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:

Germany win the World Cup!

Congrats to all our German friends on this terrific result! Cem got up at 3am to watch it in the camp kitchen at our camping ground here in Wyndham, northern WA.

The Tanami

Perhaps we took on a bit more than we could chew with the Tanami. It was a tough slog, long and hard and painful, but at the same time Amazing (at least for me, not sure whether I can speak for Cem there). The Tanami Road, or 'the Track' is a 1077km long road from Alice Springs in the centre of NT to Halls Creek in the top of WA. After the initial sealed stretch comes the 753km of rough, corrugated, dusty, never-ending unsealed road.

You feel every corrugation, the going is slow and the scenery of the Tanami Desert becomes monotonous. But its still Amazing for reasons I find hard to explain. This is at the start, notice how clean the van is and compare this with the last photo.

The only other vehicles we saw were hard core 4WD's or 'troupies' (I'm thinking of our Pajero as a city-slicker 4WD) or the odd road trains. There were camper trailers but we only passed another caravan right at the beginning on the sealed section and right at the end, we have our doubts that there were indeed any other caravans on the Track at all. From beginning to end the number-count of these types of vehicles across the Tanami amounted to 16:

Broken down and deserted with no hope of getting them anywhere for repairs, or just not worth it because it is literally the middle of nowhere; so remote, and that's one reason why it is so amazing. There is no-one else but you, for miles. I'd say on average you probably pass about 8 or so cars a day (but often in convoy) so you can go for hours without seeing anyone else, and bar one night when we did have a neighbour, you camp by yourself and you know there is no one else anywhere near you. This is one of our nicer campspots (we had 4 nights on the Tanami), it was a lucky find, given mud-map directions earlier on in the day 'up behind the pyramid bore 160km down the track':

and this is another camp, at the truck resting area, because there was no other choice at that point in time, each night we had a fire and toasted marshmellows, the kids made their own tee-pee fire which they called the 'kids fire':

We were carrying spare, spare tyres for both the car and the van, so 4 spares in total. Didn't need them. One spot of bother (other than the bathroom door falling off its hinges) when a high pitched whining started from the front left wheel. Cem was excellent in diagnosing and remedying the problem. It was a stone stuck in behind the wheel, he eventually worked out, after removing the wheel and was (luckily) able to dislodge something from in behind it. We had a car pass us during this ordeal and as per usual, they stopped to see whether everything was all ok, we had just got the wheel back in place by then.

However, it seems you may be less fortunate in regards to having people stop for you if you are aboriginal. Cem stopped readily, knowing how much consideration and assistance we had been shown throughout this journey. These fellas had some wheel problems but not the right size spanner, we had all but the size they needed. While this was going on three, yes, three other cars flew past, with obviously no intention of stopping. These guys were from Balgo community which is latter half of the Tanami, and were heading into Halls Creek (324km) for a drink. Eventually they were able to do the trick with a bicycle spanner than Cem had in his tool bag and we left them with a bottle of water and wondered how the seven of them were going to cram into that car.

Earlier on in the trip we had stopped in at Yuendumu community and visited another art centre. We were also able to refuel and have a picnic lunch in the caravan where a dog ran off with one of Kai's Blundstones. Luckily we were able to retrieve it not too far off but we did cause some attention. By the time we got to Balgo community, however, which was a further 35km off the track, we just wanted to get some more corrugated miles behind us and drove straight past. The other junction in this area was the Canning Stock Route. This is an hard core track including sand dunes, commencing down near Wiluna in Central WA and transversing through the Gibson and Sandy Deserts. While refuelling at Tilmouth Well (at the start, still on bitumen) we met a son and his mum who had come that way. I have mentally made a note to keep it in mind for the future...... Otherwise there are not too many landmarks or interesting features on the Tanami, just the Tanami Desert, until you get to 111km before the end and there is the turn off to the Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater. Now that was amazing. Natures perfect circle. 800m diameter, now only about 20m deep but originally another 100m deeper. 300 000 years ago this massive meteorite hit the ground. Spectacular to see. It would be great to fly over, its also in the middle of nowhere. Here it is at sunrise.

Massive and many termite mounds were another feature of the track.

The last 111km we just wanted to finish. And we got there eventually. This is the honey sandwich, apple and tomato 'End of Tanami Party' at the quarantine bins at the end of the track, the rest we threw into the bins as we heard the blissful smooth sound of cars and caravans speeding along the Great Northern Highway 50 odd metres ahead of us. While the prospect of smooth roads seemed like heaven, it also bought the realisation that we would again be joining the caravan parade.

It was good to be over, but it was good to do, which is a bit crazy when really it is just a massive amount of slow going and bumpy dusty road. The kids travelled fantastically. The closest we got to a compliant the whole time was when Ayla commented 'we haven't really done anything interesting the last days'... Here we are on the Tanami, and the last 2 shots are at that final junction, turning onto tarmac, with only 16km into Halls Creek.

Alice and the Macdonnell Ranges

I love being in Alice! Tonight will be our fifth night here, its also my fifth visit to Alice Springs. Its rocky and dusty and a little bit rough around the edges and that's what I love about it.

Unfortunately our timing didn't coincide with Elly also being in Alice, however we are staying at Jane and Glenns (well actually over the road at the neighbours who are away because not much room and Jane and Glenns for the van). The last time I saw Jane and Glenn here was 15 years ago. Since then, between us there is 5 additional children. They have 3 beautiful daughters; Ruby (16), Rani (14) and Evie (12).

We arrived just in time for the Alice Show, one of the highlights of the Alice Springs calendar, and certainly the Marshall family's. Like the Royal Easter Show but with an original dusty, rural atmosphere, which I don't think Sydney Olympic Park provides. The girls and Glenn had multiple entries in the art, photography and cooking sections and collected many prizes. Fairy floss, livestock, dagwood dogs, showbags, dodgems.... we had it all!! Here are the kids, and Cem, enjoying the dodgems:

Our arrival into Alice was via the West Macdonnell Ranges and I have to say that my feet were a bit itchy to get onto the Larapinta Trail again... The previous night we had one of our most scenic camp spots of all at Tyler Pass Lookout, western end of West Macdonnell Ranges National Park; elevated and 360 degree views, but very exposed and windy. Here we are around the campfire. In the far background is Gosse Bluff.

Then a great day heading into Alice and stopping at the various landmarks, most of which I knew from the hiking I've done here, but great to share again with the family. Redbank Gorge was our favourite (but no camera with us!). Showed Cem the phone box in Glen Helen that I called him from while he was in Turkey doing Army service. Here's a photo of Simpsons Gap.

We also got the Pajero serviced in Alice as per its service schedule. This was the 15000km service, so a bit novel to do it here instead of Sydney! We visited the Old Telegraph Station which was well worth it. Cem also enjoyed watching some World Cup with Glenn. Otherwise Cem also then picked up some bug and was flat out on his back for a whole day. Had a picnic dinner with Jane at the Claypans as the sunset.

And the other thing was climbing the mountain at the back of the Marshalls house which gave a fantastic view. Sol became the mountaineer with 3 summits in total. You can actually see our caravan parked over the road, and the Marshall house opposite. That small spec on the road is Kai waving at us. And looking out the back of the mountain range you can see the mysterious Pine Gap off in the distance, no one knows what goes on there. Notice in the photo below the place we have our caravan parked. This is a family of 5 and they live in 3 'dongas', have a central shed type building which is their kitchen and lots of shade sails over their outdoor living areas. Interesting lifestyle.

Tomorrow is Kai's birthday. We will head out to the East of Alice, East Macdonnells; Trephina Gorge, Ross River, Rubys Gap and Gemtree on the Binns track. We will come back here for the night and then the following day we will finally tackle the Tanami and depart on the contentious Tanami Track across the Tanami Desert. This will be 4 or 5 days, we'll be totally out of range. Its a total of 1077km (753 unsealed) and quite remote. So the next post we will hopefully have crossed over into WA and will be at, or past, Halls Creek. We are also looking forward to it getting warmer from this point on, nights have been freezing here although days beautiful. Dad, please don't worry, will call you as soon as we can!

FOOTNOTE: Today was Kai's birthday and the day was much as described above except we didn't make it to Rubys Gap. Kai was pretty happy because we had croissants for breakfast, birthday cake for lunch, pizza for dinner and lots of lollies and chocolates in between.....
But the other amazing thing was that while looking for a reasonable and sunny breakfast stop, we bumped into my dear old (school) friends Leanne and Ross Murray and family (who I hadn't seen for a while) at Jessies Gap, just outside of Alice and so it was lovely to be able to catch up and share our birthday croissant brekky with them. They have followed a similar path as us from Sydney.

Some more shots of the day; Trephina Gorge, the old gaol at Arltunga historic town and Kai with his birthday cake (have you ever heard of travelling around central Australia in a pair of floral braces*!?*......)

Up and into NT

What a breeze driving on a sealed road (Stuart Highway) up into NT, could fly along! A short detour off the beaten track to the community of Iwantja where there is an Art Centre that welcomes visitors. This was the kids (and Cems) first experience of an aboriginal community and I think, for even the more hardened souls, they can be a bit confronting, especially as we couldn't immediately locate the Centre and had to make a few turns, and transversed a few streets a few times. Eventually someone signalled the right direction for us. It was great to see the work in progress, a busy studio situation, managed by Beth, one of 20 non-aboriginal people who live in Iwantja (the rest being mainly medicos and teachers).

Then onto our interesting camping location for the evening: The border. Literally. There are rest stops along the Stuart that permit '24 hour overnight camping'. Well, this one is obviously a popular one and I felt like I was at some caravan expo. We were lucky to get a position, pulling in late afternoon when obviously most others were already well settled. There was a white line across the road (see photo below) behind the last van, looking a bit like one of those lines at a corner or a driveway that indicated you cannot park beyond. It worried Cem and he wanted to move somewhere else. I reasoned that there was no 'no-parking' sign and I couldn't imagine the traffic inspectors coming here, and there wasn't anywhere else anyway. He reluctantly agreed. After looking around a bit, we eventually realised that it was actually the border painted across the road, a shame I hadn't parked the car a metre further forward then the car would have been in NT and the van in SA.

The next day, with great anticipation, we eventually arrived at Yulara Camping Ground and set ourselves up for a 4 night stay. Over the next 4 days we had the whole range of tourist experiences: rock at sunrise, rock at sunset, climbed the rock (tut tut), walked/cycled around the rock, Olgas, Olgas at sunset, camel ride, walks, talks, visitors centre. The Lot! At the sunrise talk I don't remember the last time I was so cold. The car registered -2 degrees that morning! Here at Yulara we crossed paths with the Inglis family from Warrawee Public School. This was planned. Fabulous to catch up with them, learn of their adventures and get some good tips for our road ahead. Walking around the rock we also coincidently bumped into Giselle Lees and family also known from WPS...

Leaving Uluru, we are heading around the back way via Kings Canyon and the West Macdonnell Ranges and into Alice. This is a rough old road, the worst of all the unsealed roads we have been on, but at the same time, so nice to be out bush again and to have the landscape to yourself, and escaping the circus of areas like Yulara! Here is Kings Canyon, 2 weeks previously a woman had fallen and died here. Could see how this could quite easily happen.