2017 The Lap

Broome has been our "home" for the past five days; Q+ needed her 10,000 km service (in just three months!) and the metal plate that served the 1,000 watt inverter was not strong enough to hold the 2,000 watt inverter that we had installed back in Katherine.  The metal plate cracked with its load crossing the rough Gibb River Road.  Thankfully it is all covered under warranty. We made our way south after picking up Q+ to Barn Hill Station and met up with Jim and Sandy again.  We were hurrying to get in and set up before sunset but ...  Sandy had pre-dinners and a lovely dinner waiting for us.  Bless! Barn Hill is situated on Thangoo Station, a working cattle station purchased in 1960 by the Grey's after Alf Grey had managed the station for ten years.  The property is approximately 430,000 acres and stretches 85 kms along the coast between Broome and Port Hedland.  Brahman cattle are run on the station and we were welcomed by some of them on our arri...

17 August 2017 The road up the Dampier Peninsula to Kooljaman, the aboriginal name for Cape Leveque, was worse in parts than the worst of the Gibb River Road. With lowered tyre pressures and a slow speed of between 40-60 kph the trip from Broome took us over six hours, although that did include a side trip to Beagle Bay to visit the shell Catholic Church, built in 1917 by a Father Droste, some pioneer Brothers and "with the help of the aboriginals".   The altar. Beagle Bay Catholic shell church. In the grounds of the combined primary and secondary school was a grotto - but I'm sure that's not what it's called - my bad - apologies to Liz, Clare, and Jennifer! The "grotto" in the school grounds. We booked to stay two nights at Middle Lagoon - sadly not on the ridge as we'd been given the incorrect information at the Broome Information Centre that only tents could occupy the ridge. Vans are aplenty on the ridge. We could have h...

We celebrated my birthday at the Cable Beach Resort Bar and Grill restaurant after enjoying a G&T on the deck.  The service here is always fabulous.  A woman at the next table was also enjoying her birthday celebration and her husband insisted they come and join us after we had finished our main course.  He then proceeded to tell us how magnificent he was as a businessman, and where they had been on previous trip and how much he'd spent.  Boring! Horizontal Falls was magnificent! We were picked up mid afternoon and taken to the Derby Airport - a tiny affair that is definitely in need of its rebuild - due to finish in a few years time. The plane ride was terrifying and at one stage I ended up in a flood of tears, the PTSD anxiety took over completely but by the time we landed I was settled and the "Barra Shack" awaited our arrival. We were given a shark feeding show and allowed to jump into the cage but unlike Tahiti, we were separated from the sharks. ...

7 August - Windjana Gorge Windjana Gorge, Lillimooloora Police Station and Tunnel Creek on the map. The sign at the entrance to the Gorge tells us that, the "Lennard River has carved a 4 km Gorge through the limestone of the Napier Range which is part of an extensive fossilised barrier reef from the Devonian times, 360 million years ago."  The Devonian Reef is a distinctive feature of the Kimberley; the limestone range stands high above the surrounding plain of savannah woodlands and grasslands. It is truly majestic.   View from our campite. Windjana isn't a Gorge where you get to luxuriate in cool waters - it is the territory of crocodiles. "Freshies" as they are, there are still warning notices around telling us not to swim here - and there's also a photo of a mangled foot, courtesy of a croc, on a notice board. On our early morning walk we saw about two dozen crocs sunning themselves on the banks of the river however another camper told...

Our trip has now taken us down the Gibb River Road.  T he start of our drive on the GRR was horrendous, as we'd been lead to believe it would be. "Corrugations as big as a beer can" is what we were told and I don't think that was far off being true. We passed some cars towing vans doing ~50 km/h but we needed to travel at ~70 km/h to ride over the top of the corrugations. We passed some drivers doing 20 km/h and they would have been riding up and down every corrugation.   Ellenbrae's spot on the map! We popped in to Ellenbrae for homemade scones (made with lemonade, like Melanie's) and caught up with folk we'd camped with at Lake Argyle.   The welcoming sign at Ellenbrae At Ellenbrae, we learnt the story of how in the early 1980's Ellenbrae captured the imagination of two young brothers: Thomas Henry Byrne Terry born 19 November 1959, and   Edward Francis Terry, born 27 February 1961.   In moving from Qld, they encountered a un...

El Questro El Questro Map The camp ground is a bit of a dust bowl but the river provides some beautiful relief from the dust and the 32-34 C temperatures.   We drove into Zebedee Springs (or as John calls them, the Zippity-Doo-Da Springs) and after walking along boardwalks through a lush fern oasis we came to the thermal spring which is fed via a fault line from a permanent supply of water from deep within the earth. The water temperature is around 28-32 C all year. The surrounding cliff faces and slopes are up to 1800 million years old (according to the signs) and are known as, "King Leopard Sandstone".    We enjoyed a   swim and picnic lunch at Moonshine Gorge after driving from Zebedee Springs. John enjoying a swim at Moonshine Gorge We crossed back over the King River and then the Pentecost River which, due to the Wyndham tides, was much deeper, with the water rushing up over the running boards.   The Pentecost River ...