The Kimberley

I’ve survived the entire trek up from Perth, and have safely arrived in Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory. Near 3 weeks straight of being on a tour bus! But here I am, at the top end of Australia!

The tour was divided into 2 sections, Perth to Broome and then Broome to Darwin. They gave us 2 days off in Broome to explore the area, which was a nice break. Plus I needed desperately to do laundry. The red dirt from Karijini national park was very much caked in to everything I owned.

Broome is a nice seaside town of about 15,000 people. It’s weird though, for a small town it’s very spread out. You can’t really walk in between sections, it’s just too far. Anyway, the tour company put us in a hostel for 3 nights in the Cable Beach section of town, and we’d be left to our own devices for 2 full days before getting on the next bus to continue the trek. The hostel they put us in was disgusting. I walked into the bathroom and started thinking about just how inappropriate it would be to continue peeing in the bush in a populated area… I spent one night there, in the tropical prison-like atmosphere, and then the next morning marched myself down the road to a hostel I’d heard was quite lovely. By 8:30 myself and all of my possessions were parked at Beaches of Broome, my new home at Cable Beach. I am generally not a fan of spending more money when things are already paid for, but this was a necessity. The first hostel was gross, and this place was one of the nicest I’d ever stayed in. I spent a very nice and comfortable 2 days at my swanky hostel down the road, and was quite happy to pee in their toilets.

Our first night in Broome we went out as a group as a bit of a farewell party. We went to the beach to watch the sunset, and then ended up at a local bar, where we met the tour guides who were taking those of us continuing on to Darwin. They had just driven in straight from Darwin (which is about 1,950 miles away…) and were letting off some steam, so they consumed quite a bit of alcohol and made me a bit skeptical about their abilities to act like non-Neanderthals once the tour officially started. I went to bed early that night, but apparently one of them was running around drunk and naked on the beach later on in the evening. Not a good sign.

Broome is famous for its pearling history, and for camel rides along the beach. I had considered going for a camel ride, but since I forked over unplanned funds to set myself up in a new establishment, I decided to not do the ride. I did walk down at the right time with a bunch of people who were going though, and the staff assumed I was a paying customer and let me pet a camel and took my picture. I like camels. They are a bit stinky, but they are always smiling!

Of our original group, only 6 of us from the first tour were going up to Darwin, so it was basically a fresh group, along with the new guides who had a habit of getting drunk and naked in public. The new bus was a 4WD tour truck. For where we were going, you can’t not have a 4WD. The unsealed roads would eat a 2-wheel drive bus alive and spit out the remains. The group was surprisingly a bit of an older crowd, and even included a few Aussies. The tour company I went with was the most budget option you could do across the Kimberley region of Northwestern Australia, so it attracted all sorts of people that just didn’t have ginormous amounts of money to spend. During the course of the trip, we often ended up in the same places as the fancier, more expensive tours. To me the difference was negligible. Everyone was in the same kind of 4WD truck and went to the same places. But we slept in swags on the floor (inside a tent if you wanted), whereas the fancy tours gave you taller tents with collapsible beds. We cut up cold cuts and lettuce and tomato for lunch every day and then washed the plates and bowls, whereas the fancy tours would get pre-wrapped sandwiches from local roadhouses or cafes. We went to go watch the sunset, they would get nice beach chairs and wine and cheese to eat while they watched the sunset. To me that kind of crap isn’t worth an extra $800/day, which is what some of those people paid in comparison to what we did. I’ll suffer the indignity of slicing tomatoes instead, thank you very much.

So the Kimberley region is pretty remote. It’s 162,000 square miles, and has something like 35,000 people in it, almost half of whom are in Broome, where we started from. It sure is pretty though. Not much in terms of civilization, but lots of natural beauty. One of the first things we did once we started moving was to visit a 2,000-year-old boab tree. Boab trees are only found in the Kimberley. Ordinarily, while I can appreciate a unique, historic tree, I don’t get my breath taken away by them. This one was different though. Definitely the coolest tree I’ve ever seen

The Europeans back in the day actually used to use it as a holding cell for aboriginals that were caught in the area, so it has a bit of a sad history as well.

The Kimberley is all about the gorges and scenery and watering holes. The first water spot we tackled was an underground body of water called Tunnel Creek

It was pretty, but it was also the first place where I spotted wild crocodiles! Tunnel Creek was filled with freshwater crocs, who can grow up to 10-12 feet, but they only eat little things. They never developed the massive jaws of the Estuarine croc, more commonly known as the “Saltie.”

That sign was NOT photographed at Tunnel Creek. Salties are the big guns. They are the ones that stalk, and occasionally eat, the unsuspecting traveler. I’ve yet to see one of these guys in the wild, but when I do, I hope that it’s from a safe distance away. Salties can grow over 20 feet long. I would not want to be chased by a 20-foot long mean-spirited ancient reptile with razor sharp teeth.

Our first night of camping was at a place called Windjana gorge, which we explored the morning after we camped. I slept outside in just a swag for the first time. No tent, just swag on the floor. It’s kind of neat. You open your eyes and are looking up at the stars. Here’s a photo of Windjana gorge:

And here’s a photo of some lizards sunning themselves on the sunny side of the gorge. They are also the freshwater kind:

As we travelled across the Kimberley, we went across the Gibb River road. Despite the overall ruralness of the area, it’s quite a touristed track. It’s only open for half the year though. Up in this part of Australia, there are only 2 seasons, as is the case with all places in the tropics. There’s just the wet and the dry. I’m doing my traveling during the dry, which is necessary to really see this part of the country. You can still easily tour the southern parts of Australia during the winter (as I’ve just done), it’s just a bit nippy at times and you can’t really take advantage of swimming in all of the beautiful water that you see. But the winter down south is the dry up in the tropics, and that’s the only time you can really travel. Once the wet season starts, a lot of things shut completely, including the entire Gibb River road. It just completely floods out. Even a lot of the gorges we went into are entirely inaccessible during the wet season.

And what of the crazy inebriated drunkards who were taking us across one of Australia’s most remote regions on a dirt road? Once they put on their professional sides, they were quite good. Still laid back bush guys, but they were great. They were also quite good-naturedly apologetic that first morning of the tour to those of us who witnessed their less-than-professional side. By the middle of the first day of the tour I’d pretty much forgotten about one of them drunkenly grabbing me on the street in Broome and asking me what my thoughts were on pooping in holes.

Here’s an example of one of the gorges that we hiked to and then swam at. There were so many beautiful ones, and this is certainly a nice reward at the end of a long, hot hike:

We also came across a couple of natural hot springs. Here’s one at El Questro Wilderness Park. This thing is completely natural, no design went into it:

I think that’s pretty impressive for mother nature!

One of the things about the Gibb River road that made the track fun was the fact that sometimes you had to cross an actual… river. Here’s a photo of our bus, named Jeffrey (although the bus was a female), cutting through the Pentecost River crossing along the track:

As you can imagine, cutting across and through rivers is quite bumpy. By the 4^th day of the tour I finally needed to tap into the fresh 15 pack of coke that I bought in Broome. I went to the back of the bus to find that only 12 of my 15 cans had survived the first 4 days of 4 wheel driving. 3 exploded, and the rest looked like they’d been through a war.

One of the guides told me that only losing 3 cans after all that time was actually a pretty good success rate though, so I tried not to be too upset about my loss.

One of the highlights of the tour was visiting Purnululu National Park, more commonly known as the Bungle Bungles. It’s been world heritage listed, even though it only became a national park in the late 1980’s. The area has been known by the local Aboriginal people for thousands of years, but white man only “discovered” it back in the 1950s. This was the most rural spot we visited on the tour, but even this park at least had long-drop toilets at all of the campsites and starting points of major hikes. So while I did have to use an outhouse for a few days, there was no point when anyone ever had to actually dig a hole to poo in. I’ll have to save that glorious life experience for a future date. Also, the 4WD track into the park is known as one of the toughest (passable) roads in Australia. I sat for 2 hours in and out of bumpy road, bouncing around in my seat with my remaining coke cans in a cooler bag on my lap. I wasn’t going to risk losing any more.

That’s a photo of some of the famous domes of the Bungle Bungles. They are made up of iron oxide (the red) and cyanobacteria (the black). There’s nowhere else like this in the world, and it’s pretty friggin remote, so it was special to be able to see it.

The below is a photo of Cathedral gorge, also in the Bungle Bungles park. Our tour guide had us go into the gorge in silence and sit for a few minutes without any noise. It was really cool. The moment was ruined though when another tour group arrived, and we all just silently got up and walked away J

This one is a place called Echidna chasm, in another part of the Bungles. It was a long, narrow passageway in between giant rocks. In the past the tour guide found a brown snake, which is one of the world’s most venomous. It was kind of Indian Jones-esque!

Our second to last day we went to visit Lake Argyle, which is a beautiful man made lake. It’s huge, 19 times the size of Sydney Harbor. It was very pretty scenery, and actually reminded me a bit of Lake Havasu, where my aunt and uncle live in Arizona. The main difference was that Lake Havasu isn’t filled with 30,000 of these:

Hehehe. We also spotted some rock wallabies, who are slightly less threatening looking.

Towards the end of the tour, we finally got to the Northern Territory. Woo Hoo! Back to God’s country for me. I was quite happy to see the sign:

So it was farewell to Western Australia, after about 3 weeks of exploring the state. Our last day was a relaxed one, swimming at a gorge and visiting a member of the local Aboriginal Jarwan tribe to learn a bit about indigenous culture.

I’m writing this from the Darwin YHA, which is not where I am staying, but they have good unlimited Internet packages. The group went out for one last hurrah in town last night. It was odd being back in civilization. People looked at me funny because instead of my grungy shorts with caked on dirt I showed up in a dress with a splash of makeup. I wanted to feel like a real girl again, instead of a bush nomad.

What’s next? A stressful day in Darwin during which I did my laundry, wrote and posted this, caught up on emails, put up pictures on facebook, explored Darwin, ate, and re-packed my bag. Then it’s off to Kakadu and Litchfield national parks, followed by a 3-day trip down the Stuart Highway to my beloved Alice Springs. A sh*thole of a town, but the area has become a bit of a home away from home for me, so I very much look forward to going back.

Next post should come from Adelaide! It’ll be my 4^th and FINAL time checking into the Adelaide YHA. I like Adelaide well enough, but holy crap have I seen enough of it.

Keep your fingers crossed for me that I don’t get eaten by the vicious tropical mosquitoes, or even worse – eaten by a local friendly saltie J.