Outback riders

The day started at Fitzroy Crossing where we had breakfast and a walk to the bridge over the river before our next adventures began. I am not sure if the bridge is actually the “Fitzroy Crossing”but I couldn't resist taking a shot of it!

It was a fairly long drive before our first stop so I was able to make good use of my 7” tablet, feading an ebook and playing games to pass the time. The scenery was pretty much the same for two hours of driving, so looking out of the window would have put me to sleep! When we did pull over it was to see something quite amazing. A tree!

Mind you there is something really special about this tree! It has a very unpleasant history of inhumanity. Fortuately the behaviour that happened is well in the past and certainly belongs there. Aboriginal men and boys were kidnapped and put in chains and walked to the coast where they were forced to be divers in the pearling industry. On their way to the coast the men were stopped at this tree and the chains were attached to it to prevent these helpless black captives from escaping. Aboriginal people were treated like animals in the early days of Australia. Something we are not proud of.

Only a very short distance from the Boab that is known as “The Prison Tree” is the most incredible water trough I have ever seen, It was used in the days of droving when cattle were moved to the sale yards under their own steam (leg power) driven by stockmen on horseback over huge distances. We were told that this was the largest water trough in the world at 120 meters.

Daffy, the little bear who travels for all sick people who are too unwell to leave home, posed prettily on the trough for a photograph. My second picture of the trough shows our intrepid coach driver and guide, Firie, and our super chariot which has taken us from one magic location to another.

I just can't keep this little bear from showing off! He climbed a termite nest to show how large it was!

Lunch as a little different today. We made our way to Derby where we stopped right on the edge of the water and bought fish and chips to eat under a shelter on the sea side! It was fun!

Our final destination for today was Broome. Before we went to our hotel accommodation we were taken to the beach where two thirds of thegroup took a chance with a beast of burden that has become a pest in the outback. We had fun taking a camel ride!

So here we are, happy, fed and sleepy after another fabulous day. We may not be able to stand upright or walk tomorrow but we shall all laugh about our aches!

AJ

Culture and colour

Talk about an overload of fabulous scenery! I am exhausted from looking and shooting! Of course I should not be tired at all because I am sitting in air conditioned comfort as someone else does the driving! I just get so excited when I see the different landscapes and the different wild flowers that are here in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia that I want to preserve everything I see. Of course I cannot but that does not stop me from trying!

After our breakfast at Halls Creek, in the Kimberley Hotel, we were taken out to see the “Old Wall of China” which is an agate outcrop that does look very much like a wall that has been built from white bricks. Unlike most of the group, I clambered down into the gully to get a different viewpoint. One of the other women tried to follow me down and slipped over on the rocks – they were covered with small lengths of dry grass which rolled under her feet making the surface feel like it was covered with slippery ice. She did not hurt herself, fortunately, but it shook her up a bit.

A small waterhole was around the corner from the Agate wall so I just had to take half a dozen shots of that too!At each of the places we have stopped the rock formations are different, the colours are similar – rich nuggety red from all the iron in the ground – but the contours are so different.

The service stations in Halls Creek had run out of diesel fuel so Firie (my son and our coach driver) was delighted to see the fuel road train pulled into one of the service stations as we drove back into Halls Creek. Without fuel we would not have been able to do the distance we have covered today, from Halls Creek to Fitzroy Crossing. While the coach was being filled we passengers explored the town. It is only small but interesting and at the Information Centre there was a statue that commemorated one of the early characters of the gold rush days, Russian Jack. He brought a sick “mate” in a bush made wheel barrow from the gold fields to the closest medical help at Halls Creeks, a distance of 300 kilometers.

I am sure you will laugh when you see the sign I found outside the butcher's shop. I could not help myself, I just HAD to take a photo of it! This is typical of the humour of the people here.

When we clambered back into the coach we were told that we were returning to both the Old Wall of China and to the Kimberley Hotel. When Maria had slipped on the rock when out at the Old China Wall, she had lost her gold watch. Fortunately that beauty spot was not far out of town and it took us hardly any time to return to it – and Fran with her eagle eyes managed to find the missing watch almost immediately she reached the spot Maria had slipped. We must have walked right over the top of it without seeing it when we climbed back out of the creek bed – and so must other sight-seers. Then we went back to the hotel where one of the hotel staff had found money lying on the grass in front of one of the rooms - $100 no less! How honest is that? So a sheepish Peter went up to the Reception and was given the money back in an envelope.

We then had a fairly long drive to our next stop, a private school for indigenous children. The young principal had been at the school for quite a few years and in that time had married (a white girl) and had recently increased his family to three children, two boys and a girl.

The principal – Nick Try – was our host for an hour and told us of the way the community worked together and grew together, we were shown through the “Laarri” art gallery where there were lots of bright acrylic on canvas dot paintings. I wonder why this style of art has been adopted? I am sure the aborigines believe it to have been handed down through generations – but it hasn't, it is a fairly recent style from around the 1950s. Anyway, it is now a style that is recognised as being “typical”of the Australian Aborigines.

From this school we then drove for two hours with the coach DVD playing part two of the story of the Durracks, “Kings in Grass Castles” as we scooted past never changing countryside. The movie finished just as we arrived at Fitzroy Crossing but although we passed the hotel we were to stay in, we drove another few kilometers to where we were to board a couple of punts so we could enjoy an hour sailing down the Geike Gorge. The sky was strangely cloudy but that meant that it wasn't unpleasantly hot, however the light was not really all that brilliant on the unusual colours of the cliff faces.

Our punt guide was hoping to point out the abundant wildlife but the wildlife was in rather short supply. We did manage to see two fresh water crocodiles from rather a long way away. This sighting caused quite a lot of excitement! We had been warned about crocs in all the waterways of the north and this was the first time we had actually seen one!

The trip along the Geikie Gorge was slow and leisurely and the scenery gorgeous. The white area of the limestone cliffs is where the flood waters after the summer “wet season” scour the iron staining away. Floods here are a regular occurance. Where the high water swirls and tumbles the limestone has been cut into fantastic shapes and the calm waters reflect and enhance the formations.

So! Another amazing day in this part of Australia. Every day has been perfect.

AJ

Are diamonds a girl's best friend?

Today out tour group was treated to a very special conducted tour around the Kimberley's famous “Argyle Diamond Mine” from where the most precious of all diamonds come; that diamond being the pink diamond. Although we were travelling in our coach with a guide from the mine, we still had to go through all the security procedures that every visitor to the mine has to do. We were told that on no account were we to pick up anything from the ground, if we dropped anything we were to ask our guide to retrieve it. If we picked anything up from the ground we would have to undergo a search to ensure that we had not picked up a diamond as well as the object we had dropped.

Our tour started in the gallery where diamonds of different sizes were on display as well as illustrated descriptions that told how diamonds came to be formed and how the mine had changed from being open cut to an underground mine.

This first photograph shows the two largest diamonds ever found at the Argyle mine. They are still in the raw – uncut – state so they are not glittery and light reflective as are facetted diamonds.

This next photograph is of a display that showed the different graded sizes and the variety of colours that are found. Most of the diamonds are industrial grade diamonds that are used on saws and sandpapers. Only a small percentage are flawless and top gem quality but these are the ones that bring in the most money, of course.

Included in the price of the mine tour was lunch at the Agyle Village. The Argyle Village is where the people who work in the mine, live while they are here. The huge dining room was set out with tables and there was a beautiful cold, buffet lunch set out for us to help ourselves.

There was no one but our group in the dining room for lunch – the mine workers have their lunch over in a canteen at the mine and only use this dining room for breakfast and for the evening dinner.

It was a delicious lunch and the coffee was so good!

Once we had eaten we were then taken out to the open cut mine where the whole diamond mining operation first started. The pit was huge – but standing on the edge and looking over it made the hole look so much smaller than it really was. There were no vehicles moving around in it to give scale. Operations in the open cut area had to stop because the sides of the mine became so unstable that it was dangerous. There are a few very visible landslips where the contouring has collapsed. You may be able to see a couple of the large slips on the left hand side of this photograph.

We were taken (in the coach) under the equipment that crushes and separates the diamonds from the host rock, there were conveyor belts and huge tumblers and pipes that made us feel like midgets! It was all very impressive and very interesting. However! Although the pink diamond is the most expensive diamond and although there are several other colours of diamonds I personally feel that a diamond is identifiable as a diamond when it is white! I would confuse a “champagne” diamond with a citrine and a pale blue with a blue topaz! That shows my ignorance!

There was much chatter in the coach after our mine visit but we had something else to think about when we stopped at a road house to have a drink and an opportunity to stretch our legs. All around the perimeter of the parking area there were large stones, many of which had interesting paintings on them. These ones are easily recognizable as Australian animals, crocodile, wallaby and emu.

This second picture is not so obvious – unless, like us, you had taken a ride in a small plane to look down on the strange striped mounds that are calle the Bungle Bungles.

This evening we are staying at Halls Creek but we shall be packing our bags into the coach after we have eaten breakfast so we will not be staying here for very long. This has been another wonderful day! Certainly had no time to be bored!

AJ

El Questro

I remember years ago watching a travel show on the tv that showed a very expensive holiday on an outback station in the Kimberleys and never ever dreamed that I would ever get to visit that location – but that was on the agenda for today. We passengers eagerly clambered out of the coach to take a photograph of the road sign that marked the start of the Gibb River Road. This road is now sealed but was for many years a rough bush road along which drovers would move cattle from cattle yards to the sale yards. It is still used for moving cattle but these days the cattle travel at 100 kph in huge cattle trucks. We too were to travel at that speed in our trusty little coach. So my photograph was of the start of the Gibb River Road, not of the sign!

As we drove along we followed along the ridge that was the Cockburn Range. We learned how to pronounce the name of the range correctly “co-burn” instead of “cock-burn”! It should be spelled the way it sounds!

It was a welcome stop when we turned into Emma Gorge – which is the part of the El Questro tourist park (thousands of acres of cattle station) that is affordable to the majority of outback travellers.

We chose to try have either a cold drink or ice cream before I wandered off alone to explore the walk along the Emma Gorge. After the dryness of the open cattle country this was a real oasis. I certainly did not expect to find corkscrew pandanas here! Although it was really hot in the sun it was quite pleasant walking along the winding and very rough track. I found that I had to watch my feet rather than look out at the scenery I was walking through. I nearly tripped over a couple of times!

The track followed along a little creek that showed itself briefly through the long grass, not having much luck with taking photographs of the creek I turned my attention to the ridge towering above the treetops. I had better luck there.

We were to go on yet another boat cruise but on the way we drove along a real bush track, there was great excitement when we came to a shallow water crossing and even more exciting when we came across another that looked considerably deeper. Everyone stood up to look through the front window of the coach when we stopped to watch as a four wheel drive came through it. This was adventure with a capital “A”! Then WE did it! Good fun!

The Chamberlain Gorge cruise was quiet and leisurely and our guide gave us lots of information about the history of El Questro and about the geology of the gorge. The slow moving punt pulled onto a sand bank where most of the group drank “bubbly” (not me! I do not drink at all - makes me a bit of an outcast I have found.) and we all had fun dropping chicken feed pellets into the water to feed the fish. Some of the fish were very funny, they squirted a jet of water high into the air when one held a hand out from the boat! I enjoyed that!

The scenery in the Chamberlain Gorge was a rich colour that improved as the light changed during the afternoon. Here the sandstone was like building blocks, quite rectangular but all sorts of different sizes.

On our way back along the bush track we used on the way in, our coach picked up a stone between the dual back wheels so we had to stop at Emma Gorge again while Firie, our guide, removed the whels and removed the stone. The day had been so hot that while the coach had been sitting waiting for us to return from our cruise, the front windscreen had cracked! Apparently there had been a repaired crack in the window when we picked up the coach but the heat of the day caused it to explode.

It was a wonderful day (again) and I have a camera full of memories of my experiences. Each day seems to be as brilliant at the one before. So far I cannot say which has been my favourite – they have all be a favourite!.

AJ

Over the Bungles

Today was a very special day. We started by watching as the light first started to hit the night sky while we waited to board the coach at 5.15am.

Out in front of our very smart hotel is a row of very dramatic Boab trees and they were perfect for my early morning photo! After checking in at the little Slingair terminal and subjecting ourselves to being weighed we trouped out to the planes we had been allocated to.

According to the weight of each passenger we were arranged inside the plane and off we went. This was a trip that has been oh-so-high on my “bucket list” that I was almost trembling with excitement! I heard about the flight over the Bungle Bungles many years ago and never thought that I would ever get the chance to do it myself and yet here I was, along with ten others in this little plane, actually flying over the Kimberley outback. The Bungle Bungles are a long way (even by air) from Kununnurra so our flight took us over some glorious scenery. The pilot gave an excellent description of the places we flew over and I learned a lot about Lake Argyle and how the irrigation was managed and I also managed to take dozens of photographs (200 +) as well as video. Of course the absolute highlight was when we eventually reached the Bungle Bungles and I could see them for myself. I can hardly wait to put the video together properly!

Before the flight finished we flew over the impressive Argyle Diamond Mine in which the best pink diamonds in the world are found. Of course from where we were the hole in the ground did not look to be very large!

The flight over we had a look through a couple of Argyle diamond selling jewellery shops and drooled over the beauty of the stones and gasped at the price tags. Then hopped back into the coach to see a much humbler rock which is also found here in the Kimberleys. Zebra Rock.

The price tag is much less than the price tag on the diamonds but Zebra rock is actually quite rare and it only found in one small area on the edge of Lake Argyle and then only when the water level is really low!

Down in the waters of the river at the place where we viewed the Zebra Rock was a jetty from which to feed the fish. What fun! The cat fish were HUGE and they certainly were keen on bread. That was great to watch, the fish almost climbed over each other to be the ones to get the bread!

Our final visit was to Wyndham where the coach first climbed up to the top of a rise to a lookout from where we could see the five Rivers and the port of Wyndham. The trucks moving iron ore down below looked like tiny toys. We drove down from our perch and visited Wyndham which is only a small town – but it had a unique attraction. I believe it is the largest crocodile in the world!

Apparently it was made by students at Halls Creek TAFE college from mesh and concrete. It is really impressive!

AJ

Crossing Borders

Cases were packed and rooms checked to see that nothing was left behind and our happy band of coach travellers left the city of Katherine to head West to where the sun sets. Our base for the next three nights will be Kununurra which is in the Kimberley Region.

Our first morning stop was Victoria River, just a service station where we could take a short break and grab a cold drink. I found it so beautiful that I declared that I wanted to come back – and other voices in the group agreed with me. The scenery is just stunning.

This shot was taken of our coach parked at the service station.

Boab trees are found up here and try as I might I could not get a decent shot of one as we were whizzing along the highway so it was with some relief that I found a rather puny one when we were parked! I must try and take a shot of a decent sized one!

When we reached the border between the Northern Territory and Western Australia we pulled up so that we could all take a photo of the sign!

Firie, our driver, told us that he expected his passengers to push the bus over the border 'cos it was a tradition. He was only teasing! Only a few metres from the Border sign was an inspection bay were we had to pull over and declare any fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts and honey.

The best part of the day (every bit of the day was the best part!!) Was what followed. After driving over the dam wall of the Argyle Dam we descended to the banks of the Ord River.

The coach pulled up right at the edge of the bank and our high speed motor boat transport pulled in alongside.

Sometimes we flew like the wind and at other times crept silently on the current but ever second of our four hour trip was exciting. We learned all about the uses and control of the waters from the Argyle Dam, we spotted fresh water crocs, unusual birds that tiptoed on tiny water weeds, a large Jabiru (black and white stork) and the most glorious scenery I have ever seen before.

I complained to one of the other passengers as we were leaving the cruise that my camera was twice as heavy after taking so many photographs! The trip ended after sunset so we drifted along as the sky changed colour and magic happened on the rippling water.

Absolutely exhausted from our wonderful experience we were a quiet bunch of people as we were shuttled to our very posh hotel. A hot shower revived us and we all managed to enjoy a fabulous feast in the large restaurant. We are so lucky – we are staying in the Pinctada Kimberley Grande, what a super place for a coach tour! We feel like royalty!

AJ