnessing a break in to somebody's caravan the police didnt even turn up!?  I wonder why indeed...).  Arrive Fremantle, realised had a slow puncture in rear left tyre (it's always the rear left side that something goes wrong on).  Ran around buying engine oil and a bucket, washed the car, etc. etc.  Cooked a nice curry in friendly clean big camp kitchen.   Hit the sack at 7:30pm.   I love cities.

Roadside Camping with our Em

Here we are, camping by the side of the road, about 10 metres from the side of Highway 1, with all the joys of the road trains passing us by in the night!  We both ate too much hot chilli con carne (fresh Carnarvon chillies) tonight, followed by far too much triple cream brie (first time in many months - the last time we bought brie we put it next to fish bait and spoilt it, and that was in Queensland!) and lashings and lashings of red wine...

Shark Bay World Heritage Area and Steep Point

Carnarvon - After another long day of driving we camped at a freebie "Miaboolya Beach" which was quiet beach camping behind the dunes.  Next morning stocked up on lots of fresh food from a roadside stall in this "fruit basket of WA" area; a massive bag of green chillies, green peppers, tomatoes, green beans and some delicious little sweet bananas.  It also rained in the service station whilst we were filling up.  I mention this as this is the first time it has properly rained since we were on the East coast, that's almost two months ago!  It had spat in Cape York and the Bungle Bungles, but not showered like it did in Carnarvon.  I went to turn on the windscreen wipers and they didn't work as the nuts holding them in place had shook loose on all the corrugations!  Quick tighten and we were off again toward Shark Bay, refuelled with diesel and fresh locally grown fruit & veg.

Once inside the boundary of Shark Bay World Heritage Area it quickly becomes a much more interesting drive than the other 400kms to get here!  On the way up the cape is Shell Beach (the shell is farmed for use in cement and to make chickens eggs harder) and some views of the largest sea grass areas in the world, amazing stuff!  We stopped in the pearl farming town of Denham, which had enough services and some jettys for fishing off, but was otherwise not much of note, to ask for info on camping from the visitor info centre and to get details about Steep Point, then decided to ignore their advice about camping and we went straight to the Francois Peron (a French botanist) NP which was a sandy, corrugated road in, but well worth the effort....as they have an outdoor hut tub.  Yes a hot tub, for public use (once you have paid your WA NP fees which we had).  Basically the homestead there used to be a working sheep farm, and the original owners had drilled an artesian bore about 500 metres below the topsoil and were pumping out 130,000 gallons of 44 degree water every single day!  Awesome.  We plopped in for a little relaxing dip before making our way another 20kms to the campsite, where we were the only bods there.  I tried some unsuccesful fishing, then we watched a nice sunset over Big Lagoon with a beer and some fresh food for dinner.

The next day was the Monkey Mia experience.  This is a bit of a circus and I wasnt sure I wanted to go (Em had already swum with dolphins before somewhere else in WA with Tanja), but we decided we had come all this way so better had.  We got up stupidly early (5:45) and packed up in the dark, driving out of Peron NP to the resort of Monkey Mia, and ultimately the "Dolphin Interaction Zone"!  We were so early we were among the first 10 people on the beach where these semi-wild dolphins - about 10 of them inluding an 8 week old calf - all come right into shore to investigate the human activity, every day at about the same time and have been for about 20 years now.  It was pretty cool I have to admit, until the bus loads of other tourists started to turn up then it was circus time.  The rangers feed the dolphins (which is why they are really there) and ask people to step into the water to assist with the feeding.  It was all a bit sick so we watched in awe a few idiots pushing each other out of the way for their mobile phone photos then pushed on ourselves....

We had the cheek to go back to the Hot Tub and have a cup of tea at the free BBQ area on the way back and ranger came over and said "so you are back again"...he had obviously spotted us yesterday, I explained we were from Bath and therefore couldn't resist thermal springs.  After this we made a stop on the long road back down the cape for some fishing and lunch.  Unsurprisingly we didnt catch anything with our newly purchased plastic squid bait.

Our next stop for the night was Hamelin Pool.  This is mentioned in Bill Bryson's Down Under book and is famous, for it's the only place in the world where you can see Stromatolites.  Now I find this fascinating, but many many people won't.  Stromatolites are the world's oldest living organism (cyanobacteria again), or at least were around at the dawn of life itself.  3.8 billion years old.  The earth is what, 4.8 billion years old?  These things were the only living things on the planet for 2 billion years before they alone had produced enough oxygen for other forms of life to evolve from the shallow warm seas that covered the planet.  Now that's impressive huh?

Before we went to visit the stromatolites in the morning, we needed a shower and I needed a shave.  I decided my beard had to come off as I have strange sunburn marks.  So I shaved it off, and it is coming right back on again as I write this.  Neither of us were impressed with the old Chaz, so decided the ginger beard, with dashes of grey for sophistication, was the go.  So you may notice a distinct lack of photos of me whilst I return to my former ginger bearded self.

After being mesmerised by the Stromatolites and their incomprehensible timescales, next up was Steep Point...we rang the ranger to get some details on the road in, it was a sandy 4wd track with some sandhills to cross, so lower tyre pressures were a must, there was no fuel, food or water within 150kms and it was a small entry cost and camping fee per person per night as it was private property, not National Park.  I'm writing this just after we have left Steep Point and we are both so glad we made the effort to get there, as we almost didn't.  It is the most Westerly point in mainland Australia and something we had to tick off on our list of things to do here, it's possible we may never come back to this particular place as it is so remote too.  It reminded us both of Scotland, but much harder to get to!  Anyway we spent 3 days there, originally planning on 2, but extended as long as our fresh water lasted!  We had such a great time, it is definitely one of our top places to visit in Australia.  We were camped right on the beach front under some small cliffs at a spot called "Blackies".  The very helpful ranger (nont really rangers, more an old couple who lived on the property - we were both quite jealous of their lifestyle in fact - to be so far from anyone or anything!) suggested grabbing some oysters from the rocks and using them as bait to catch a whiting (small fish) then using the whiting to catch something bigger, which we duly did....the first day we caught 4 or 5 whiting, Em caught a Yellowfin Bream and a very cool Wrasse with tattoos on his face, he was too cool to eat so we put him back, and I caught a smelly little bream which we didnt keep.  This was all fried up for tea.  The second day we both caught more whiting and subsequently a tuskfish each!  I reckon Em's was about 2kg and mine slightly bigger at 2.5-3kgs apprx!  We thought they were impressive looking, but ugly fish with little white tusks.  They live under the rock ledges as predators so are bit tricky to catch, but we persevered for several hours (in fact it was all we did all day every day, plus drink beer).  The third day I caught an even bigger tuskfish, it gave us our last dinner of two whopping big fish steaks with green beans and lashings of mayonnaise, mmmm,mmmm. 

Whilst fishing we saw large bream in a school of twenty or so, a 1.5 metre shark cruising around looking for trouble (bait came out of the water each time he came past), jellyfish and a massive turtle - his head was easily the size of a football and his body was, well you put it in perspective for a size 5 football for his head!  Huge.  He came up for air right in front of me a few times and even though he was 5 metres away the noise was still loud.

So after three days of eating fresh fish caught by our own fair hands and we were understandably sad to leave.  Two mornings we had two dolphins swimming around about 10 metres from our tent, flipping a fish about for fun (I missed this as was being lazy at getting up, but Em saw it).  We had some friendly old fishermen as neighbours from whom we learnt a thing or two about bait and "floaters" and some tips for places to stay as we headed South.  The weather was good, a bit windy, except for the last day when it was a bit squally and damp - everything in the tent felt damp, plus the zip for both doors has now completely packed it in, so we are looking at a repair job or a cheap, new tent :-(  On the second day we took a drive out to Steep Point itself, about 10kms North of our campsite, to visit the most Westerly point; very impressive scenery all the way there.  Also False Entrance on the way out on the last day was stunning (it's where the Dutch in the 1600's originally aimed for to get to a safehaven from the massive swell on the Indian Ocean around the coast here, but it proved to be not the way in, hence the name, apparently) and had amusing blowholes at the top of the cliffs.

Em chopping up some whiting for bait:

Em with her Yellowfin Bream:

Look at all this fresh fish (this is our first catch of tuskfish):

Blackies campsite on the beach:

Cape Range NP/Ningaloo Reef and onto Shark Bay

Cape Range National Park is the home of Ningaloo Reef.  The largest fringing reef (dont ask me what this means) in the world and I believe the only coral reef to form on a Western coast.  And pretty amazing it was too.  The National Park is a small one, and quite bare (no trees), but it is beautiful in other ways and the reef is definitely the highlight.

We spent four nights at Kurrajong camp area - after queuing from 7:30am behind 5 other keen campers , we had heard the ranger is a bit of a Nazi so you have to get there early to get a spot or he just laughs at you and turns you away - to get a nice spot on a beach camp area.  We managed to get a decent spot on a quiet (no generators) campspot on the beach, however the weather didn't hold up and was windy for 3 days out of the four.  Not just a bit of a draught but a proper coastal gale.  The tent came apart from the frame a couple of times, but we strapped it back down and had two pegs in on each rope plus large rocks holding them down!  Anyway we really enjoyed our stay, especially the snorkelling, the fishing (I caught a small Chinaman cod, twice!  I used one as some bait and put the other back) and just chilling out in the tent with the wind blowing around us.  We took a trip into Exmouth one day as we were a bit bored and fed up with the wind, bought some bread and checked emails, etc.  There is a large naval comms base here which isn't very exciting, but it has the second highest structure in the Southern Hemisphere - a Very Low Frequency radio tower to communicate with the Navy submarines.  Fascinating hey?

Here is me snorkelling:

We had a look at a bird hide on one of the beaches, there were no birds, but we did spot a Port Jackson Shark (or that's what we reckon it was).  In the ocean at our campsite I also saw my first sea snake and we think we saw a stonefish which is the most venomous fish known to man.  And it's ugly too.

When we left we decided not to wait around for the tide to go out so we could cross the Yardie Creek crossing at the Southern end of the park, so instead drove back through Exmouth and back down the sealed road, then turned West again and headed for the 4wd track which follows the coast down to Coral Bay.  One of our more pleasant lunch stops on the way:

 

Unfortunately the departure journey out of Cape Range NP did't start well as when we were driving to Yardie Creek we found a medium sized wallaby (or roo not sure) in the middle of the road.  It was 8am so still quite early, and a Britz Toyota was stopped a few km's before we saw the roo checking something, so I think he may have hit it and kept going.  Anyway it was trying to stand up and was kind of leaning on one of it's front legs so I stopped and tried to help it.  It was in shock I guess as it's eyes were rolling around, it was also bleeding from its ears and nose so I put a blanket over it and dragged it to the side of the road after a bit of fussing and trying to radio the rangers (apparently they dont care it happens so much).  In the meantime a car pulled up and an old surfer and young girl got out to say you can either hit it with a stone/hammer to kill it or if they had a gun they would have shot it!  They left it up to us, but I was glad they stopped anyway as we were a bit unsure what to do.  When they left I checked him again and he was still looking dodgy, so we decided to leave him, I pulled the blanket off and as we drove away he stood up and hopped across the road!  Seriously.  Well Em told me he did, I didnt actually see him. A happy ending to a sad start to the day.

We eventually arrived without more incident (and after seeing lots of emus) at Coral Bay which is a tourist trap, but a pretty one and it has more coral right at the beach.  We jumped in for a quick swim and then kept motoring down the yet more boring sealed roads to the Shark Bay World Heritage Area which includes Denham, Monkey Mia and Steep Point - a personal highlight for me as this is the most Westerly point in mainland Australia...

Broome

I think we have just spent 5 nights sat watching the tide go in and out from pretty much the same spot.  Obviously we needed to as we didn't feel the need to rush around or leave Broome.  It was so nice to get out of a) the dust, b) the flies and mossies and c) the heat (although it was still 35 on most days here) by being able to get in the sea as the stinging jellyfish - Irukandji, the ones that affect your nervous system and give you a "dreadful feeling of anxiety and fear" plus vomiting and general nastiness - haven't arrived yet and no worrying about crocs).  We had a pleasant camp spot right on the sea front in front of some mangroves.  The tidal range is massive, so in the morning it was about 1km away, then high was at lunchtime, perfect as the day warmed up you could get in for a dip!  The sea (Indian Ocean) was quite salty so you could float around and just cool off for 4-5 hours until the tide started to recede again.  And that's what we did for 5 days.  We had a few unfortunate nights when the backpackers (or local idiots) decided to keep the whole caravan park awake by invading someone's caravan one night and fighting (that was a weird thing to wake up to 10 metres from your tent)/playing the bongo drums at 4am or generally "finding themselves" i.e. being a nuisance!

Broome itself is a small resort-type town with a backpacker scene.  It is also interesting historically; world famous large pearls brought diving which in turn brought Islanders, British, Chinese and Japanese settlers, oldest open air cinema (in the world?), WWII history including two flying boat wrecks still on the beach where they were strafed and bombed by the Japanese Navy fighters in 1943, some pretty cool coastal scenery and some nice little streets with lots of art galleries to poke around in. 

Our favourite art gallery has to be Giant Tides which was macro photography of the weirdest little creatures called "mangrove tree snails" which lived on the mangroves in the pic above.  Check out the website, I dont have any pics as the camera lens wont go that small (they are smaller than your fingernail), but I got some snaps of some other weird lifeforms, some of which live on the flying boat wrecks, on the mudflats anyway:

We also got the bikes off and (after a quick WD40 service) did some sightseeing around the town; Cable Beach (named after the telegraph cable was laid here over to Indonesia and then onto London) which was stunning, the Chinese and Japanese Cemeteries, Johnny Chi Lane and Gantheaume Point which has Megalosauropod Broomensis (sp?) footprints from over 140million years ago.  This dinosaur was like a 2m Tyrannosaurus Rex apparently.  Broome is world famous in dino terms as it has nine different types of footprint around it's ancient beaches, the usual maximum number for these things is three different types.  So I read on the info board anyway.  We couldn't find the actual footprints, but have a snap of the plaster-cast ones for good measure:

We got the auxiliary battery checked out as it still wasn't charging, and had it boosted from the mains, all now seems to be ok so we can chill the beer again.

And now I am writing this while Em is driving the next 100kms down the incredibly monotonous road of 600kms to Port Hedland, where we shall refuel, then drive another 600kms to Exmouth.  The roads are straight, there are mirages in every direction when you can see past the thin, straggly trees and there is terra cotta coloured "Pilbara" dust contrasting with the green and the blue, and that's about it!

Broome to Exmouth

AKA the most boring drive in Australia, so far yet.  Seriously, the road from Broome to Exmouth is very tedious.  There is nothing to look at.  Port Hedland is a mining/export town.  Karatha is pretty much the same.  There are a couple of "historical settler" towns and some pretty islands off the coast, but the road is inland so you have to go out of your way to see anything, even the crap towns sometimes. 

We have covered over 1300kms in two days, that's a lot of driving.  We swap over every 100-150kms to share the pain/boredom and we are getting through a lot of MP3s (thanks SJ!).

We also made a decision not to go to Karijini NP as we are fully "gorged out" and understand that is all there is, plus its a >400kms round trip to do it.  Also the Pilbara region is vast and I am sure has lots to look at and do if you have the time and the money for fuel.  Western Australia is big by the way.  I saw a map of Germany, UK and Japan overlaid onto WA and I reckon they would all fit into WA three times over.  That's three times each country, just to fill the state of WA!

So we are now in Yardie Creek Homestead (friendly Land Rover owners that run it!) waiting for tomorrow so we can get access to Cape Range NP.  The NP is home to Ningaloo Reef, one of only a few west coast reefs apparently.  You can snorkel, swim with the whale sharks and fish from your campsite near the beach and there is always a mad rush for the campsites so we have been told, so we are getting an early night ready to battle it out with some grey nomads tomorrow!  Can't wait.

Day to Day Stuff - Part II

As we are now in Western Australia, having travelled through Northern Territory, and I last wrote about day to day stuff when we were in Queensland I thought it appropriate to write another one as our routine has changed somewhat - mainly due to the weather!

Since leaving the Cape and travelling East to West across Gulf Country, NT and into WA via the Gibb River Road the days have been getting progressively hotter, and the nights too with some exceptions.  In the last couple of weeks especially, travelling from Kakadu to WA I am talking about 35-36 degrees in the day, not just for a while in the afternoon, but hitting 33 about 10am, then heating up to 36 by 4pm and dropping down to a "cool" 22-24" overnight!  Sometimes we have a decent nights sleep when it drops below 20 degrees, I am guessing that's what it is anyway!  To be honest me & Em are'nt cut out for this kind of weather as you can well imagine I expect!  So to beat the heat we wake up at sunrise (currently 5:30am in WA) when it is at its most cool, pack up the tent and mattress, etc. have brekky then get in the car as it's hotting up and basically try to drive for 8-9 hours until the sun is going down again!  Quite seriously, we have driven a lot of miles recently, which is fine as the car is comfy and we can pump the aircon out at 16 degrees.  Funnily enough I was going to say we hadn't seen or felt rain since we were in the Cape - and that was only large drops for a few hours, not really rain, but we had the same experience in the Bungle Bungles, large drops I mean.  It was really odd as it is so dry up here everywhere.  Apparently we are right in the edge of the "build up" to the wet season so clouds are becoming more frequent.  But we aren't missing the rain either, don't get me wrong, we just don't enjoy the heat all that much!

Apart from the weather then we are doing laundry when we need it, but aren't wearing much apart from swimming stuff, shorts and the odd t-shirt/singlet!  We resupplied on cryovacked meat in Katherine as we found a decent butcher there and are still going on that meat (Em made homemade meatballs for dinner last night, a recipe she had tried out with Nik before, mmmm meatballs).  Lunch stops are wherever is convenient, yesterday we were at the mighty Fitzroy River near Derby in WA, apparently there are numerous salties there, but we didnt see one.  The river is a shadow of itself at this time of year though I guess.  When we are out of fresh bread its mountain bread for lunch, with cheese, meat and cabbage (its lasts better than lettuce!).  On that note we have taken to wrapping fruit and veg in newspaper and putting them in our soft esky rather than the fridge, just as an overflow, but they seem to last quite well even in this heat.  Here's Em in the kitchen under the shade of a tree making wraps:

We tend not to camp in such proximity to people if we can avoid it, caravan parks are like a bad dream, but sometimes we have to.  Having met some really nice people so far on our travels too, I guess we feel a bit reluctant to spend time meeting others in a funny sort of way.  Strange.  But people can be annoying - the caravan park in Broome where I am writing this is a prime example of too many people in a small space....the backpacker's camping area reminds us of Glastonbury.  And of course with our accents we get pigeon holed by the caravan parks as they presume we are in a Wicked van too!  Enough of my rant....

What we try to do before we set off somewhere is - if we are staying near one - get to a waterhole or gorge/waterfall and have a swim.  At ELQ we went to Zebedee Springs which is a natural thermal springs (same as Mataranka and Katherine), you might think 32 degree natural spring water is too much on a hot morning, but actually it was lush, and the surroundings were stunning.  Otherwise a cool dip in fresh water is an unbeatable way to start the day.  I wish we could do it every day for the rest of our lives.  Can you buy property in the Bath area where you can tap into the thermal springs still I wonder?....

Looking back at the original Day to Day Stuff article, I was surprised how green the photos looked compared to the NT and WA ones, it really is dry up here.  And dusty.  And there are lots of flies.

 

Yeah, so that's about it for the second installment of day to day stuff I think.

Darwin to Broome Continued...

Now we were in Western Australia (WA).

At this stage the timezone changes and we go back in time 1.5 hrs, a weird feeling driving across timezones, normally one flies!  It messed us up for a few days as we woke up at 5:30 instead of 7:00 and were ready for lunch by 10:00, ready for dinner at 4pm etc. etc!  There is also quarantine for fruit and veg and honey (and dirt on your car) when entering WA from NT.

Onto the Bungle Bungles!  They (NP's) say it's the most beautiful place in Australia.  It is certainly quite stunning, but I haven't seen everywhere in Australia, so reserve judgement.  It is up there though.  Maybe this place should be more advertised than the Sydney Opera House (which is crap in my humble opinion) as it's more, I don't know, real?  And is more what "Australia" is about for sure; old and impressive...the road in is rough as hell, 52kms takes over an hour to drive, but it keeps out the caravans, and the tourist hordes too I guess.  The walks around the "beehive" formations and the other gorges and chasms were stunning, so tranquil for such a top spot.  Maybe that will change if they improve the road in one day.  We did spend some time there worrying about the dual battery though, as it didnt seem to be holding it's charge - a little drive perked it up for a while, but it was apparent the battery was struggling for some reason.  There wasn't much in the way of info around the site, and not much on Aboriginal usage of it, in terms of what they thought of it or used it in a ceremonial way anyway.  We enjoyed the Bungles and were glad of the strong recommendation from Darren and Nik (who also worked there as tour guides, and we can see why) to go there and not miss it.  They are sandstone mounds underneath striped layers of "other rock" and cyanobacteria - dont remember all the details, but they are old and fragile apparently.  And they suffer the rains in the wet season which would be an awesome sight.  They are 3.8 million years old in place.  1 billion less than the age of the planet.  That's impressive.  Ancient rivers carved out the gorges and chasms.

Out of Bungle Bungle country and in to Kimberley country:  We drove on sealed highway the "Great Northern Highway" up to the start of the "Gibb River Road"...a road trip we had been looking forward to almost as much as the Cape!  We decided not to go to the towns of Kunnunara or Wyndham, but instead headed to El Questro (ELQ).  A cattle station property of a million hectares (or acres, cant remember, anyway it's massive!) stretching right up to the North coast.  It was 30 odd kms down the GRR.  A bit of a shock was in store as the resort is owned by the hotel chain Voyages, and on getting to Emma Gorge you go into the reception where there are young men in shirts behind an air conditioned desk asking how they can help - a bit different to customer service elsewhere in Northern Australia!  We got the lowdown on where to camp (at the "Township") and also were told to do the Emma Gorge walk asap as it was getting dark soon.  The gorge walk was b*stard hot to start with as there was no shade, it was 3:30 (about the hottest part of the day here I reckon) and we struggled a bit before it got shady and the temp dropped.  The swimming hole at the end of the gorge was absolutely gorgeous - one of the prettiest we've seen and we were there on our own to add to it.  I swam in my underpants as I didnt have my boardies on.  Nice.

Driving back onto the GRR for a few more K and turning down into the main ELQ arena; another shock was helicopters, hundreds of people, a steakhouse, a shop and more lads in shirts serving us!  Unfortunately they really rip you off to stay here if you are already self sufficient in terms of accomodation: $30 for a "wilderness pass" (access to all their sites) and $30 per night camping - this is the most we have paid to camp anywhere in one night in the whole of Aus!  It's nice, but nothing you cant see in a National Park.  Anyhow we weren't tempted by the steakhouse amazingly (god knows what the price of their steak would be) and spent an uneventful night listening to the station diesel generator humming (wilderness experience, yeah right).  We packed up in sweltering heat, even before 9am I was sweating out of my arms, yes arms not armpits and drove up the made 4wd track to Saddleback Ridge for a typically splendid East Kimberley view over the station, quite a good, fun little 4wd track up a rocky steep and narrow track too.  Next off we headed to Zebedee Springs, the water temp bubbling out at 32 degrees, but it was still refreshing to have a dip after sweating so much packing the tent up!

Then we were onto the Gibb River Road proper.  It was corrugated, rocky, dusty, not too busy, not too slow.  I was a bit worried about getting a puncture, but knew we had some tyre repair rubber things and also a spare of course - and we had forked out $70 on 12v air compressor so we could pump up again should we successfully repair a tyre.  Some great lookouts on the way giving quite stunning views of the Kimberley, I could fall in love with the country, if it wasn't so damn hot and remote!  Another place they call a last frontier too interestingly.  Perhaps it felt more wild than the Cape, certainly it was more empty.  It's the size of Victoria with about 30,000 people living across it apparently.  The Gibb River Road is 660kms of dirt road (about 80 kms is sealed at the Derby end now).  The Kimberley region is dominated by rocky ranges and white or pink dusty and rocky plateaus.  Quite stunning.

We stopped at a little walk to a gorge, mainly to look at the Aboriginal art - as by now we are feeling gorged out! - the art was of note because the face looks....well I will let you decide what it looks like so I dont sound like a weirdo!      It's called a Windjana Head - Windjana being the local Aboriginal clan.  We also saw a water monitor up nice and close. 

We had decided on a place to camp already, and it had been recommended (by Daz and Nik again!); Bell Gorge.  The battery was still playing up at this stage and the fridge was struggling to keep our stuff below 4 degrees, so we were nervous about only being two thirds of the way along the GRR with no refrigeration, but knew we had to camp as the sun was fast going down, and there were cattle and roos flying across the road in front of me intent on being knocked down!  Camping was pleasant, but spoilt by a fat American guy snoring all night near our tent.  We seem unlucky with our choice of camping sites sometimes.  Oh well.  In the morning we were up early worrying about the fridge and knowing we needed to drive to charge the battery, so headed up the gorge for an early morning swim, very pretty it was too and we were the only ones there again!  On our way back there was a busload of tourists coming down, so we were lucky.  We also saw another water monitor, they seem to be getting more and more brazen.  The road in and out was quite rocky, always a worry when already worrying about punctures! 

The last section of the GRR was pretty and fairly easy going.  There was a rock formation called Queen Victoria's Head in one of the last ranges (Napier I think) we passed through before hitting the plains again.  Can you spot it?:

First town you hit when you finish the GRR is Derby.  A bit of a sad little town (reminded us of Normanton in Qld), but it does have a claim to fame...it has the second largest tidal range in the world (so half the time there are huge mudflats everywhere you look).  Reminded me of a kinda outback Weston Super Mare, maybe that's the first largest?!  Adi - can you add to this?  Thanks for your Early Man facts regarding Wookey Hole by the way, love it.  William Dampier was an early buccaneer-cum-explorer that poked around on this coast of Australia in the late 1600's.  I don't know much about him, but he is said to have buried some treasure near Derby.  Derby also has a Boab Prison tree which we were keen to see.  Aboriginal prisoners (slaves sometimes) were chained up here on route from the Kimberley, sometimes they were crammed into the tree.  Imagine, 35 degrees outside and chained up in a tree.  Cruel and bizarre.  One white settler was killed in the 1880s in response to the land being used for cattle grazing for the first time, which in turn sparked a frenzy of rounding up young male Aboriginals to quiesce the remainder of the tribe.  Clever thinking, me thinks not....

Some more info about the Boab trees, as they are common in this part of the country and quite a strange looking tree:

Em drove the boring road to Broome, passing some some roadworks where we listened to the roadworkers (doozers) on the UHF controlling the traffic - interesting stuff when you are bored - passed caravans, and a flotilla of old Citroen 2CV's! 

Two places I would like to go back to up here are Mitchell River National Park and Cape Leveque (if we don't go here when leaving Broome).  They are both quite a large detour from the route we were on and the roads not great apparently.  An excuse to come back one day I guess.....

We then spent a nasty few hours trying to find somewhere nice to camp in Broome and not be ripped off in the process, but it paid off as this is my view as I am writing this.  Yes the Indian Ocean really is that colour.  And yes you can swim in it (first time we have been swimming in the sea since the NSW coast we have worked out!).  And yes it is lush.  And now I think I will open a beer and enjoy the next 3 days camped right here, getting rid of the dust from myself (my feet don't look like mine they are so cracked and dirty!), the car and the tent - and there are no flies bothering us here which is great news: 

Things That Have Lasted and Things That Have Not

As the title says, an article on things that have lasted and things that have not, camping stuff mainly, I don't want to jinx anything on the car too much:

Tent: Unfortunately the zips are playing up so we might have to get them fixed by a canvas shop. 

Chairs: Both chairs have duck tape on them to stop the plastic from cracking anymore, one even has a splint and a large amount of duck tape, as I broke it's arm.

Table: For a cheap, crap camping table its lasting really well.

Bags: The pretty, floral bag that Vicki bought Em - it houses all our bedding and so gets thrown around a lot, but is lasting really well and getting a lot of use!  Camo bag on the roof - zip is knackered.  Cheap, crap grey rooftop bag from Supercheap lasting well, a bit torn from the wind.

Clothes: We will need an entire new set when we finish.  Dusty, dirty, torn, stained, etc. etc.

LP Gas: Of course it doesn't last, we use it for cooking, duh.

12volt Light:  Sadly it seems there is a dodgy earth connection or the starter element is knackered, $90 down the drain maybe.  Might try soldering it or ringing the company to get a warranty replacement.

Waeco fridge: All is good with the fridge itself, except....the second battery that we run the fridge off...it does not seem to be holding its charge.  Currently I have the fridge plugged in to the 240v supply in the caravan park at Broome and today we are going to an auto elec as I cannot figure out what is going on.  All the connections are ok, but I think it's either a problem with the battery or (hopefully not) the alternator....

Tyres: My Mickey Thompson tyres, although I have (touch wood) had no punctures as yet, are really badly chipped and will not be much good after this trip.

Sun shades in rear windows of car:  Em did everything right with this homemade invention, but the heat of the sun melted the glue for the velcro patches.  Duck tape should make them last a bit longer.

Bikes and rack: Not been used much, but they are still there and just need a service (or a WD40 bath).  The holder required a couple of modifications early on in the trip which are still holding out.

Roof rack: For a cheap job from Supercheap Auto it's still going strong.

Windscreen washer fluid reservoir: Cable tied in place as two retaining bolts shook loose on corrugations.  (I might list things on the car separately at the end of the trip, as it's quite amusing when you think about it).

Camping stove and table: Still going strong, but with some cable ties to hold table together now.

I think you get the picture that everything is being really torture tested on this trip and some of it is starting to fall apart at the seams.  Hey ho, that's what it is there for I guess, to be used I mean.