Life in Retirement: June 2013

Friday, June 28, 2013

Bungle Bungles

I have run out of time and will post a lot more photos next time I have access to the internet.

Bungle Bungles

One stuffed tyre $$$

entering the Bungle Bungles

Thursday, June 27, 2013

One draw back of a blog entry or posting is that each current post is at the start of the blog which means if I continue with a particular narrative you get the second part first which may become a little confusing at times if you haven’t read the previous post.

In my previous post I talked about the horizontal waterfalls, so named by Sir David Attenborough, I’m still not sure why they are called horizontal. For many years I had a perception the falls were formed by water rushing off coral reefs, but this is not the case. Visualise a tidal body of water several kilometres long almost like a large fiord and surrounded by high rocky cliffs and promontories, open to the sea at one end. Off to one side are two similar fiords only narrower and separated from the large fiord and each other by a very narrow peninsular of rock approximately 50-60 metres high. These two fiords are like two lakes with one single opening from one lake to the other and similarly into the large body of water. One opening is about 15 metres wide the other about 8-10 metres wide, it is here the horizontal falls are formed. Tides in this area are between 11 and 13 metres high, as the tide comes in it has to squeeze through these narrow gaps and similarly on the ebb tide it falls faster on one side of the gap than the water on the other consequently forming a waterfall of churning and violent water with huge boiling whirl pools. The thrill of course is to sit in or on in our case, a powerful boat and do all sorts of things like charge through the narrow gap at break neck speed while you hang on for dear life and yahoo like a mob of school kids (and the women scream), or slow down so the boat is held in the grip of the surging torrent bobbing around like a cork in a washing machine with sheer cliffs rising 50metres above and 50 metres of water below you forcing its way through the narrow gap. It’s not all harem scarem though, the area is of great natural beauty and while you are there you get the opportunity to have a good look around and enjoy the vista. Would you believe a mining company has applied to mine the area and the Western government is considering it.

The Kimberley Region and coast line is of such great natural beauty, in my opinion the whole region should be totally protected against mining or heavy industry of any sort. In the scheme of things it isn’t such a vast area relevant to the rest of Australia, should we really desecrate such natural beauty to satisfy the greed of a few?

Moving on down to Broome we checked into Cable Beach Caravan Park for two nights. Classified as four star, it was very expensive, very crowded and difficult to manoeuvre the van into place, plus the amenities in our area were disgraceful. Having heard so much about Cable Beach we were looking forward to seeing it especially at sunset. What a disappointment, after a 2kilometre walk we eventually got to the beach where we had to walk across shelly coarse sand to reach any resemblance of a decent beach amongst a line of rocks. Muttering our disappointment and voicing our opinion on the virtues of Fraser, Moreton and Stradbroke Islands apart from the coastal beaches of both the Sunshine and Gold Coasts, we strolled northward and eventually cleared the rocky formations to where every man and his dog were driving their 4wd to get a photo of the sunset without rocks impeding their view. In amongst all this three separate columns of camels were being led along the beach just to add to the mayhem.

A day spent looking around Broome and then we moved out travelling south in the direction of Port Headland. Just over 100 hundred kls down the road we turned off onto a sand track into Barn Hill Station a working cattle station of some 450,000 acres that takes up 80 kilometres of beautiful coastline. Ten kilometres in from the highway on a sand track, we arrived at a very basic caravan park run by the property owners and here we set up camp on unpowered sites to spend best part of a week in idyllic conditions. Access to beautiful beaches and long walks, unusual colourful rock formations, cool nights and 30+C days, deep blue skies and cooling breezes, almost paradise. Our toilets and showers are a hoot, open air corrugated iron, hot water supplied courtesy of a large pile of coiled up black poly pipe and it all works wonderfully well including flushing toilets. You get used to walking up to the ablutions and seeing both male and female legs protruding below either the showers or toilets, it’s all very natural. Our days have been filled in a totally relaxed manner, long walks along beaches both north and south, picking up beautiful little shells (for the ladies of course) washed up with the large tides each day, exploring rocky headlands where eroding sandstone slabs create attractive patterns of multiple colours. Then usually we get back to our vans by early afternoon have a late lunch followed by our daily shower in the open air showers, catch up on a bit of reading and then wander down to the little kiosk to buy an ice cream. We even had a game of barefoot bowls on the crude little green adjacent to the kiosk seeing no-one was there to watch, we won’t talk about that effort either, needless to say none of us expect to be invited into a comp any time soon. Then back to the vans for happy hour, a few nibblies and a couple of coldies, it’s a tough life. To-night, Sunday night special, for $15 per head a three course meal, soup, roast of the day and desserts, we’ll be in that.

26^th June 2013

On Monday we departed Barn Hill heading for 80 Mile Beach 247 kls south of Barn Hill. The turn off to 80 Mile Beach is about 45kls south of the Sandfire Roadhouse that is marked on most maps. 9-10kls of corrugated red dirt road brings you to the beach caravan park where for $41 per night we were on a powered and grassy site. This park is well organised and obviously has been here a long time, amenities are clean and plenty of hot water and pressure. The place is set out on a level site protected by surrounding grassed dunes.

A short walk (100m) over a dune brings you to the widest beach I have ever seen, at low tide is must be ¾ of a kilometre out to the water and the silvery grey sand stretches as far as the eye can see in either direction. In the upper parts of the beach the sand is gritty crushed shell with deep shell beds that have been washed up, the sand gets finer as you proceed down the beach until it is almost a grey silt at the waters edge, I likened it to Kaolin Clay for those that can remember the poultice material used for drawing boils many years ago. Shells of all descriptions litter the beach and not too many beach strollers resist the temptation to gather a collection of the many varied shapes and colours comparing colour and quality with others doing the same.

For the first time since leaving home in March a weather front came in and we have had considerable rain over the past two days and nights. Not having access to the internet makes it difficult to know what is happening in the region, however a road report posted at the reception office indicated numerous roads in the region are closed particularly around Port Headland. The weather is supposed top clear tomorrow (Thursday) and rumour has it there was sunshine in Port Headland this morning. We booked in for another night and will assess the situation in the morning, if we depart we will probably only travel as far as Pardoo Roadhouse about 100kls south of 80 Mile Beach turn off. From here should be able to get more information and re-assess our travel plans.

27^th June

We left 80 Mile Beach this morning in cold wind and overcast conditions, it hadn’t rained all night so we considered the front had passed over and was breaking up. We travelled through to Port Headland driving out of the foul weather into a perfect day. Boring is probably the best way to describe the countryside enroute but we were entertained by listening to all the carry on regarding the change of leadership. Judging by the amount of water running in creeks and rivers and lapping the highway in places it is apparent they had a lot of heavy rain in the region near Port Headland.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

18th June 2013

17^th June 2013

If You read my last written post 9^th June I was wondering how long we would be stranded in Halls Creek, as it turned out parts were sourced in Kununurra on the Monday and arrived in Halls Creek Tuesday getting us underway Wednesday, all history now. We drove to Fitzroy Crossing and settled into a large caravan park on the northern side of town. Fitzroy Crossing is serviced by a fair sized IGA store and I didn’t see much more than that, alarmingly the heavy steel gratings covering any and all openings plus the immensely strong steel framed security doors at the shop front are testament to the behaviour problems all too prevalent in a lot of these remote settlements, most of it fuelled by alcohol, you just don’t go out at night.

We got underway at a reasonable time the next day and before continuing south joined a short morning boat tour of the Geikie Gorge approximately 24kls west of the town, good value for money and a very enthusiastic and informative guide.

Travelling on south through an ever-changing landscape from flat savannah scrub to good cattle grazing country we turned off the Great Northern Highway and continued into Derby, it was Thursday 13^th June. Friday we had a quiet day, did a bit of grocery shopping and looked around town. One of the amazing things to see is the phenomenal rise and fall in the tide something like 11metres between low and high water, one tide per day. We were in luck, on Friday night there was fund raising mud crab racing , what a hoot and for $10 we got half a hot mud crab (must have cooked the losers), the biggest meat pattie I’ve ever seen, a lovely fresh hamburger bun and an assortment of some of the best salad I have had for yonks.

Saturday 15^th June we took one vehicle and drove 140kls up the Gibb River Road to Windjaner Gorge National Park and then onto Tunnel Creek. As far as gorges go we have seen more impressive ones but it was still interesting. This area was once a coral reef and walking under overhanging formations you can look up and see numerous fossilised shells imbedded in the rock, so in fact you are looking up at the sea-bed from below it, if you follow what I mean.

Another point of interest is the huge number of fresh water crocodiles sunning themselves on the river bank and sand bars looking like a scene out of an early African jungle movie (eg Tarzan). A lot of people think they won’t hurt you as they are fish eaters but when you see those teeth, I wouldn’t want to push my luck with them. Although I was photographing them from about 3m.

Another 30kls further on was Tunnel Creek, here the four us with our little LED headlights on entered a small crevice in a rock wall that opens up into a limestone cavern with a creek running through it and winds its way through the mountain for about half a kilometre. Pitch black and wading sometimes through water up to your crotch, it was all good fun, interesting and at times a bit spooky. In a couple of locations sunlight pours through where the tunnel is exposed to the outside world creating a rather attractive effect.

Sunday 16^th we were picked up by bus at 2:15pm and taken out to the local airstrip where we boarded a float plane (also has little wheels) and flew out across the beautiful Buccaneer Archipelago and circled the phenomenon known as the horizontal waterfalls, then we landed on the water and transferred to a series of moored pontoons forming a large accommodation platform, entertainment area, fish feeding platform and catwalks for the seaplanes to secure to.

We had time to be welcomed, drop our overnight gear into our rooms, have a very quick cold drink and don life jackets to climb on board a 600 horse-powered rubber ducky, all straddling a cushioned seat like a gymnasium horse and hanging on for dear life to a handle bar in front while some maniac hurtled us through the gaps in the rock formation that create the horizontal falls. Basically its like charging into a violent washing machine, just like some crazy showground ride no person in their right mind would go on and all the time the noise of the power house engines were drowned out by the screams, laughter and yahoos of those of us on-board, (the youngest being about 54), what a blast.

Time has caught up with me so I must close for now. We are actually in Broome and leaving in the morning, not sure where we are going and if we will have internet connection for a while but suffice to say eventually I will bring you up to-date and add more photos.