Very easy to spend time in Broome

Tonight is our 7th night in Broome. How did that happen? The days just roll by and I don't think we are in any particular rush to go, however our campsite, the good old SDAs, has a maximum 7 night stay, so we had better push on and explore more of WA. Its certainly not difficult to hang out on Cable Beach, a beautiful long and wide stretch of beach with fabulous turquoise water, where we have had quite a few visits at various times of day, with different swell conditions from flat to quite big waves. Its so easy to get around Broome, after a week I feel I can navigate all its streets and get where I need to with ease. Oh how I wish Sydney were like that. We haven't seen a single traffic light in Broome. Beautiful balmy evenings, great 'summer' days. In between the beach visits we have also had several visits to Broome Aquatic Centre where we have splashed about and I've worked out that I can still swim. One morning I even got up and joined the 6am swim squad. And at another visit the rumble tumble between Cem and the kids was too vigorous and Cem lost his front tooth (crown). Fortunately we were able to find an emergency dentist. The Port area was beautiful and the jetty walk was the freakiest one I've done (I'm not very brave with heights) - high, open metal mesh walkway and no proper balustrade. Here's some photos from our afternoon at the port area:

Lots of beautiful sunsets in Broome, and lots of great vantage points. Saw a few at Cable Beach. Also a couple at the rocky point called Gantheaume Point, which is truly a spectacular piece of Australian coastline.

Ayla has met a little friend called Erin, and her brother Isaac is also getting on well with Kai and Sol. They are part of an unique and inspiring family of seven which also includes their 4 other sisters and mum Colleen. So that's seven of them, plus 2 dogs, have been travelling for 7 months from Tassy and are all in the one 3 x 3m tent, also at the same campsite as us. So, our 'movie nights' back at the van now have a larger following:

One afternoon we spent out at the Crocodile and Wilderness Park just outside of town. 3pm is the croc feeding. We were within 10-20cm of these creatures, the 'salties', with just a bit of tennis court fencing wire in between. So lazy and not bothered to spend any extra energy than necessary, yet so strong and deadly, and by far Australia's deadliest predator, the next being the dingo.

Look how cute this dingo is, and its second to the saltie.....

Had a bit of an education on the pearling industry by visiting the Pearl Luggers in town; originally it was just the mother of pearl shell that was dived for. There were a huge amount of Japanese, among others, who came to do this. Today they 'culture' the pearls, they are not natural, the shells are 'seeded' up to 4 times, by sticking in a seed which 'grows' into a pearl. This morning before breakfast Ayla and I rode our bikes around, passing the school kids as they got to school, as well as a visit to the Japanese cemetery. So many Japanese, all of them here for the pearl diving, and so many of them dying from the 'bends' of which little was known back then. The Japanese also severely bombed Broome during WW2, second worst bombing in Australia after Darwin. Heaps of civilian deaths. There is a lovely memorial park we came across.

Back to Cable Beach and another sunset there. It is a very long beach, and there is one section where you just drive your car down onto the beach and can then just drive for kms. That was novel, driving on the beach. Sunset is also when the camels do their thing on Cable Beach so we captured a few shots of that too.

Tomorrow Cem, Sol and Ayla are getting up early to go and see the dinosaur footprints at Gantheaume Point. They are only visible when the tide is low enough and that is not too often, however we have noted in our guide that tomorrow morning at 6.40am is one of these rare times. Similarly, the famous 'Stairway to Heaven' is also only visible at certain times (full moon) however our timing is fully off for that with this visit! Then we pack up, bid farewell to the SDAs, deposit our caravan at a holding spot and venture with our tents up the track to Cape Leveque.

Footnote re Footprints: We couldn't get the kids up, so Cem and I actually headed out to Gantheaume Point to try and locate the fossilised dinosaur footprints. It was nice to see the sunrise and the very same location as I had seen it set the evening before. The search for the footprints was interesting, a bit like searching for a needle in a haystack:

No one really knew the exact location, just that the tide this morning was supposed to allow us to see one of the 3 sets in this area, for the other two, the tide needs to be even lower. After a while I saw a rocky outcrop with what looked like some red paint splashed on it, I had to wade through knee deep water to get there, and by that time the tide was starting to turn. Sure enough, there it was! I yelled to Cem that I'd found it, and a hundred people rushed over....

Everyone was happy.

Broome - I love the SDAs!

We have just arrived in Broome and its Cems birthday. We left Windjana and the crocs this morning, stopped in Derby and had picnic birthday cake in the park, after walking around the jetty:

and then we headed on into Broome in the late afternoon. In the holiday season the camping grounds of Broome are not sufficient to accommodate the number of travellers and so the council therefore permit other organisations to open their doors to campers for a short period during the peak. These are the 'overflow' campgrounds of Broome. Sue and Graeme Inglis had recommended the Pistol Club to us and so that's where we first headed. We had promised the kids a few things for this evening, one of them being a powered site, and the Pistol Club had none of those for this evening, although they could do it tomorrow. Well, I'm glad, because I'm feeling quite elated about where we have ended up! I think the elation also stems from the fact that the last few days, while spectacular, have also been tiring and we can now set ourselves up for a few days, recover and regroup, but also, our campspot is delightful! Since moving to Fox Valley some of the dearest people we have got to know are SDAs, and I've done some fabulous (vego!) cooking courses up at the San, so in a way it feels familiar here at the SDA Overflow Campground. The amenities are the freshest I have ever seen in a campground, complete with little 'toilet' and 'bathroom' plaques on each of the WCs and shower cubicles!:

The temperature is perfect and I love our private little 'courtyard' outside the van. We have spot 13, so if anyone is coming, request that spot because its the best in the place! The other two promises to the kids (they have been doing a lot of walking with us lately....) were what we would eat for dinner: pumpkin spaghetti, they love that, so I got that made, and the final promise was that we would watch 'Madagascar' together. Well, we were able to come good on that promise as well. Here is our outdoor viewing in our little private (red-dust-free) paradise:

Looking forward to what Broome has to offer and to spending a little bit of time relaxing here. We are booked in for 4 nights to start.

Some more Big Rocks in the Kimberley

After leaving Wyndham/Kununara area, we were backtracking for a few hundred kms back along the Great Northern Highway which is the main road linking Darwin and Broome, back through Halls Creek, past the Tanami turn off and in the direction of Broome. (We have some important business to do in Broome which I'll elaborate on later). On this route there were a few more Big Rocks to visit. The first of these being the Bungle Bungles at Purnululu National Park. Until we got to the highway turnoff, we thought we would be able to take the van up to the National Park and camp inside it, however we soon learnt that double axles were not permitted up the 50km track to the park. Fortunately there is a campground at the head of this track, which, thanks to this rule, gets a lot of business. We had a pleasant rough camp down on the river and prepared ourselves for a big day tomorrow. We got a good early start and headed up to the park. It has a south end and a north end. It is the south end which has the unique dome shaped rock formations that the Bungles Bungles is famous for and that's where we headed first. A lot of walking, up to 'The Window', spectacular walking but temperatures increased and there were no swimming opportunities as we had been used to, and by lunchtime the kids were getting a bit tetchy.

After lunch we headed to the north side where we explored the unexpected delight of Echidna Chasm. An amazing feeling to be walking through the centre of a mountain, the walls embedded with smooth rounded stones that had tumbled down a river 360 million years ago...*#! The walk through the chasm was about a km long, and in parts very narrow. The coolness was much welcomed. The kids thought they were Indiana Jones! It was quite spectacular although these photos won't do it much justice.

We left the north area, and the park, as the sun was going down which gave us spectacular colours on the rocks, but also meant that we had to drive back in the dark and got in very late. Dinner was a quick and easy affair, we were all pretty exhausted and slept well.

Also along the route is Geike Gorge just outside of Fitzroy Crossing - a sealed road all the way, what a treat! Another late afternoon exploration of the gorge, much cooler then, and the light is so beautiful. After that, we headed back into Fitzroy Crossing in the dark but had a good feed at the very civilised tourist lodge before heading onto a quick one-nighter camp at the junction of our next turnoff.

One (at least I) need mental preparation for the rough roads out here, certainly had that for the Tanami. Not sure if I quite had it for the next days travels out to Tunnel Creek and Windjana Gorge. A thankful respite 80km later when we finally arrived at Tunnel Creek. I had heard about the experience and it was pretty much as I thought it would be, that is, pretty spectacular and a lot of fun. Its about a km long and is literally a creek running through a tunnel of rock caves and you have to wade through with your torches. It was also the hideout of Jandamara, the famous aboriginal activist who was eventually shot dead by the police here, after he had also shot some police earlier.

And at the end of the tunnel there was another swimming opportunity:

Back on the track another 35km (and each one was counted) up to Windjana Gorge where there is a campsite and we set up for the night before heading down to another dusk viewing and a 3.5km (7km return) walk along this spectacular gorge. There were at least 20 freshwater crocodiles to be seen suspended in the water, and the next morning, before we left, we came down again and saw them all sunning themselves on the banks.

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: