Friday, 19 June 2015

Geikie Gorge - Fitzroy Crossing


Arrived in Fitzroy Crossing on Thursday the 18th . There are three van parks here but the best by a million miles is the Fitzroy River Lodge. Went into the bar at the Lodge at lunch time to check out the food and it was so nice we had to have a drink. But they only serve mid strength beer till 6pm as there is a problem with Aboriginals wanting to drink from the start of trade. This strategy slows them down.

This morning we took the 8.30am cruise on the Fitzroy in Geikie Gorge. There is a lot of limestone rock because of most of the northern Kimberley being an inland sea for along time. Nice cruise, not spectacular though, like we have grown to expect.
 
We also took a look at the old Fitzroy Crossing and Crossing Inn but missed getting any photos.







Bungle Bungles


Saturday the 13th June it was time to leave Lake Argyle. Seven days there was not to much. It is a beautiful drive in and out of there. Headed for the Bungle Bungles Van Park but stopped at Kununurra for the markets and other provisions. Called in to the Visitors Centre to make a booking for the Bungle Bungles National Park. They now require that you have to make a booking ahead of time online and the Visitors Centre has an ipad you can use. 
 
Headed off to the Bungles Van Park which is not actually at the Bungles. The National Park is a further 52km on. We had phone reception for the first time in a week and got a couple of blog posts and facebook done. Made sure everything was charged as we were camping in the Bungles. On the Sunday morning we left the van in storage at the van park ($20 per night but happier doing that than leaving it in a nearby rest stop) and drove into the National Park. The road is to corrugated to take a van in and there are about six creek crossings.


 So many people, probably the majority pay about $285 per person for a day trip in there. We were camping for three days there. We had confidence in our Land Cruiser being able to cope with it and it did so. I went to the trouble of putting a snorkel on it and having the rear diff breather raised (Toyota had already raised the front diff and gear box breathers) and put BF Goodrich all terrain tyres on. Let the tyres down. Having paid the money to get all that done and not make use of it does not make sense to me. So at least not having to pay for tours gives me good value and there are lots of tours I don’t have to pay for because of having a capable 4WD.
 
The Bungle Bungles Van Park is on the Mabel Downs cattle station which is a full on working property. The owners don’t discriminate between the van park guests and their cattle. We were out under the awning reading and I was on the computer and we heard what we thought was people walking on gravel. After a while we turned around to find we had cattle feeding right behind us.


This is our camp in the Walardi campground in the south of the Bungles. There is a camp in the north and the one in the south. South is best as the walks are longer in the south and two days in the south is best and one day in the north. We have gone for speed and ease with the equipment. Bought a three second tent and a two second shower ensuite. Picked up a 12 volt shower at Kununurra. Being able to have a shower on a hot afternoon after a long walk was fantastic.


The Bungle Bungles were amazing. We could not believe we were there staring at these unique rock formations. Felt like pinching myself to make sure we were there and this was real.














This was the Piccaninny Lookout view.

On the Monday we walked to Whip Snake Gorge.


Then walked to Cathedral Gorge. The temperature increases because you are walking on rocks between rock walls, like being in an oven. Fortunately there was a breeze but we were stuffed by the end.


Tuesday we went to Echidna Chasm in the north. I found this one the most amazing. See videos that went on facebook on the 18th.






Osmond Ranges.

Wednesday morning we drove out and back to the Bungles van park. Picked up the van and headed off. This was the first time we had phone reception since Saturday. Linda received a text that the 22 year old son of a dear friend had died in a cliff fall three days earlier on the Sunday. It was very upsetting.

We drove to Halls Creek and got fuel and lunch and then drove on to Mary Pool free camp for the night. There were more vans, motorhomes and campers there that night than most caravan parks.

Wednesday, 17 June 2015

Lake Argyle 3


Monday the 8th we walked through a bush track from the Lake Argyle Van village to the Durack Homestead. When the Ord Dam was built and the valleys were then flooded to form Lake Argyle, the Argyle Downs cattle station, owned by the Durack family, went under water. The Durack’s were not against it as it was Kimberly Durack’s idea. The station and a couple of other very large stations nearby were established by Patsy Durack. Starting in 1883, he and his brothers and business partner drove 7000 cattle, and horses and some sheep from their holdings in central Queensland. It was a 3 year long drove and he lost half his stock and a few men. Droughts, floods and disease hampered their progress. It is an amazing story and I am keen to download the book, ‘Kings in Grass Castles’, written by Patsy’s grand-daughter, and start reading.

The homestead on Argyle Downs was taken apart stone by stone and faithfully restored on the site it is now, near the dam. It was amazingly cool inside.




Monday night was movie night and Red Dog was showing. Had seen it before but I was glad we saw it again.

Next day Linda and I went to just below the dam to fish in the Ord River and have a picnic. Didn’t get a bite but it’s not about that anyway, is it? The area was just so beautiful. The picnic in the park was very peaceful.


On Wednesday the 10th we went with neighbours, Kay & Doug, to a spot on Spillway Creek that Doug had been told about where there should be some reasonable size fish. Kay & Doug wound up pulling in two good size Cobbler catfish. The fish in the photos are not the ones we kept. They were the tiddlers.


Freshwater catfish in WA use to be considered a very ordinary white fish meat and sold cheaply. Someone decided to change the name to Cobbler and greatly increase the price and it started selling in a big way. We had a great fish dinner that night eating our fresh Cobbler catch. Linda and I only caught little bottlenose catfish, not even anygood for eating, but we still enjoyed the day immensely.

Thursday and Friday have been filled in with a couple of walks near the village, doing some trip planning, making some bookings for the Horizontal Falls tour and the Bungle Bungles van park. You have to do a bit of planning at least or you don’t get to go on these great things you want to do. It gets busy at this time of year and we only just got in with our booking for the Horizontal Falls and that was over three weeks in advance for that booking.  Three or four days either side of our preferred booking date were booked out so we were very blessed to have made our booking when we did. One of the reasons why the bookings were so heavy right at that time is that was when the tides were at their best for a month and it just so happened that our preferred day was among the best, so doubly blessed.

We got the last powered site at the Bungles van park. We will be leaving our van there in storage while we tent it into the Bungles.

We further filled in our time with meeting a lovely Kiwi couple, John and Lisa and their gorgeous little five year old Madeline. Such nice people and it was great to be able to get info on Cape Leveque from them as they have already been there. It is good to do some research but being able to get timely, accurate info from fellow travelers is priceless. We keep getting great tips from people but it is a pleasure to be able to pass on stuff that we have found out too. We thought we better make a booking for Cape Leveque as they said that it was booked out when they were there. So made the call and could only get one night powered and two nights camping as it was school holidays. We will have to go to other campsites to see the rest of the Cape. Cannot take the van as the road is to rough. We will just have to get by with one night of power to charge up the jump pack battery and the spare battery that we run the fridge/freezer with. Luckily that powered site night is in the middle of the eight days we will be away from the van and tenting it. As we won’t have solar we will have to get by with charging all the devices by a bit of driving, the powered night and the camp hosts hopefully doing us a favour by plugging in the jump pack through the day for a couple of days.

What a wonderful week we have had at Lake Argyle! It has been one of our two most favourite destinations of our trip so far which is just on two months travelling. The other favourite was El Questro. Hard to split them. One common thing to all the Kimberleys is the balmy tropical nights. It is just so comfortable, sitting out of a night in singlet, shorts and thongs. Oh, sorry to rub it in for those in the south.