The tropics of WA (Kimberleys)

Now that the realities of the Tanami have faded from mind a bit (those corrugations, the dust, every afternoon seeing what fridge disaster awaited...the worst being natural yogurt and mayonnaise spread over the floor of the van..) I can now see the Tanami as an express route to the tropics! At one end we left Alice where we had been experiencing minus 2 degrees, and we were spat out the other end in north Western Australia where it is warm, balmy, tropical and full of crocodiles. Amazing. In Halls Creek we spent half a day cleaning out the van before heading onto Wyndham (via an overnight river camp) where we spent another good half day doing the same. I am amazed, yet appreciative, that people actually lent us their vacuum cleaners. Wyndham is the northern-most town of WA and a great little place where we enjoyed spending two nights at the Wyndham Caravan Park. It is a port town and we spend a morning up at the port precinct, meandering around. The kids loved the old meatworks trains which they could climb all over, we visited an old cemetery, I think Ayla's first, and it seemed to make quite an impression on her. We also visited the excellent museum with an incredible amount of info and artifacts and we browsed in Pixies Brick-a-brack store, with a heap of interesting memorabilia. Here's a photo of Pixie and Ayla.

This is Ayla putting some fallen frangipanis on the grave of a 6 month old baby (would be over 70 today)

We saw a crocodile in the nearby billabong, as well as a heap of birds from the birdhide and we had a great time swimming at The Grotto. The water is cold:

Then we headed onto El Questro. I found this initially a bit of an assault to my senses. In the middle of nowhere we came upon this place which reminded me of the cruise ships. El Questro is a privately owned Station but just happens to contain some of the most scenic and beautiful gorges and waterholes of the whole Kimberley. I would expect a place like this to be a National Park, but some bugger owns it! They make the camping experience very pleasant with gourmet BBQs, live music around the big campfire, even a trivia night one evening which Cem and I didn't fare too well in (John and Deanne, we needed YOU there with us!) and by the end of our 3 night stay I didn't mind it! It was 4WD territory, with nothing but this type of vehicle, and many so dirty and red it was difficult to tell what they were let alone read the plates. We spent two very pleasant days (one of them my birthday) walking up gorges and swimming in waterholes and under waterfalls. Our favourite was Amalia Gorge which the kids begged us to return to the next day, the natural rock diving board was the hit, with Kai bragging he did it 15 times, Cem also quite a few, Sol, Ayla and me happy with one time under our belt (with each of us overcoming a bit of fear to get ourselves off the rock in the first place) The water is still cold:

There are also thermal Springs called Zebedee which we started both mornings at. They really were like a bathtub and any later than our 7.30/8am visits would have been too warm.

We also hiked to both Emma Gorge and El Questro Gorge. They are all spectacular. This was our standard hiking gear:

And various water crossings were required. Obviously not too extreme but pretty exciting for us! There was one that was deeper than this one but Cem would not (unnecessarily) go through it an extra time for the sake of a photo....

The kids also had a horse ride at ElQuestro. They loved that. After 3 nights there and after the ride we headed to Kununurra, did a big shop and then headed straight out to Lake Argyle. The lake was beautiful, however again the 'resort' we ended up at is privately owned and not quite to our taste (or budget), so a quick afternoon sighting of the lake and then we pushed back to a beautiful bush camp on the river on the way in. This is it at dawn, before the sun rises, and then a few minutes later after the sun is up over the horizon. How much better than a resort is this campspot!?

This is Lake Argyle. Its the largest freshwater lake in Australia, covering over 2000 sqkm: