Kununurra
We stayed in Kununurra for a few days. We had one night at the Hidden Valley caravan park. Next morning we found one of the caravan tyres had a slow puncture. The tyres were getting very low anyway and I had been debating changing them in Kununurra (expensive) vs taking a risk and hoping they'd limp us back to Adelaide (cheaper). The puncture tipped the scales in favour of replacing the tyres so we got four new tyres put on at the Bridgestone dealer. They weren't actually too expensive, I think about $210 per tyre compared to $180 or so for a comparable tyre in Perth.
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| New tyres for the van! |
We moved to the Kimberley Entrance caravan park which was slightly cheaper and had free wi-fi. We didn't realise this weekend was the start of the Ord River Muster, a country music and festival type of week, so everything was very full. That's why we had to move around a bit. Bek needed a lot of wi-fi to download Photoshop for her online art course she's taking this semester.
Mim got a pile of washing done which had accumulated throughout the Gibb River Rd, as well as a thorough stock-up on food to restock the "Mother Hubbard's" fridge! We had a swim, and got some work done.
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| We finally got a hat for Bek in Kununurra! |
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| Ivanhoe Crossing (this is actually travelling back to the Kununurra side!) |
Next day we headed across the Ivanhoe crossing of the Ord River. It's an iconic crossing. It's a concrete weir over which the water flows so you have to drive through the water to cross the river. It's all the same depth roughly but it looks quite amazing. This was a significant moment for us. In 2019 when we were in Kununurra we had hoped to stay at a free camp across that side of the river but our old caravan wouldn't have been high enough. So when we decided we were going to do this trip and started looking around at caravans, we had in mind the depth of water over this crossing and determined that whatever we got would be capable of fording that depth of water. Based on a photo of a person standing in the water we worked out we needed at least half a metre of clearance from the ground to the bottom step on the van. That clearance has helped us with several other river crossings. Anyway we surged through the crossing with plenty of clearance to spare.
We stopped for a few nights at Button's crossing, by Ethel Creek which drains into the Ord River. It's saltwater croc territory so we had to be careful. We were right by the river the first night which was very pretty.
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| Our camp the first night by Ethel Creek |
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| Room with a view! |
Did some fishing, caught some fish which, with the help of Marc Lucas' expertise via SMS we identified as Archer fish. We added them to a fish curry we had that night, not a lot of meat on them but nice enough. We drove up to Black Rock Pool for a swim, but the pool was little more than a knee-deep puddle.
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| Successful fishing for Archer Fish! |
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| Black rock pool |
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| The river next morning |
Next day we had to move as it turned out we'd camped on an unofficial boat ramp. So we relocated. We then went for a swim in Middle Spring which was much deeper and had a tiny bit of water coming over. The kids climbed up the side of the hill to get to the top of the falls, I went with them after a bit, and there was a whole network of pools higher up which we had fun exploring. We did this a few times we were down there.
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| Middle Spring |
A few days later we headed back across the Ivanhoe Crossing and back onto the Gibb River Road to visit El Questro Station.
El Questro Station (Gibb River Road)
El Questro is the last cattle station on the Gibb River Road, at the eastern end. We'd heard it recommended to us several times, along with Emma Gorge and Zebedee Springs which are both nearby. Fortunately the Gibb is sealed up to its driveway although the driveway in is 16km of corrugated dirt with a couple of moderate river crossings (~40cm).
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| One of the river crossings coming into El Questro |
We stayed three nights - first night at a powered site which we were fortunate enough to get (only available for that night) and then we moved to the unpowered section which is unallocated, you just find a free place and set up.
Out of all the stations we went to, El Questro is the most touristy station by a country mile on the Gibb River Road. They have helicopter flights coming in and out from the station, there's horse riding, organised tours to various attractions nearby, so much so that Zebedee Springs is only open access until midday - after that it's only accessible by tour groups. It's got a restaurant, bar, lots of nice facilities, but for us it was a bit too touristy and expensive. There is a swimming spot close by, in an arm of the Pentecost River which they've dammed up to keep the crocs out, but it's still murky water and while it's nice and cool you wouldn't say it's the best spot by a long shot. However due to its proximity to the campsite we used this a few times.
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| The swimming spot near El Questro campground |
Mim's birthday was on our second day (the 26th)!
We visited Zebedee Springs which was nice. A bit like Mataranka in terms of temperature but completely natural, not at all built up, and also nowhere near as deep. There are just some small pools to sit in but not a big pool like Mataranka.
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| Zebedee springs |
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| One of the water crossings out to El Questro gorge brought water under the carpet! So a long operation ensued in the afternoon to get it all thoroughly dried out. |
there so we bought tea and gave her a nice rest day. It was also the night of the lunar eclipse so I got a number of good photos.
On the 27th we did a day trip out to Emma Gorge, which you have to go back to the main road for and then drive a little way up the road. There's a resort there but you can't camp there with a caravan. The walk out to Emma Gorge takes about an hour or so. There are two nice pools awaiting you. The first one (Turquoise Pool) we preferred, it was nice and deep, perfectly clear, and had a ~5m rock we jumped off into about 4m of water. A bit further up we reached Fern Pool where the waterfall comes over. It's very pretty - a large semicircular amphitheatre with the falls in one corner and ferns growing all around the walls. Similar idea to Galvans Gorge but more open. Also the water was somehow a bit more boring - it's just sand on the bottom and a large open featureless space, a bit like a swimming pool. Galvans Gorge had lots of little spots to come in and out.
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| Turquoise Pool in Emma Gorge |
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| Preparing to jump into Turquoise pool |
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| Fern Pool in Emma Gorge |
On the 28th we left El Questro and headed to Wyndham.
Wyndham
Wyndham's about 50km north of the end of the Gibb River Road. We weren't going to bother visiting and in the end it wasn't really that worth doing. It had a nice bakery, but was a small place, fairly run down with many of the typical hallmarks of an Aboriginal community - wrecked cars in front yards, rubbish blowing around and a general untidy appearance. There weren't many features to make it worth the long drive out there. The only point of interest is that the Great Northern Highway we'd followed since Mount Magnet officially finishes in Wyndham. There's also a look-out where you can see five rivers joining together but we would have had to disconnect the caravan and we weren't that interested.
Wyndham ticked off the list, we returned to Kununurra and did a final food and fuel stock-up.
Bungle Bungles
Later on the 28th we drove from Kununurra down to Spring Creek rest area, which is just outside Purnululu National Park which houses the Bungle Bungles. We stopped at this rest area in 2019 but the road out to the Bungle Bungles is 4WD only so we left that at the time. We unhitched and set up. This time there was water in Spring Creek, last time it was empty.
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| Our camp at Spring Creek rest area |
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| Water in Spring Creek this time! |
The Bungle Bungles were quite interesting. The drive out took us about 70 minutes, travelling at 60kph or a bit more with our tyres let down to about 20-30psi. We arrived and went to the Visitor Centre for some advice which is always worth doing.
The Bungle Bungles are a series of big rock hills which are accessed by a southern or northern road. We took the southern road first which took us to the iconic Domes. These look like black and orange striped beehives! They are very distinct! We did a walk around the Domes and out to Cathedral Gorge, which was shaped like a bell. Mim and I sang 'How Great Thou Art' quietly to ourselves and the kids on the other side could hear it. The reverb was beautiful and if we'd been alone we would have sung a lot more loudly!
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| The Domes in the Bungle Bungles |
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| Cathedral Gorge |
We then drove around to the northern part, to visit Echidna Chasm which is a narrow slit in very tall rock. Most of the day it's dark but when the sun's overhead it gets very bright and orange inside. We made it just in time for the best part and got some incredible photos (we thought anyway). It's a lot like Petra in Israel as we understand from photos - very tall cliffs with a very narrow walkway through this chasm.
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| Echidna Chasm |
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| Echidna Chasm |
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| Echidna Chasm |
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| 360 degree view of the northern end of the Bungle Bungles |
Tanami Rd
The Tanami Road is a quicker way of getting from the Kimberley to Alice Springs compared to driving from Kununurra across to Daly Waters and then down to Alice Springs. You're basically taking the hypotenuse of the triangle rather than the two sides. Nonetheless, it's 1000km of mainly dirt, and thanks to Covid and the closure of all WA Aboriginal communities, there's a 760km drive from Halls Creek in WA to Yuendumu community in NT with no fuel stations! We had to buy two extra jerry cans for diesel back in Kununurra. We already had 50L of diesel in our jerry cans, but this brought us up to 90L.
These were filled up and we drove from Kununurra to Halls Creek where we got lunch at the Shell service station, refilled the fuel tanks and the jerry cans up to the brim emptied the porta-potti and refilled the water tanks for the long trip.
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| Lunch in Halls Creek |
20km down the road, we reached the start of the Tanami Rd!
Immediately it was dirt, so immediately we stopped and dropped our
tyre pressures accordingly. The road condition varied in the first day
from very good to OK - it was mainly corrugations on the road in the bad
patches rather than big rocks thankfully.
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| Welcome to dirt (for the next 800km mwuah ha ha!) |
We drove to a turn-off to Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater where there's a free camp. There are in fact plenty of free camps but this is the only one by a feature of any interest - in fact it was the only feature of interest available as the other couple were only accessible via the Aboriginal communities which were closed for Covid. The campsite was full so we stayed the night in the carpark next to the crater.
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| Sunset at Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater |
The crater was formed a long time ago by a meteorite which left a crater about 1km in diameter and 120m deep originally, although it's filled up with sand so much it's now only about 20m deeper than the surrounding land. Next morning we walked around the rim of the crater, we weren't allowed down inside it due to 'slippery rocks' on the way in, although I'm sure we could easily have managed it. The rim walk took us just over an hour, and it was interesting seeing the crater from different perspectives. We found a very big grass-hopper, and Jude found some flowers dripping with nectar which we all tried - they were deliciously sweet!
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| Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater |
Rim walk finished, we packed up and headed back to the Tanami Rd.
The rest of the day was just driving driving driving. There's not much Telstra signal on the road but we found a spot near nightfall so pulled off the road and into the bush a bit and stayed the night there.
Next day was more of the same. We crossed the WA/NT border during the day at a very ignominious border point - a small sign and a 44 gallon drum full of rubbish with WA spray-painted on one side and NT spray-painted on the other! There was a 'Welcome to NT' sign a bit further along the road. The road on the NT side was considerably worse than the WA side - just continual corrugations other than one stretch which had recently been graded.
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| Jude in one of the many wrecked cars along the Tanami Rd - this one a EF or EL Ford Falcon |
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| A typical view of the Tanami Rd, though this bit is pretty smooth! |
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| About half the traffic we saw was trucks |
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| At the WA/NT border! |
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| Clearly it's a big affair! |
We made it to Yuendumu community with about 20L of fuel remaining. We'd used all 90L of the diesel in the jerry cans. Curiously, when we filled up in Yuendumu, the bowser said we put 92L of fuel into our 3/4 empty tank, even though our tank only takes 88 litres... hmm. The most we've put in before when it's been below empty has been 81L!
Yuendumu was very dumpy and dirty again unfortunately, with lots of wrecked cars and rubbish about, with a brand new playground or picnic shelter here and there, and a pool which looks like it was closed. It was a fairly depressing place to be, and we weren't sorry to leave.
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| Refuelling in Yuendumu |
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| Yuendumu community |
We had intended to stop at a free camp for the night a little way down but in the end decided to head all the way to the Stuart Highway. It was after dark, the wildlife had gone, and the kids needed to get exams done for which we needed internet. So we stuck at it and reached our old camp spot of Hemmi's Patch at Burt Plain, about 40km north of Alice Springs, about 10:30pm that night. The only point of interest along the drive was a snake on the road. We thought we'd hit it, went back to check and found it was a Stimson's Python curled up. It was uninjured so we picked it up, checked it out in the van, and released it away from the road. He was about a metre long, lively enough initially but calmed down quickly and had a bit of an explore around the van.
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| The python on the road |
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| Sammy the Stimson's python checking out the caravan |
Our camp spot the next day wasn't as good as we'd remembered. There's been a lot of rain since we were here last so there were lots of weeds with sharp prickles everywhere, as well as horrible three-corner jacks. We couldn't print the exams out so instead of staying here the day we packed up about lunchtime and headed into Alice Springs to stay at the Cole's place as we did last time, after having lunch and doing a spot of shopping.
Bek and Matt did their English exam yesterday (Friday). Today we all (10 kids and 3 adults) went to the Alice Springs Reptile Centre again, as we did for the boys' birthday last year. We got a good price for the whole lot of us and had a different insight based on our experience with so many snakes since then.
We're there now, and intending to head off tomorrow (Sunday 6th of June). It is extremely cold here in Alice Springs, with temperatures getting down to 0-5 overnight. It is a real shock after having been in the sun and warm for so long, but is probably a good acclimatisation for an Adelaide winter!
Travel Plans
We are rapidly approaching the end of our trip, with our return to Adelaide due later next week (probably around the 10th of June). We considered extending again but decided not to for a number of reasons. It was hard in the sense we've enjoyed being together. However it's curious having made that decision, that we're now very much looking forward to coming home and getting out of the van, and having some of the comforts of home again!
-- Greg
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