Critters
- Wood duck
- Dingo (at Yarrangobilly)
- Pie dish beetle
- Hooded plover
- Sea lions
- Sooty oystercatcher
- A very strange decorator caterpillar of some kind
- Lesser sand plover
- Peninsula brown snake
- Swamphen
- Red tailed black cockatoo
- Mallee fowl
- Scarlet robin
- Superb fairy wren
Itinerary
Our approximate itinerary could be summarised as “Clockwise, and we’ll fill in the gaps later”.
Places visited
- Mittagong, NSW
- Sutton, NSW
- Page, ACT
- Yarrangobilly, NSW
- Jindabyne, NSW
- Nimmitabel, NSW
- Cobargo, NSW
- Warburton, VIC
- Ballarat, VIC
- Mount Gambier, SA
- The Coorong, SA
- Port Elliot, SA
- Kangaroo Island, SA
- Adelaide, SA
- Mclaren Vale, SA
Townsville, Cairns & the Reef
Back in the big city (relatively). Townsville is OK for a few days I think. The outskirts are rather industrial, which is handy for getting vehicles serviced. The centre is very strangely laid out, due to geographical and maritime constraints. We celebrate my birthday with a meal out, and I do my first dive for a few months.
T and D1 depart on a side trip to Bris Vegas and Sydney, to catch up with friends and go to a concert. D2 and I stay on. A day trip to Magnetic Island is fun. Then we depart and head up the coast. First to Big Crystal Creek, which has an absolutely stunning waterhole with turtles, eels, and big rock jumps. Then to Mission Beach. These are real tropical beaches, but we now have to be vey wary as saltwater crocs are always a risk. D2 is a fairly experienced snorkeller, but hasn’t gone offshore, so we take a day trip to Beever Reef. Best conditions ever! It doesn’t get much better than this on the surface.
…Channel country
It’s a long damp drive to our first Queensland town, Boulia in the Channel Country. Another town perching on the edge of existence. The caravan park is friendly and cheap, but the shops & pub are still expensive. The Min-Min lights experience is very cheesy, but D2 loves it. We meet a lot of people going to the Birdsville races, which we decide to save for another day, maybe without kids in tow. On our first attempt to continue east, the road is blocked by rising flood waters. Turn around … try again in a couple of days! We get through on the second go.
…Rocks and into QLD
After Uluru, we duck back into Alice for supplies, then head to the nearby & beautiful West Macdonell ranges. It’s cold! Mid-winter, and early sunsets over the hills. Lovely scenery though. The National Park is very sparsely staffed; only two full time rangers at the moment, supporting multiple campsites and a long distance footpath. D2 makes friends with the ranger; I think perhaps she could be one eventually.
Sadly I manage to bash my little finger, while smashing up some firewood. We apply a field dressing, and the next day go to hospital in Alice Springs to get it checked out. A nasty cut and a chipped bone, but it’s clean and doesn’t need any work done on it other than applying a fancy silicone dressing. Luckily I was wearing work gloves, or it could have been much worse. I get to avoid washing up and heavy lifting jobs for a few days!
…Kings Canyon and Uluru
We depart Alice, which is bustling in the daytime, but rather depressing at night. A society that uses police officers to racially profile potential alcohol purchasers is broken in so many ways.
We drive to Kings Canyon, the long way round via Hermannsburg. The old mission is still run by Lutheran volunteers, albeit as museum and gallery now. It still feels pretty paternalistic to me, and the whole place has an undertone of unresolved issues. The Namatjira family paintings and general art history are amazing though.
…Newhaven
Heading south on the Stuart Highway. Before reaching Alice Springs, we take a right turn, and start long drive up the Tanami track. We were originally planning on coming down this road directly from WA, but lack of refueling stops meant we took the longer but safer route via Katherine. Our destination is Newhaven Wildlife Sanctuary, a privately owned conservation park in the middle of central Australia, run by some friends of friends who have swapped east African lions for the care of wallabies and bilbies.
…Exit WA, enter NT
The final stop in our five month WA odyssey is Parry Creek farm, near Wyndham. It has birds birds birds galore, plus one (or maybe two) saltwater crocs in the billabong alongside the camping area (eek!). The local town, Wyndham, feels like it has a tenuous existence. One of those places that seems perpetually on the verge of dying entirely, only kept going by occasional bursts of economic activity (meat processing, iron ore shipping, military).
…GRR
The Gibb River Road crosses the Kimberley east-west, connecting Derby and Kununurra to various pastoral stations, national parks and aboriginal communities. It’s 660km of mostly unpaved road, but with side trips up to 3000km.
First stop after Birdwood Downs is Windjana gorge. There seem to be lots of caravans, here. Maybe we will see less later as the road worsens. The gorge is huge, with many freshwater crocs basking on the sandbanks. The first side trip is to Tunnel Creek, which has an amazing walk through a network of huge caves, with occasional openings to the sky. We wade through the deeper sections, spotting a couple freshwater crocs on the other side of the cave with our torches. The creek at the far end has some interesting aboriginal rock paintings. A highlight!
…Broome & Derby
Into the Kimberley. There is a definite change to the vegetation (more lush) and coastline (mangroves). We stay at the Roebuck roadhouse, which is handy for Broome, and for departing eastwards. They have a happy well managed group of young staff. At Broome we check out the local history museum, which has lots of info on the town’s multicultural history (not always happy). Prior to the development of cultured pearls, the industry relied on Asian divers, even when the white Australia policy discouraged this. The evening is spent watching the famous “staircase to the moon”.
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