From The Kimberley 2022

Our ‘In the Kimberley’ time had come to an end as we started our trip back home.  We headed south into a region known as the Pilbara before eventually turning west and would be progressively experiencing new and old destinations.

We had been watching carefully how much rain had been falling in various parts of our potential route home, because coming up, a ‘go-no go’ decision would be needed if the rain kept falling in more central parts of the country, because out there are mainly dirt roads, some of which had recently been closed due to rain.

Coastal free camp at Cape Keraudren after Barn Hill

As it turned out, the rain did stop and we managed to go where we had sort of planned as shown below.

There were places we wanted to visit further south of the Kimberley so it became quite a long journey home

After our farewells at Barn Hill and one free camp on the coast at Cape Keraudren and restocking of fuel and supplies in Port Port Hedland, we turned inland towards an area called the Pilbara but not before free camping at an interesting place called ‘In The Rocks’.

Its name is a very good description, because we were in amongst rocks, 3 billion year old red ones, lots of them and famous world amongst geologists.  These rocks are the oldest geologically untouched (earthquakes etc) rocks in the world!  Who would have known.

Our free camp 'in the rocks' of geological significance

Just a few of the rocks

Stunning sunset across the rocks

For a few hours we clambered all over them and were able to observe the constant bi-directional movement of 4 trailer road-trains, one passing by every 10-15 minutes, 24 hours a day.  We learned later that each road-train does one 600 km return trip per day between the mines and Pt Hedland, collecting and offloading iron ore.  Unbelievable!

We were used to 3 trailers but 4 trailer road-trains
were are different challenge to overtake

Our main destination for 3 nights was Karijini Nat. Park, located within the Hamersley Ranges, an area we visited 32 years ago.  

Road-trains travelling through the Hamersley Ranges of the Pilbara

Whilst the sights within the park have not changed too much apart from more safety barriers, it was packed with visitors.  Luckily we had booked our Nat. Park camp sites many months earlier because now, people were being turned away.

The skies are so dark, the stars so bright as we
camped under the Milky Way in Karijini Nat. Park

Over 2 full days we visited multiple gorges, specifically walking down and through Dales Gorge after viewing the cascades of Fortescue Falls and revisited one of our favourites, Oxer Lookout.  Here there are views of the Weano, Red, Hancock and Joffre gorges but were unable to reach the 1990 viewpoint, again due to safety fences

The red gogres are deep and below
normal ground level

Visiting one of the gorges and its very cold water

Oxer lookout where multiple gorges intersect.  In 1990 we stood
on the little lump at the left of this photo and much closer to the edge

We worked our way over 2 days back towards the coast, enjoying one night at Cheela Plains Station with others, most of whom were heading to Karijini, before spending another night at Bruboodjoo camping area which is north of Coral Bay and close to Ningaloo Reef.

Set up at Cheela Plains near the concrete table tennis and fire pit

The water is incredibly clear and the beach great to walk along

The water here was so clear but extremely shallow at low tide and the reef was too far away.  We did enjoy walking the long sandy beach observing the birdlife and watching other visitors enjoying themselves.  School holidays were starting in a few days but already this place had a 100+ vans set up all over the place.

It was still quite peaceful despite all the others camping at 

It was restocking time again, so Carnarvon was the right place for this plus enjoying a ‘parmi’ dinner in a restaurant for a change.  We both love parmigianas but we continue to wonder where they source all the large chickens to make these creations happen.

Sunset at foreshore Carnarvon

Now these were good parmis!

Carnarvon would be our last look at the ocean until we reached home as we headed west via Gascoyne Junction for a fuel top up before continuing on to the Kennedy Range Nat. Park, a destination new to us.  

Gascoyne Junction is named for its position at the junction of the Gascoyne and Lyons Rivers and it was flooding by these rivers in 2010 that destroyed the original town founded in 1897, a new town being built above the flood line.

From Gascoyne it was dirt roads to the campground Kennedy Range Nat. Park, stopping for 3 nights.  Kennedy Range is dominated by a huge sandstone plateau between 12 and 25km wide, 75km long and 80 metres high.

Part of the plateau at Kennedy Ranges

The surrounding country is remote and very flat

Our days were physically full, with walks into multiple gorges, clambering over rocks, under fallen branches and relaxing by a few rock pools at the end of the gorges, formed by waterfalls during the rainy season.

Had to do a lot of rock clambering

Walking into one of the many gorges of Kennedy Range

In one of the gorges on the wall of a now dry waterfall were riddles with honeycomb patterns, somehow etched into the rock.  

Dry waterfall and wall patterns of Honeycomb Gorge

We even managed to do a challenging but rewarding hike along a rock strewn path to the top of the plateau, enjoying stunning views over the campground and the plains beyond.

What a stunning view from the top of the plateau

When you go up we had to clamber back down

263 kms away on more dirt roads lay our next destination goal.  In 1990 we thought about visiting it but decided not to because of the heat, rough dirt roads and its remoteness.  

It was this destination that lead our son Jarad to say at that time whilst pondering whether to go or not, “if you don’t go, you won’t know”, profound words for a person so young at the time and now the theme for Geripackers.

Welcome to ‘the rock’, otherwise known as Mt Augustus and regarded as the worlds largest single rock with a central ridge almost 8 kilometres long and 715 metres high.  Wondering about Uluru at all.

We never tired of the beautiful night skies

The difference between Uluru and Mt. Augustus is that Uluru is a rock monolith consisting of a single rock while Mt. Augustus is a monocline formed by a geological linear, strata dips in one direction between horizontal layers on each side… yes I got this from Google!  Mt Augustus is also about 1.5 times larger than Uluru.

There are plenty of people willing to debate claim of the worlds largest rock by the way.

After our foray thankfully along the smoothest dirt road we have ever driven on, we got our first sight of ‘the rock’, it was huge.

Welcome to the rock... Mount Augustus

The caravan park is large and different, with multiple lawned hexagonal areas to set up next to, with a tap and power points located in the middle of each them.  During our stay, the van fridge died so with some re-arrangement, we were now totally dependant on the car fridge to protect food.  Luckily the weather had turned cold so we stopped drinking beer, just left the wine outside for a short while and it was soon cool enough.

Unique caravan park layout with Mt Augustus in the background

There are lots of walks to be done to various gorges all around ‘the rock’, reached by driving the 49km dirt road around its base.  We split this up over 2 days and walked to every attraction except one, the climb to the summit.  This is a 12 km return climb/trek and takes at least 6 hrs to complete.  In one season, 3 people died doing this climb so we elected to admire the rock from the ground. 

View from one of the walks around base of Mt Augustus

Mt Augustus is also known as Burringurrah by the local indigenous people and is important to them as evidenced by the extensive artwork carved into the rock in multiple locations.

The ancient rock art has been carved into
the stone not painted onto it

After even more very dusty but relatively smooth dirt road we reached Meekatharra for fuel before more dirt until we reached sealed roads, then Leonora before finally reaching and setting up on the shore around a dry Lake Ballard.

Remote old water tank made of stone after
departing Mt Augustus

Another overnight free camp on
the way to Lake Ballard

Carpet of wildflowers next to remote dirt road

We were very close to Lake Ballard, when we visited Kalgoorlie in 2021, a mere 207 kms to the north, but were determined to visit it this trip and were so pleased we did.

All set up on the shore line of Lake Ballard

Beautiful patterns from directly above our camp spot

Larger perspective of Lake Ballard

Lake Ballard is a salt lake with 7 islands on it, the largest being close to where we camped for 2 days, enjoying climbing to the top of the closest island for great views and visiting some of the lakes ‘residents’, 51 life size steel sculptures installed over 10 square kms of the lakes surface.

Artist Antony Gormley made the sculptures from photos of 51 naked residents living in Menzies, the closest town to the lake.

One of 51 sculptures located on the salt lake

Sunset on the lake

Walking across the lake visiting different sculptures

In parts of the lake, as we wandered its surface looking at sculptures, it was boggy caused by recent rains we discussed earlier, but it was a great place to fly the drone because there were no trees to run into.

Fabulous location to fly a drone

The island from above with us sitting on top of it

Okay… from Lake Bollard we were heading back along roads we did last year by using most of Australia’s ‘the longest shortcut’, otherwise known as the Outback Way which is 2,700km long between Laverton in WA and Winton in Qld.  We left it at Boulia.

This was our shortest way of returning home after visiting the Pilbara. It involved 1,700km of dirt roads back through the centre of Australia and its deserts, part of which we did last year along the Great Central Road but this time including the Plenty Hwy, essentially from Alice Springs to Boulia in Qld.

Next to these desert roads are literally hundreds
of abandoned and wrecked cars

Rather than repeat descriptions of the Great Central, will simply share a few photos and videos to tell that story but there was one major difference… fuel prices which reached $3.40 a litre in the middle of nowhere!  Gets interesting when you need 100 litres of fuel, you do the math.

We got off to a good start with sunset campfire
to cook our dinner on in the wide open peaceful space

The other little event whilst traveling the every bumpy dirt Great Central Road when we made our 3^rd overnight free camp near its end, was the van fridge door falling off.  We had been using the fridge to store things not needing cooling, but again had to adapt.  Oh well… s*** happens.

We did however see a few herds of wild camels as we crossed and managed to get the drone out to follow them into the bush.

Giles Breakaway on Great Central Breakaway

Wild camels next to Great Central Road

As we crossed the Great Central Road

Gill Pinnacle free camp - Great Central Road

Final campfire on Great Central Road

Leaving the Great Central Road dirt as we head to Yulara 
with Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) in the background

Needed to re-fuel at Yulara where Uluru is nearby, and continued onto our next free stop only 80kms away at Curtain Springs (Station).  LOTS of people camp here instead of Yulara for 2 prime reasons, it costs nothing and there are full facilities, plus being able to do day trips to Uluru and other sights.

We were back into Sturt Pea country

Result… LOTS of vans jostling for an unallocated, ‘pick somewhere’ random spot.  It really was survival of the first in best set up, but the vans kept coming in.  We went for a meal at the bar/shed and when we came back after sunset, it was hard to find our car/van, now crammed in between 2 much bigger units!  We left early next morning after scraping ice of our windscreen and waking up those new neighbours.

We're the one crammed in between
others at the Curtain Springs free for all

We didn’t stop in Alice Springs because it was their Show Week and it was too busy, but were a little surprised to see lots of large planes still stored at the airport due to the covid induced downturn.

There are still plenty of planes stored in the dry
air of Alice Springs waiting for demand to return

We free camped north of Alice with a few others and it was very cold overnight, Alice was experiencing a record of nights hitting sub zero temperatures.  It continued during the 2 nights we stayed at Gemtree Caravan Park just chilling out before tackling the next 500km of rough dirt.

There are people who regularly stay at Gemtree fossicking for gems and would watch them leave early in the day and return late to sit and sort through what they have found.

Fossickers checking their fine at Gemtree 

We had done the Plenty Hwy about 4 years ago and it wasn’t too bad this time, apart from a section of bull dust rich sections.  Bull dust lies in ruts or holes in the road and has the consistency of talcum powder.  

When you hit but dust it billows like a cloud over everything and if deep, is a little like driving through water.  You have to be very careful because you never know what’s under it.

Arthur River where we camped overnight
whilst crossing the Plenty Hwy

We had three notable experiences during our 2 day crossing.  Our first happened whilst we were free camped near a dry river near the half way point.  Whilst enjoying some wine outside nearing sunset, we were suddenly swarmed by ~100 black cockatoos, screeching overhead whilst returning to their roosts for the night.  Had never seen that many together before.

Further along the road we were confronted by a very large flock of budgies constantly circling near the road.  After a U turn and driving up onto a bank next to road, we found out why… water in the form of a large dam.

We just sat there and watched them as they swarmed down to the water surface, some catching a drink whilst others kept flying.    Spectacular and about 600 photos later we continued on.

Budgies... lots of budgies which are all green in the wild

They swarmed into to get a drink whenever they could

They even run into one another in flight

Our final experience was staying at yet another cattle station called Tobermorey, located a mere 20km from the Old border.  They have a nice camping area to set up near the work sheds and main house, plus the sell fuel.

There is a very eclectic bar area which opens around 4:30pm each day and have used 2 large windmill sets of blades as the ‘roof’ over the seating area and nearby is an old truck wreck which doubles up as a BBQ, the cooking plate and gas jets located under its hood.

Tobermorey beer garden with windmill sunshades

Different... an old truck BBQ

After crossing back into Qld, it was sealed road to Boulia where remaining crowds were dissipating after the running of the annual camel races, accompanied by a 25^th year anniversary for this event.  People, people and more people all over the place.  We spent the night near the river behind the racecourse before leaving for more solitude.

We never tired of the remote sunsets

We were keen to visit the Diamantina area but couldn’t due to recent flooding so elected to take a new way back to familiar places like Charleville and Roma already covered in previous posts, by going via Bedourie, again free camping next to a river just out of town.

From Boulia we were tackling another 300 kms of dirt to reach Windorah, a road we had never travelled and it was a very pleasant surprise.  There were very few trees, large wide vistas in all directions and a constant dust plume snaking out behind us.

Dust, dust and even more dust

The landscape is treeless, rocky and barren

Wonderful remote road between Bedourie and Windorah

This road runs through the channel country and with so much recent rain causing the channels to run, each time we crossed over the channel creeks, the country changed to a very bright green, with grass carpets growing along and beyond the banks.  It was a UK green colour and not what we were expecting.  Like a fool, didn’t take any photos and now regret it.

The channels cross the roads 12 & 14 we travelled

More fuel in a very quiet Windorah before locating a camp site next to yet another river, this time the well known one called Coopers Creek.  This is the same river which absorbs the water which infrequently flows through the channel country to Innamincka, located near the infamous Dig Tree of Burke & Wills death history.

Some grey nomads fishing the Coopers Creek

From here it was a relatively straightforward trip via very familiar towns including Roma and Chinchilla we first stopped with Gloria and Pete on our way to the Kimberley.  For our last night free camping, we again stopped at the weir but this time it was wet after yet more heavy rain.

Even as we got closer to home beyond Dalby, we had to drive through sets of flood water covering the road before eventually after 3 months and 16,000 kms we backed the van into our driveway.

Last of the dark star rich skies before we got home

Well we managed to go to, be in and come back from the Kimberley, an exceptional destination to visit and “if you don’t go you won’t know”!  

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Great overall trip with lots of fuel used and excellent company along the way, so till the time comes to post something again… go well!