WA's Top Town

WYNDHAM is the most northern town in Western Australia with a population of 900. This is a view from  the five rivers lookout over the Cambridge gulf and part of the Ord River flood plain. There is a big port here for cattle, mining and sugar.

MARLGU BILLABONG an oasis for bird life close to where we are staying at Parry Farm, Parry Lagoon nature reserve.

MARLGU BILLABONG with Mulligan's Ranges in the background.

GROTTO just south of town, there was some water at the bottom of the gorge, it must look great in the wet season with water cascading down the hills into here.

Purnululu National Park

BUNGLE BUNGLES what can I say, absolutely breathtaking and something you have to experience for yourself. The drive in from the main highway was 53 km’s, is four wheel drive only and took 1 ½ hours. Once into the national park the roads weren’t too bad.

BUNGLE BUNGLES our first real view of them, very impressive.

CATHEDRAL GORGE you cannot do justice to the size of the amphitheatre at the end of the gorge, the size of the walls that the water cascades down is incredible. Overhead is a solid rock ceiling.

CATHEDRAL GORGE showing the height of the walls reflected in the little bit of water in the pool.

BEEHIVES  the description of the shape of these 200 million year old weathered sandstone domes.

PICCANINNY CREEK you get to walk along here amongst the beehives, must be an impressive sight in the wet season with water flowing through here.

ECHIDNA CHASM is at the northern end of the park, entering the gorge are some lovely palms and you come to what you think is the end, but you turn a corner and walk further in through a very narrow fault line with rocks perched above your head.

ECHNIDNA CHASM  part way through, just loved the colours bouncing off the walls, some parts were less than a metre wide.

END OF ECHIDNA CHASM, can you spot me? Just amazing the conglomeration of rocks that form the walls of the chasm. Near the end I spotted a small bright yellow snake which was apparently a yellow tree snake, must have been a bit lost as there were no trees where the two of us were.

KUNGKALAHAYI LOOKOUT a fabulous view of the Bungle Bungles and the 500 million year old limestone ridge. This gives you bit of an idea of the scenery in the movie “Australia”, although you keep waiting for cowboys and Indians to appear on the horizon.

I could go on about the history and formation of the area, but in all honesty you have to come and experience this National Park for yourself!

Halls Creek

OLD HALLS CREEK is along the Duncan Road which takes you the back way to Kununurra on the fringe of the Tanami Desert. The town was moved 16kms to it's present location on The Great Northern Highway several years ago. The old Halls Creek is a much more picturesque spot in the Albert Edward Ranges.

CHINA WALL is a ridge of quartz up to 6 metres high, just a few kilometres out of town. 

                                        

PALM SPRINGS is like an oasis along the dusty road. When the area had it's gold boom in 1885 around here were market gardens providing for the area.

SAWPIT GORGE, easy access into the rock pool where the Black Elvire River has carved a way through the rocky ridge.

SAWPIT GORGE ROCKPOOL

CAROLINE POOL a natural waterhole with shady banks and the eucalypts were home to a family of black cockatoos. 

JUST found our next car, this was outside a derelict mechanical workshop along Duncan Road.

From Fitzroy Crossing

FITZTROY RIVER  Yesterday we drove through to Fitzroy Crossing, bit of a milestone as we have now been on the road 78 weeks/18 months, where has the time gone? The caravan park we are at is on the river behind a lodge, heaps of vans and lovely grassy sites, makes a change from red dirt. The river floods and in parts can be up to 30kms wide, very hard to imagine.

GEIKIE GORGE is just 20kms out of town on a sealed road. The colours in the background give you an idea of how high the water gets in the wet season, up to 12 metres higher than now.

GEIKIE GORGE bit of a variety of colours. We did a boat cruise up the gorge and then a walk along the sandstone walls and sandy banks. Saw more freshwater crocodiles sunbaking, apparently there are sawfish and stingrays in the water that have adapted to the freshwater, we didn't spot any. There was one pelican fishing, first one spotted this season, wonder if he came from Lake Eyre.

JABIRU again the first one spotted this season, last time we saw them was up at Kakadu in the Northern Territory.

Windjana National Park

WINDJANA GORGE is about 150kms from Derby down the Gibb River Road, the section we were on wasn't bad and about 80% would of been sealed. The road into the gorge off the GRR was closed earlier in the week while they graded after all the rain last week so it wasn't in too bad condition for gravel.

Although this photo is taken in the gorge, these 90 metre limestone walls welcome/confront you as you enter the car park. In Karijini you walked along flat land and looked down into the gorge, here the fact it is a wall is what impresses you.

                                       

WINDJANA GORGE as you wander further in.

FRESHWATER CROCODILE one of the many locals basking in the sunshine and this is actually how close we got.

TUNNEL CREEK is 37 kms further on into the national park down more gravel road. You scramble over some huge black dolerite rocks to enter the 750 metre long tunnel which was formed by the creek cutting through a spur of the Napier Range. We wore our reef shoes as you walk along sandy ledges and then through the water up to your waist in parts armed with your trusty torch.

The roof in the tunnel was amazing with hugh rock stalagtites and various formations.

Stream at the exit of the tunnel.

BOAB TREES are the symbol of this area and these ones looked good surrounded by all the termite nests.

The Day Has Arrived

HORIZONTAL FALLS day trip, it was just fabulous! We flew from Derby in the seaplane, with the flight being about 30 minutes.

Flying in this was our view of the horizontal falls at low tide, lucky for us one of the best tides of the year. Our day in the area meant that we got to experience three trips between the two gorges.

Top gorge, at low tide and high tide, the drop being four metres.

Bay at full tide, at low tide 70% of this  water has disappeared and the water is still 40 metres deep.

Lemon sharks hear the seaplanes and then line up for a feed, you can swim in a cage off the floating pontoon to see them underwater.

Flight home this gives you bit of an idea of the speed of the water when you see the different colour swirls of the water around the Buccaneer Archipelago.

Biding Time At Derby

DERBY WHARF at high tide of just over 10 metres. Derby is north of Broome and on the King Sound which is a massive mudflat, so alas no nice beaches. There are four tides a day to give you an idea of the speed, so it has been interesting to visit the jetty at different times to comprehend the enormity of the variance.

DERBY WHARF at low tide. As you can appreciate it is a very big U shape wharf that you can drive around in. The murky mangrove waters look like an attractive home for crocodiles and we have started to see crocodile warning signs again.

                                                                     

BOAB PRISON TREE believed to be 1500 years old. It was used as a staging point for prisoners being walked into Derby. The area has boab trees of varying shapes and sizes and where we are staying the area tracks flocks of noisy corellas, some that have been frolicking in the mud are bright orange.

These are pretty much the sites of Derby itself, due to the wet weather we will not be able to access gorges off the Gibb River road until the grader has been through, just have to be patient, so a bit of reading is on the agenda.