Day 62: 30 July – Gas plants and sheep stations

Author: Mr A

From: 40 Mile Beach

To: Giralia Station (Exmouth Gulf)

Distance driven: 385 km

Distance hiked: 5.6 km

We had to tear ourselves away from our cliff top view this morning, and the first job of the day was a visit to the gas plant up the road. ‘Why?’…you might well legitimately ask. Well it was the only place listed on Wiki Camps where you could get water for hundreds of kilometres. So we joined a queue of other water-poor vanners and waited our turn, in the interim picking the brains of the other grey nomads about where to camp heading south. Catherine didn’t reach for her camera. We donated a few dollars to the Royal Flying Doctors as a payment.

Ms Google’s instructions for the day; ‘Turn right in 335 kilometres’. A short stop for lunch then another spell behind the wheel and we were soon turning off the bitumen onto the dirt road leading to our home for the next two nights…a 700,000 acre property that used to be a Marino sheep station. Its current business status is uncertain. 


Off we marched for our late afternoon exploration down a walk called the ‘kangaroo trail’. A couple of big reds obliged us with their presence, their fur glowing in the setting sun. We sat on a seat and I pondered with Mrs A about all the decisions, risks and luck, that had brought us to this place, this moment in time. 


Back to the mobile apartment and we joined a group of our fellow travellers round a campfire. It was a lovely atmosphere, listening to all these people (some even older than me, yes) laugh and tell their stories about life on the road. A Polish couple in their late 60’s were a hoot, sipping away at their home made bourbon, bringing a shot glass over for me to try. Suddenly up the guy jumps and starts telling a very risqué joke to the whole crowd. Brilliant…a moment to file away and smile about. 


We crept away when food pangs overtook us and Mrs A is rustling up a chicken saté. I know many of you are saying to yourselves  ‘Doesn’t he ever cook?’ And no, I don’t do dinner or lunch. I’m let lose on a BBQ brekky but that’s it. My role is sole driver and  executer of tall and dirty jobs (e.g. porta potty emptying – enough said). 

Day 61: 29 July – 4.5 miles of 40-Mile Beach

Author: Mrs A

Location: 40 Mile Beach

Distance hiked: 7 km

It was a somewhat disturbed night as the wind got up and flapped our awning around – we had to get up at 2.30am to put it away – along with several other neighbours. We had a bit of a sleep in as a result, not waking until around 8.30am – bliss! It was an unusual start to the day, there were these white things in the sky…c…c…clouds I think they are called. We have not seen any of those since about mid May! They didn't hang around for long.

We packed up a lunch and our swimmers and decided to explore the beach.


We barely saw another person all day – a couple of guys fishing near the camp area, and then a lady on a stand up paddle board coming from a boat moored at the other end of the bay, otherwise just us. We stopped after 3.5 km, where there were no other footprints and jumped into the ocean for a swim – just heavenly.

We were entertained by a pair of White Breasted Sea Eagles on our walk back for hot showers and cold drinks.

The clouds returned just in time for sunset, making for a fabulous display and a fitting end to the day – nature's fireworks. We've really enjoyed our time at Gnoorea Point, but it is time to move on tomorrow, heading a couple of hundred km south to a former 700,000 acre sheep station…should be interesting!

Day 57: 25 July – Biking & paddling Millstream

Distance cycled: 16 km

Time paddled: 90 minutes

Distance paddled: unknown

As always we awoke to a stunning morning – about 16 degrees, blue skies and promise of a 30 something degree day ahead. Life is easy when the weather is totally predictable. We decided to head off out on our bikes while it was cool, and first of all paid a visit to the old 1930s homestead, from back when this National Park was a horse, sheep and cattle station. There was a lot of information about the Aboriginal cultural heritage of the area which continues to this day, plus an interesting depiction of life here early last century. We continued our tour along a wetlands trail to a sacred lake behind the homestead, and then along a fantastic 8km cycle trail completely off road, leading through the gum forest and through spinifex filled open desert to a fabulous viewing point over the Fortescue River.


We returned from our cycle to have a BBQ brunch and relaxed through the heat of the day.

Around 2pm we headed off to find somewhere new to paddle. We spotted a road heading down to the river and decided to park by the closed gate and hike off down for an explore. We were just opening the doors of the car and we saw a WA National Parks Ute reversing swiftly towards us. A stern woman brusquely told us were not allowed off piste, and that down that unmarked trail was an Aboriginal cultural area visitors could not access. 

National Parks in Western Australia are quite different to those in NSW, which rarely patrols its areas (meaning everywhere is open to visitors), and certainly doesn’t seem to fiercely protect Aboriginal zones. This is not the first time we have been told we cannot freely explore a park – a Karijini ranger also told us to stick the the allocated trails there. It does explain why the parks are always so busy, with everyone constantly channelled down the same avenues. 


We ended up going back to Deep Reach along the Fortescue River, inflating our kayaks and setting off for an explore. We saw many birds this afternoon, reed warblers, rainbow bee-eaters, honey eaters, firetails, ibis, herons, black kites…the list was endless, and stunning reflections on the water.


On our way back to the car I managed to stop Mr A from stepping on a rather stunning cream and brown patterned snake which was crossing the pathway. It coiled up and threatened to strike at us, its pink mouth open and hissing in our direction. We waited until it decided to retreat back into the bushes before continuing, unsure whether it was poisonous or not. Back at the mobile apartment I checked it out in our ‘Reptiles and Amphibians’ book – it was a Stimson’s Python – non-venomous…so I didn’t save Mr A’s life after all…!

Nevertheless, we celebrated with a home cooked dinner of Beef Rendang and a delicious bottle of Penfold’s 2013 Bin 8 Cab-Shiraz. 

Day 56: July 24th – Millstream National Park byPacKraft 

Author: Mr A

From: Hamersley Gorge

To: Millstream National Park

Distance: 160 km of dirt

It was a brilliant drive today across the endless plains of acacia, the red dirt kicked up in clouds as we followed a network of roads across country. We had fuelled up with a BBQ of eggs on toast just after dawn, then set off expectantly into another glorious blue sky day.


Arriving at Millstream-Chichester National Park at midday we bagged ourselves a brilliant camp spot. Almost surrounded by woodland, birds were everywhere, this is one of the best we’ve had. Bit of an issue though when I was filling up the water from our drinking water tank….it was so cloudy I could hardly see through the glass! We are thinking the Pilbara dust has penetrated the tank somehow. A problem for another day, can’t solve it here. Better drink beer instead of water then!


We decided to check out the local waterhole, Deep Creek, in the packrafts. Litttle corellas were stridently letting us know with their raucous cries we were invading their territory.  Egrets, great cormorants, straw necked ibis, royal spoonbills, white necked herons…this place was twitching central. The packrafts are great for this type of wander down a river, providing a stable but manouverable platform to take some photos, peer through bins, or just take a snooze!


As the sun started to dip it was back to base for vodka and soda, nibbles and a reflection on the day….just marvellous. As for dinner…well tonight it was me manning the BBQ with lamb cutlets and roast sweet potatoes sizzling away. Mrs A added the magic with stir fried veggies in a van made satay sauce. I produced a Konunga Hill Shiraz Cab blend from the depths of the cellar (who needs a shoe cupboard, really?) and the night was made. 

Day 55: 23 July – Tom Price & Hamersley Gorge

Author: Mrs A

Distance driven: 83 km

Distance hiked: 2.2 km (Yes, mostly in the car!)

Flights climbed: 10 floors

After praising the Savannah Campground for its peace and quiet we were disappointed last night when a group of camper trailer toting friends turned up late and set up right opposite where we were camping. They then cracked open the beers and yelled across to each other until long after midnight, despite Mr A politely asking them to quiet down (he was told to ‘f-off’) and apparently the retreat manager told them on two occasions also. So this morning, we packed up and departed, forfeiting tonight’s booking (‘no refunds’).

We headed first for the nearby town of Tom Price, where we hoped to gain a permit to take the shorter mining road to Millstream-Chichester National Park. Unfortunately the information centre told us it was in terrible condition as there was a new mine opening along it, and that caravans were not allowed. We had no choice but to add 200 km to our journey and go via the ‘highway’ (a rough, corrugated gravel road!).  We stocked up on fruit and vegetables while in town and headed off.


As tends to be the case, our change in direction and plans was not bad. We passed the outer southern side of Karijini National Park and a final gorge which is visited by few. This made it our favourite location as we pulled in for lunch, and then hiked down into the gorge. What a fabulous spot. Absolutely stunning reflections and rippling sediments in the walls which any landscape designer would be jealous of. We sat for a while with our feet in the water, enjoying the serenity and watching the fish swimming beneath us, cautiously eyeing my blood-orange coloured toenails.


We decided against driving any further, and pulled into a bush camp nearby. It is by far one of the most stunning locations we have camped. Yes, of course there are other campers here (‘You’re never alone in WA’), but they are at least 200 metres away from us in any direction. We are surrounded by stunning hills of the Hamersley Range all around us and the chirps of Rainbow Bee-eaters, Firetails and Zebra Finches. I think we are going to be happy here tonight!

Day 54: 22 July – Exploring more gorges in Karijini 

Author: Mr A

Distance hiked: 5km

Floors climbed: 22

A pleasant day spent wandering around more gorges. A short drive took us to a lookout (Oxer) with a commanding view over several of the gorges we were planning to clamber down into. It looked a long way down, but the first hike in was a relatively easy scramble down the red rocky path. This was Weano Gorge, where briefly we were alone – around 10 treasured minutes I think. The silence was wonderful. Alas, soon we were with the hordes again. My only explanation is that the areas we have been visiting so far in WA contain very few roads, and limited places you can actually access and walk, so everyone is funnelled to the same places. Also, NSW, Victoria and the central and southern parts of WA are all relatively cold currently, so every tourist and grey nomad in Australia has only three choices during our winter if they want the sun (and who doesn’t!) – Queensland, northern WA, or the Northern Territory. Anyway I digress. 


We soon came to the end of where I was prepared to clamber. A very cold wade followed by a swim would have taken us to the end…wasn’t keen. 


The next gorge (Hancock) was graded as a class 5 walk all the way. The scale goes from 1 (easy) up to 5 (for mountain goats as far as clumsy me is concerned). Down we went, not too bad I thought, just before I stumbled and nearly ended up taking a far too fast route down head first. At the bottom (phew) we clambered along the side of the water that amazingly still flows in the dry season.  


The next stage was boots off time and wading through icy cold water across a pebbly creek bed. I was persuaded against my better judgement by my lovely (younger) wife. The final leg would have involved gripping onto a ledge and sliding along the side of the cliff. No thanks… Ah well..getting old I suppose. A stiff climb out and we were done walking for the day. Time for an iced mocha at the Karijini Eco Retreat. Quite civilised really. 

Day 52: 20 July – A walk into paradise

Author: Mr A

Distance hiked: 8.5km

Floors climbed: 19

Dales Gorge is one of the highlights of Karijini NP. We packed lunch and headed out to explore it on foot. The path disappeared down its vertical side – however, steps hewn into the iron stone rock made the climb down relatively straightforward. Soon we were clambering along the rocks beside the river bed, watching a heron shaking its spindly leg in the water to disturb some mid morning snacks which are soon snaffled down.


The reflections of the sheer gorge walls in the water were stunning.

We retraced our steps and headed along to the other end of the gorge, constantly gawking at this breathtaking scenery. 


Another pool with a waterfall and it was time for lunch. What a feast the master chef had prepared. 9 different types of fresh veg, mixed with rice noddles, add a hot sauce and we were in heaven. I brewed up a cuppa and we just sat next to the waterfall and again recounted how lucky we are to be living like this. Every day there’s something to admire, laugh at, or learn about. 


Back to camp and another chilled afternoon, reading and painting (madam not me of course) – I busied myself rigging some tarp for shade, which promptly blew up in the first breeze and knocked water over madam’s iPad. No laughing then…

Day 51: 19 July – Karijini National Park – Dales Gorge

Author: Mrs A

From: Two Camel Creek rest area

To: Dales Campground, Karijini National Park

Distance driven: 145 km

Distance hiked: 5.5 km

We were amazed to find we both actually had a relatively good night’s sleep in spite of the regular road train traffic on the nearby highway – I can’t say how deep it was, or vouch for the quality, but we didn’t feel dreadful when we woke up at 6am. We set off after breakfast, continuing up the highway and marvelling as the landscape changed from the flat spinnifex filled Little Sandy Desert to iron filled rolling hills and rock walls.

We arrived at our campground at around 11.30am and set up and unhitched. After a light lunch we headed off in the car out to the Visitor’s Centre, about 11km away. Our original plan was to stay here three nights, but we have decided that two will be enough. The campground is pretty sparse and dusty – nice big sites, but very little undergrowth returned since the fires here in May. We called our next campground, also in this national park, to move our booking back a day. 

The Visitor Centre was really interesting – very focused on the Aboriginal communities who lived here for tens of thousands of years, before becoming displaced by European settlers. It was uncomfortable to see how they were virtually enslaved to work on the cattle stations here, and how landmarks were renamed (eg one named as ‘Nameless Hill’) despite having an extremely long standing Aboriginal name. Cultural respect anyone?

 

And then there are the ecological impacts of Europeans. They/we introduced cattle to the Pilbara region. The Pilbara (Karijini sits within this region) is a semi-arid ecosystem, extremely delicate, balancing long months with no rain at all against the ‘wet’ where the whole region floods and rivers and waterfalls increase their depth by up to 20 metres. The cattle trampled the earth and ate the native grasses, which did not grow back without rain and the now solid trampled earth did not allow the seeds to germinate. So the pastoralists brought over some new grass from Africa which grew nicely here. In fact this grass sent out poison from its roots and killed most of the other plants, so it grew really well…the story goes on and on. It makes you shudder to think of the damage done here! There was no research done prior to the introduction of feral species so it is hard to know how the flora and fauna was impacted by this.


In spite of Europeans, this is a really interesting area. We took a stroll from our campground this afternoon to the Dales Gorge rim track, a number of lookouts over the gorge. It is extremely beautiful and very spiritual – you feel very connected to nature. We sat at one place for a while, enjoying the view and the birds that were soaring over the pools and trees below us.

I am writing at beer/vodka-soda-with-fresh-lime o’clock as we watch the sun dip down behind the hills. The temperature is already dropping and it is likely to be another 10 degree C night. Makes for very good sleeping! Tonight is not an AFD and we are even allowed wine tonight with our Thai green curry with Spanish Mackeral and vegetables. Lucky us!

No light pollution here, making for an incredible night sky…many photos taken 🙂 

Day 19: Emma Gorge

Author: Mrs A

We had a lazy start to the morning before heading off in the car back up to the Gibb River Road and backtracking towards Kununurra about 11km to Emma Gorge. 

Emma Gorge is another resort area, predominantly cabins and a restaurant – no camping. In the 1990s it, along with El Questro, was purchased by a couple for $1 million Australian dollars – 1 million acres, a dollar an acre – as Mr A mentioned yesterday. A million was probably small change for that couple, one being an heir to the Penguin books empire in the UK and the other being heir to the Myer department store network in Australia. They built up the business and sold it on for about $13 million in about 2005 to a resort management company which also manages Uluru (Ayers Rock).

Hiking up the gorge

Our visit, however, was not to the resort, but rather the gorge behind it, named after one of the daughters of the original land owners. It does feel somewhat uncomfortable thinking about the ‘owners’ of land around here, given the evidence of the indigenous land custodianship we see about. There is little mention of that here, though we hear there are many discussions happening with the aim of clearing the bad blood between the populations. We have heard of mass murders of Aboriginal people in the Kimberley (like in many areas of Australia) in the 1800s that remain raw.


Our initial impression was that this gorge would be far easier to tackle than El Questro Gorge, with the start of the track being relatively flat and sandy. It soon changed, however, back to clambering over river rocks, often slippery and the pathway challenging to see as it cris-crossed across the creek. As always the scenery was stunning, surrounded by sandstone walls and rocks which had fallen and often showed fossilised ripples from the shallow sea they once made up. The rocks in these parts pre date any life on earth, so other than ripple-rock there is little other fossilised evidence.

As we climbed, the gorge walls began to close in, initially bringing us to a stunning turquoise pool, and then after final clambering, the final pool, with several waterfalls spilling over the sandstone cliff edge into the icy cold water.

We stripped off and waded to knee deep, our lower legs feeling numb, considering a total immersion. Fortunately we were saved by another gorge visitor who told me there was a hot spring waterfall on the right hand side of the pool, with a toasty 30 degrees – perfect! We sat under the waterfall there in total bliss.


Back at camp, I managed to spend a couple of hours painting in the afternoon sun, while Mr A pottered around getting things packed up ready for our departure tomorrow. Unusually we had a little cloud this evening, making for a lovely sunset, and we are about to head over to the resort bar for their BBQ dinner. All is good at El Questro as we prepare to depart.