Perth Airport

Going home.

Bugger

Broome

Couldn’t get out of the habit of getting up early so went in to town on the first bus….Broome is a pretty small place but a big tourist town. The town seems full of art galleries and shops selling pearls (Broome is a historic pearling town). Spent the morning just browsing the shops.

Got the bus back to Cable beach around lunchtime and just spent a couple of hours round the pool and down on the beach.

Found that Broome also has ‘Break glass in case of Emergency Vinegar’ on the the beach for Stingers…no problems today as its not that time of year. This bit of Cable beach is the ‘busy’ end. Its goes on for 22km north and you can easily find your own few Km’s to yourself.

 

About mid afternoon the Camels started being led out onto the beach for the the sunset rides

Not being the slightest interested in Camels I’d decided to do a Kayaking trip off Cable Beach. Broome Adventure Kayaking picked me up at about 3pm. There were fifteen of us. As I was on my own I was ‘buddied' in the 2 man kayaks with Kim – one of the organisers. Kim was very nice but she was probably less than impressed with my paddling technique!

We just paddled slowly round to Gantheaume point and landed at a small beach. Had a drink and a few nibbles and explored some of the caves. Started to paddle back about 5pm and stopped paddling to watch the sunset into the sea, just bobbing on the calm sea…the colours as the sun disappeared into the Indian Ocean were pretty spectacular.

Got back to shore about 5:30pm and after a shower, made my way to the Divers Tavern to meet Tim Grylls for a beer. Tim is the Kimberley Wilderness Adventures guide that had taken us across the Kimberly. He gets to spend his time travelling through this beautiful country and get paid for it…not that I’m jealous at all.

Still in denial about leaving tomorrow….might just go ‘bush’ for a while rather than going back to work. My visa doesn’t run out for another 8 weeks yet!

Fitzroy Crossing to Broome

Saturday 13th June – Last day of the journey across The Kimberley. Left Fitzroy crossing and made our way to the last gorge of the trip – Geike Gorge. We met our guide for the gorge, Bill and went on a three hour cruise up the gorge. We stopped at one point to climb to the top and take in the view. The striped colour of the gorge walls is caused by the flood waters of the Fitzroy river scouring the gorge walls clean. Interesting fact : The Fitzroy has an annual flow second only to the Amazon. What makes this amazing is that almost all that flow happens in just the few months of the wet.



After lunch it was time to leave Geike gorge for the last leg of the journey. I got a birthday card at lunch for tomorrow, which was very nice. Then it was the 400Km drive to Broome. We had a couple of quick stops. First at a 2000 year old Boab tree then at a Roadhouse. I found a tasty Aussie treat to take back to work rather than the normal chocolates.


Finally reached Broome at about 17:30. From Darwin we’d travelled 4700Km. The most direct route is only 1950Km but we’d done some big detours – the longest ones being the Bungles and the trip up the Mitchell Plateau and back.
Took a quick walk down to Cable beach. Saw the long lines of camels that are used for sunset camel rides being led along the beach. I personally can’t stand camels. Nasty, cantankerous, smelly spitting things.

Imintji to Fitzroy Crossing

After our last night in a camp we made our way west again on the Gibb River Road, crossing the King Leopold ranges.

We crossed the Lennard River and brought an ice cream from possibly the worlds most isolated ice cream vendor. An old guy who lives in a shack next to the Lennard river and sells ice creams…

After leaving the Lennard River, we turned off the Gibb River road down the Fairfied ?? Track. We covered almost the entire length of the Gibb, there’s was about 100km left before it reverts to Bitumen again.

Arrived at Windjana gorge at about 10:30. Windjana is in the Napier ranges.

Spotted loads of Freshwater crocodiles…

Next stop was Tunnel Creek. Tunnel creek is….a creek that runs in a tunnel (under the Napier Ranges). With our torches we all made our way to the entrance then clambered down a ledge into Tunnel creek. At this time of year the water wasn’t actually very deep – just below knee height in the deepest spot. The creek runs for about 750 metres under ground with some daylight about a third of the way where there’s been a tunnel collapse. We walked the length of the tunnel then walked back. We saw the orange glint of the eyes of a few fresh water crocodiles in the torch beams. Everyone was pleased that the whole group had made it through!

We left Tunnel creek for the drive to Fitzroy crossing. Fitzroy crossing is a tiny little place where the Gt. Northern Highway crosses the Fitzroy river. We stayed at the Fitzroy River lodge and had the last group dinner.

Bells Gorge

A fairly relaxed day today. I got up early and went for a short walk as the sun was coming up.







After breakfast we headed off to Bells Gorge. Bells Gorge is yet another beautiful Kimberley gorge that has a waterfall with good swimming. This time at both the top and bottom of the falls. We had lunch at Bells gorge, prepared by Imintji camp and headed out of the gorge at 1pm after a good long swim. By this time the shade had disappeared and no one fancied sitting around in the hot sun. At one point some aboriginal kids were leaping off the side of the gorge into the plunge pool at the bottom…this looked suicidal to me but they all seemed unharmed.






After leaving Bells Gorge we headed to a lookout over part of the King Leopold Ranges before having an early arrival back at Imintji camp at about 15:30




This evening was our last evening in a camp. Next stop is Fitzroy Crossing then on to Broome.

Gibb River Road cont.

Wednesday 10th June. Had an early start and left Marunbabidi camp at approx 07:00am. I liked Marunbabidi, it was the most basic of the camps we’ve stayed at with no ensuite bathrooms or power points but I felt it had a authentic ‘bush’ feel. This was helped by the fact that the camp is small and and staffed by only 3 people.
After leaving we continued back down the Kulumburu Road, stopping briefly at Drysdale station again.
We got pictures of Tim bringing the truck across a creek that’s name escapes me right now.










Finally reached the Kulumburu Rd. junction with the Gibb River Road and then continued westward down the Gibb.
Next stop was Barnet River Gorge, about 3km off the Gibb along a particularly bad track. Tim led us down to a swimming spot. Most of the group swam but myself and Ray fancied a walk so we went exploring upstream along the gorge. We found a rocky path marked by a series of stone cairns that after a lot of rock hopping, led down to a lovely spot further upstream.




We had a good lunch at Barnet River Gorge then carried on to Galvans Gorge. Galvans Gorge is a beautiful little spot with a swimming hole fed by a waterfall. The Kimberley has 100’s of these types of gorges and we’ve only scratched the surface really. After swimming at Galvans we resumed the journey west along the Gibb.


A Black headed Python on the road caused a bit of excitement. We avoided running it over but Tim (the tour guide...not me) decided to rescue it off the road before it became an ex-python. I touched a snake for the first time ever!





After the python, another 20kms or so brought us to Imintji camp – our stay for the next two nights. Like Muranbabidi, Imintji also has no ensuite bathrooms but it has got 240v power so I can charge the laptop. Imintji seems about twice the size of Marunbadidi and is set in a nice spot at the bottom of a range.