We have stayed in Kununurra for two days. Today, Tuesday, is moving day.
Yesterday we drove out to Lake Argyle, which is the largest lake in Australia, covering 2100 square metres. It was built to provide a storage reservoir on the fresh water Ord River so that this arid land could be cultivated and irrigated. Crops of sugar cane, paw-paws, cantaloupe, rock melon and watermelons can be grown here now. Looking out over the river valley from the Kununurra Lookout shows the result of the creation of Lake Argyle.
We drove through an area of town, after viewing the sunset from the lookout, which is inhabited by local aborigines. In the evenings, the entire clan meets and sits under a tree in their yard. The houses were conventional and from what I could see from the road, they were clean. The yards weren't, but cluttered with refuse. The children's playground, probably furnished by the community, was also cluttered with refuse and was very unkempt. Washed clothes are hung on the chain link fencing surrounding the houses.
In the town mall, some of the aborigines had strong body odor, while others didn't. Some of the men wore thongs, while their wives feet were bare. On Sunday, both aboriginals and whites were seen attending the local Catholic Church.
The Kimberly Dairy was nice to stop at. The aroma of the milking shed brought back childhood memories when I used to help on one. Cows in the tropics are mainly hybrids with Holstein blood for their good milk production and other breeds for their tolerance to the tropical heat and resistance to tropical diseases and also their ability to forage for their food. The Kimberly Dairy is able to milk 16 cows at a time and the milk is drawn through pipes to the coolers, two tanks that will hold about 500 gallons of milk. Pasteurization and bottling equipment is also present. The milk is sold locally. They also package flavored milks in iced coffee and chocolate. Iced coffee flavored milk is very popular since most Australians like a little coffee in their milk.
Remote communities, like we have passed through and stayed at, rely on road trains for supplies. A typical arrangement is for the business to fax their order to their suppliers who in turn package their order and sends it on the next road train going that way. Road trains are diesel trucks that may pull up to 4 trailers one after the other, double decked in some cases. Towns that are lucky enough to have a mine nearby may have an airport and regular shipments of small goods can be delivered that way.
Large cattle stations may have their own planes for ferrying supplies and may only bring the truck the several hundred kilometers to town once in a while.
Telephone service in the outback is not generally the class service found in other parts of the world. With Australia's love of the Internet, phone service is not available to connect computers to and small town computer kiosk like businesses rely on one modem to connect 10 to 15 computers to. Three people downloading their mail, brings the system to a stop.
In the travel accommodations industry, rooms with phones in the rooms are non-existent. The hotel or motel or caravan park is lucky to have one line for the business. Centralization of the Telephone Company, leads to days and in some cases weeks waiting on a repair, until a repairman hundreds of miles away arrives to diagnose and sometimes fix the problem.
It seems obscene, the huge profit, Telestra, the national phone company makes in the 95% of Australia only to deny the folks in the outback who are struggling to survive against all odds even basic, reliable phone services necessary to educate their children and to open up the tourism potential of this fabulous country. Banks, mining and the telephone industry are "sacred cows" in the government view and the consumer be damned. The rules seem to be stacked against the "mom and pops" of main street, in my view.
Turkey Creek is an aboriginal community about half way between Kununurra and Halls Creek. We stopped at the roadhouse for morning tea and had a look at the local flying brochures. On the way we started to enjoy the view of the Kimberly ranges, sandstone and granite mountains with small scrubby trees alongside the road with an occasional Boab (Bottle) tree. The community had an aboriginal cultural center and a roadhouse. Mitchell Falls is near by air and has 4 cascading waterfalls.
Halls Creek Halls Creek is where gold was first discovered in Australia. The original townsite is 16 km south of the present site.
About noon we arrived at Halls Creek and drove down the mainstreet before finding one of the two caravan parks. The sun was very bright and hot at high noon and we were led to a parking pad in the middle of a large area that might resemble the corral area of a cattle station.
The proprietor lady had a Scottish accent. I enjoyed a spirited conversation with her concerning the lack detail in the keeping of the place and the absence of landscaping. She explained that Halls Creek is on the edge of a desert and the opportunity for rain only occurs during three months of the year and that time had passed. The town relies on well water through out the year and frugality is the watchword. Basically, my interpretation of what she was saying was that they have enough customers without doing anything and rather than enhancing their investment, they are content with the status quo. She said staff was hard to find and she had been looking for two years. Halls Creek is an aborigine community with high unemployment.
Liz, Allan and I took a walk in the cool of the late afternoon past the clinic, the shire offices, and the aboriginal cultural center on toward the main street. Homes and businesses appeared to be in good structural condition. The town has a hardware shop, several grocery stores, bus station, butcher shop, bakery, several roadhouses and a hotel.
I visited with a lady that runs the bus station and her husband is the refrigeration man for Halls Creek. They have lived and had their business in Halls Creek for 20 years. They seem to be in their 40s or 50s. Their children live in Perth. Freight for the town mainly comes from Perth with Halls Creek receiving a roadtrain twice a week. Things ordered by fax or telephone by Thursday arrive by Monday. Freight costs are very expensive. There is a cost involved with living in the outback.
When we go back through Halls Creek, we would like to see the China Wall, a natural occurring wall of granite and the old Halls Creek town site.
Wednesday, the 14th of July, we moved on to Fitzroy Crossing, stopping for tea and browsing around the information center, we decided to move on to Derby which is on the King Sound in far northwest Western Australia. Derby is only a short distance from Broome one of our destinations and we felt closer to one of our goals of the trip.
Before we moved on, we visited the local shopping consists of a grocery store and an aboriginal legal representatives office.
Liz found a tin of sugar in a quantity large enough for a cattle station to use. We got one for the van. Allan wanted some damper mix in the same quantity tin but we decided to wait on getting that. Damper is a traditional Aussie bush bread. Body odor was heavy in the store as there were several shoppers.
Derby is a town of about 5,000. One of the things I was looking for was a bank. My ATM card is useless in most outback locations if their machines are not communicating with the outside world.
There is only one caravan park in Derby and it was full. All that we could get was an unpowered site and wait until the next day to see if we could get one with electricity. So far on the trip, Allan and I hadn't bothered to start the van refrigerator on gas. We had always relied on electricity in the parks. The gas line to the refrigerator had water in it so it took a while to blow it out with the air compressor and get it to start.
I get out and around in the parks meeting the nicest and interesting people. Yesterday, I met a fellow from Canada who didn't believe I was from West Burleigh in Queensland. I was putting him on of course. He related how he had met some folks from Alaska on his travels to Derby. Talking to folks in the parks is an effective way to determine what tours to take and sights to see. We heard the rumor that Broome was booked solid and we will probably not find a caravan site there. It is the school holidays in Western Australia right now. Liz tried the mobile phone to call ahead and see...but our mobile phone won't work in Derby. Not all outback towns have mobile service available.
One woman I met at the laundry said that they had just arrived also and they had driven out to the jetty and watched the tide come in. Evidently, the mud flats that surround Derby, fill with water quickly when the tide comes in.
4 AM comes early. Here in Derby, the sky is crystal clear and the stars are so big, it looks like you could reach up and touch them. At dark, the Southern Cross is right there at the edge of the Milky Way. The local chickens and turkeys start their morning song early. Naturally, I am there to hear their early morning telegraph. As the dawn comes closer, the fowls of the air start their migration to the tallest tree so to catch the first rays of warmth from the sun on their cold breast.
The honeyeaters feed early while the dew if any is on the blossoms in the trees. The Wedgetail Eagles start their morning search lazily gliding across the fields looking for the unsuspecting mouse or fish in the waters. The Magpie Larks start their mornings and spend their day screaming their song and when that gets old, they mimic other birds' songs. The feral pigeons start their courting ritual with the male fanning his tail feathers to impress a prospective suitor and sing their cooing song. The crows also start their calling. The Kingfishers try their sound, which is unlike their kookaburra cousins, which start their laughter early in the morning.
It is cold and the dew is heavy this morning but I can already hear the Lorikeets and perhaps the Correllas or the Cockatoos.
Families in Australia with children try to plan their vacations to coincide with the school holidays like their American counterparts. The past few days since we have been in Western Australia, the van parks have been overflowing due to this fact. The school holidays are due to end the start of next week so our plan on moving on to Broome today is perhaps the school holiday travelers will all be on their way home. Broome is just about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Derby.
We arrived in Broome about 9 in the morning. This morning was the first trip we had taken while the sun was rising. When we arrived, we drove directly to Cable Beach and parked in the car park. The park was clean with picnic tables and palms and a takeout right in the park. We could hear the surf from the car. We walked to the edge of the railing overlooking the beach and looking left we could see boats and yachts tied up to buoys as the beach curved around to the west in the far distance. To the right, we could see beach of white sands as far as we could see. The caravan park was supposed to be close to the beach.
I had seen the brochures about the Cable Beach Caravan Park with the camels on the cover. We got right in the park and disconnected the van and went exploring. The Cable Beach Caravan Park is on the street behind the resort, which is across from the beach parking.
Broome has dirt roads around the point which has a lighthouse, Gantheaume Point, and some interesting rock formations which have been eroded by the pounding surf of the rising and falling tides. The earth is red like most we have seen in the Northern Territory and the Kimberlys in far north Western Australia. I could see soldier crabs flitting and hiding in the crevasses. Allan and I commented it could be nice fishing on the rocks.
Along the red dirt roads, there are some trails off the road and one of those trails leads to the area where the boats were buoyed. We drove the jeep out on the beach and went down to the water's edge and admired the scenery.
Eventually, the point road ends at the intersection to the road that goes to the jetty, a span about a quarter of a mile long which extends out to the deeper water area for ship loading and unloading. A Japanese fishing vessel and an Australia fishing vessel among others were tied up there. People were fishing and it was alive with activity.
The focal point of the city center is the China Mall with small shops on the streets and in the shaded alleyways. The Chinatown area reminds one of some Asian cities and town. Since pearling was an early mainstay of the town, scores of Japanese pearl divers fill the cemetery and are honored throughout the city. The China Mall has a Coles Market as well as one across the street from the Pearling Museum. An Action Market is in the large stand alone mall.
Americanized fast food hasn't arrived in Broome to feed the hordes of tourists that descend on the place in winter. Coca Cola is the only readily available soft drink of American origin.
The next day in Broome, I took the metal detector to Cable Beach where I had seen an umbrella vendor placing his rental umbrellas the day before. It was early and the sun had just come up over the horizon. The tide was going out and it was about a city block from the water, about the same place we walked and took pictures of the sunset the night before.
I hit paydirt several times and found about 12 dollars of the Queen's Gold. Allan and I wanted to fish so we took the rods and bait and went back to Gantheaume Point and tried to get down to the water over all the rocks. I was of course enamoured with the view and took pictures. Last year when we were at Hamilton Island, off the coast of Queensland, I perchance caught a Japanese couple being photographed. This year while photographing the rocks, an Australian newly wed couple were having their pictures taken. When they became aware of me, over the edge of the rocks, they poised for me also. The young man was muscular and hefty like my middle son, Shannon and the girl was hefty also. I commented to Liz and Allan that I hope their bed held up that night... :)
Evenings are magic on Cable Beach. The sun seems to take forever to disappear over the horizon behind the sail boats that enjoy this phenomenon also.
On our way out to Broome we had passed through Fitzroy Crossing, stopping only long enough for some shopping and fuel. There are two areas of interest there, The Tunnels and Winjaner Gorge. They are within driving distance of Fitzroy Crossing's nice caravan park.
We drove from Broome to Fitzroy Crossing and it is a long drive. We intend to spend the night and then go out to the Tunnel and then on up to the Winjana Gorge. Our plans were to then go to Geiki Gorge in the afternoon. The intersection that goes to the first two is about 50 km west of Fitzroy Crossing and then north on a dirt road about 100 km. The road was like a washboard and had several muddy creeks to cross.
At the Tunnels, we discovered we didn't bring the flashlight since the tunnel is 3/4 of a km long... in the dark stepping over stones every step and walking in water in some places to the knee. We decided to just go as far as the light of the entrance was and then gave up. It is pretty to see the results of the forces of the creek at flood stage and the pretty designs they leave in the rock. At one time a local outlaw holed up at the tunnel before he was captured and killed.
Going on to Winjana Gorge seemed to take forever...on a dusty, rough road. The gorge is on the Lennard River. To get to the gorge from the parking lot requires a walk to a space in the rocks, a crevasse, which goes into the gorge. The side of the gorge was sandy with trees with an open expanse of water about 100 foot wide. Corellas and Cockatoos were flying and squawking everywhere. We passed a cave on the right side of the trail and could hear bats screeching from within. Further along the path, we came upon fresh water crocodiles sunning themselves on the opposite bank. Crocodiles are cold-blooded creatures who rely on the sunlight to warm themselves. Their brain is about the size of a walnut and when they become overheated, they open their mouths, to cool their brain. We came upon one with its mouth open on the sand bar.
Returning to Fitzroy Crossing we were too tired to go on to Geiki Gorge. Allan and I went to the bar in the evening in the lodge. The caravan park is a first class facility with grassy, shady parking spaces with nice well designed amenities. In the lodge, there is a bar and a restaurant. The pay phones do not accept calling cards.
On the way from Timber Creek to Halls Creek we had stopped at Turkey Creek. There is a flight tour office there and I had seen a flight over Mitchell Falls, which is four waterfalls in a row for an inexpensive price. After considering all the flights offered, Liz wanted to take that one on the way back through Turkey Creek.
We hadn't seen the original township of Halls Creek so when passing back through Halls Creek we took the dirt road 16 km south of the present township to see exactly where gold was first discovered in Australia.
All that is remaining of the present township are some memorials to the original business sites along the main street. The ruins of the postoffice are all that visibly remain. There is a well up the hill behind the town and most of the gold was mined within 50 ft. of mainstreet in the creek. Presently there is a lodge at the top of the hill with caravan parking. Staying at this park couldn't be any worse than staying in the present Halls Creek and one could explore the creek bed for nuggets.
Caroline's Pool is between the present Halls Creek and the original settlement as well as the China Wall. We looked in at Caroline's Pool. Allan and I saw a goanna on a rock and heard some birds. In the dry season, this is one of he few watering holes in the area and the water is relatively clear.
In front of the shire council, there is a sculpture of "Russian Jack" taking a sick mate to the doctor several hundred kilometers away in a wheel barrow.
Our plan is to continue on to Turkey Creek so Liz can take the helicopter ride over the Mitchell Falls.
Turkey Creek is next door so to speak to an aboriginal community and consists of a roadhouse, caravan park and motel. Next door is where the helicopters take off.
The tours Liz found available were full and didn't include the Mitchell Falls flight. We decided to spend the night and continue on to Kununurra Wednesday. The card advertising the Mitchell Falls flight mentioned in the small print that they took off from the Mitchell Falls Carpark which was hundreds of km away close to Wyndham.
Kununurra is really an oasis in the scrub. We could hardly wait to get back to the Melon Farm where we could get some more sweet rockmelons and watermelon. We stayed at the Hidden Valley Caravan Park again since it had grass and shade and was nicely landscaped. The blonde at the desk is another plus... :)
We shopped and went to the melon farm and after that to the agriculture research station. The Ord River irrigation area produces sugar cane, row crops, bananas and livestock bred to withstand diseases and ailments found in the tropics. Wheat is also grown for testing. Two different areas are available for growing the wheat so that two crops can be harvested for testing in the same year.
This area produced about $59 million dollars of crops last year, with the most coming from sugar cane and rockmelons. Kununurra also has the newest sugar cane mill in Australia built in the last 70 years.
We arrived back at Timber Creek on Thursday, shortly before our fishing guide for tomorrow arrived back at camp with a husband and wife. They had several nice fish, including a barramundi and a blue fin salmon. They had a dishpan full of fillets when Geoff finished filleting the fish.
Geoff Hall and his wife June have some fishing boats they rent and Geoff hires out as a fishing guide. His wife June helps out at the caravan park and also the General Store during the day. Geoff and June are one day apart in age and went to school together. After school they married different mates and had large families. Later they were to reunite.
Geoff's face shows the results of running up and down the Victoria River in the heat of the day. He and June are from Murwillimbah in New South Wales, which is not far 'over the line' from where Liz and Allan live. Geoff and June have been in Timber Creek for about 10 years.
Friday finally arrived and we were ready to tackle the Victoria River with Geoff. There had been a wind come up during the night which would foretell that our day would be different. Geoff had told me the night before that he would be taking Allan and I to a different area due to the strong winds on the river.
Just as the sun was coming up, we unloaded the boat at the boat landing, west of Timber Creek which was full of campers and utes with empty boat trailers. The Victoria River at that point is about an 1/8th mile across and since it is only about 100 miles from the ocean, it is dependent on the tides for the water level. By the moon, the tides were changing little during the day.
We were going down river toward a mountain escarpment about 35 miles away. In some places, the water reflecting trees and the mountains ahead of us. We observed some people launching boats on the Auvernge Cattle Station. In the early morning, we saw a lot of wallaby searching the river bank mud as well as flocks of Cockatoo. As we got closer to the mountains, the river showed some snaking bends on the map in the GPS I had with me. Aborigines believe the rivers were created by Rainbow Serpents which wallow the rivers our as they slithered toward the ocean one day.
Geoff turned as we got to one of the bends and pointed to a tributary ahead and said we would be doing our fishing there today but further up was a rock bar and we would perhaps have to push the boat over rocks. The rocks were huge and in the dry season as the river level goes down, closer to the surface.
Bump, bump we heard the rocks and then we stopped lodged front and aft between two. Geoff stood up and rocked the boat and we drifted free, up river in the tributary since the tide was coming in.
We saw some sticks, sticking through the water, from trees that had fallen into the river during the spring floods. Jeff said these were favorite haunts of 'barra'. The depth finder saw barra with their noses against the snag. Our strategy today would be to use lures trolled behind the boat slowly crossing the snags and enticing the barra to 'defend their territory'.
Bam .. bam, I caught two and when boated showed them to be shorter than the 55 centimeter limit so we returned them to grow longer next year. Bam, I hooked a good one but it turned and ran under the snag causing me to hang up and losing the fish and the lure. I got the hits regardless which side of the snags Geoff put the boat.
When things would slack off, we would change lures and try another brush pile. Allan and I switched sides of the boat and Allan got several strikes. After lunch, Allan caught a couple of keepers, one about 58 and another about 63 centimeters. (Liz said the bigger one was more like 80 centimeters.) I continued the afternoon with no keepers. Allan would lose one and I went cold. Allan let me hold one of his keepers for the obligatory photo...:)
On the way back to the landing, we saw heaps of crocodiles, sunning themselves on the bank, in the afternoon sun. One called 'George' by the locals was about 19 feet long. In the earlier afternoon we decided against fishing one brush pile because of the big crocodile sunning himself next to the brush. There is a tale of one croc up in Darwin that developed a taste for outboard motors, attacking and eating the lower end off of 19 before being captured. Geoff didn't want to take any chances.
Liz was waiting with the grease hot when we returned. When filleted by Geoff, a dishwater pan was full of barramundi fillets. We feasted all the way to South Australia on the fish Allan caught.
Was the fishing fun? Emphatically yes is the answer. The scenery, of the wallabys and the cockatoos and the crocks and the mountains that the Victoria River runs next to, was fantastic .
Over the next several days we passed through Kathrine, for the third time, Mataranka where we tried another caravan park called the Territory Caravan Park. It was nice, the girls at the bar couldn't believe I was from West Burleigh in Australia and Allan was from Oklahoma...:).
At Daly Waters, we stopped at the Pub, which was in the bush. Almost everything old is made out of corrugated iron because the termites eat everything else. In the Pub, the walls were covered with old stockman's hats and paper money from all over the world. This is common in bush pubs. Along the Stuart Highway which is the main north-south road in Central Australia, the stops generally have the name of the cattle station on whose land they stand or in the case of aborigine clan ownership, the clan's name.
Tennant Creek is really another oasis in the scrub, with a nicely laid out plan and was very tidy and the buildings are very well kept. Mining is a main industry. I would like to come back some time when not touring and learn more about the people of Tennant Creek.
