HALLS CREEK - FITZROY CROSSING

The old Fitzroy River Crossing - the top picture is ME driving!!!

In the middle of The Crossing

At the Pioneer Cemetery at Fitzroy Crossing

DAY 46 – HALL’S CREEK – FITZROY CROSSING                                     Wednesday, 17^th August

Annexe down, fully packed up and on the road by 8am this morning for the drive to Fitzroy Crossing – and when I say there is nothing between Hall’s Creek and Fitzroy Crossing - there is really nothing!!  So we got to Fitzroy Crossing (albeit without my Warumpi Band song “Fitzroy Crossing”!! – only those Warumpi Band fans – and I know there are SOME of you out there – will understand) by 11:30am.  We settled in (after the usual marital dispute about the site and position of the van) and had a lazy lunch before exploring what little there is to see in the main town.  We saw the site of the old town and the memorial to the first hospital set up there in 1938 by Rev John Flynn (man, that guy was busy!) and the pioneer cemetery which has entirely been washed into the mighty Fitzroy River.  Whilst the river looks fairly tame now, in March this year it flooded the whole town and much of the land around it.  You can see where whole parts of the banks of the river have just fallen away and much of the bank is very unstable still.  Of course we had to cross the river at the Old Crossing which is under water but has a concrete bottom.  Again, David and kids LOVED it!!!

It was interesting to hear on one of the tours we have been on recently that in the 1930’s President Franklin Roosevelt commissioned a survey of world food production and places where food production could be increased.  The scientists found that the areas around the Fitzroy and Ord Rivers systems were the most promising in terms of food productions because of the rate of the flow of the rivers IN THE WORLD!!

We then arranged to meet Kevin and Alannah (from Mill Park) at the old Crossing Inn for a beer.  This is the oldest pub in the Kimberley; on its original site since 1894.  At the time of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, there was an art competition for all high school students in Australia.  Amazingly, a Fitzroy Crossing High School student won the competition.  After this, the Old Crossing Inn asked the High School Students to paint murals to put on the outside walls of the Inn.  There are paintings of all aspects of Aboriginal life, from fishing, bush tucker, Jandamarra the Aboriginal warrior, Aussie Rules football etc.  It is a great tribute to the kids.

Of course we took one look at the pub (with our six children behind us) and realised that it might be a bit too exciting on pay day for us to be there so, sadly, we went back to the caravan park and had a few drinks there.  My husband insisted on me driving back over the Old Fitzroy Crossing – through the water.  I think it was just a turn on for him!  Gorgeous, stunning, strong woman, four wheel driving across the mighty raging Fitzroy River!  (OK it wasn’t quite raging!!)

It was a fascinating discussion with Kevin and Alannah as they shared their story of surviving the Strathewan fire on Black Saturday.  Caught on their sister’s 100 acre property and not realising what an enormous disaster was unfolding, they could not understand why no-one was coming to help them.  Alannah’s sister was seven and a half months pregnant and little Caleb and Tess were only 11 and 7 at the time, having to help fight the fires too.  99.5% of the property was burnt.  Basically just the house remained.  It really brought home to me how much you can emphathise with people but not REALLY understand what they went through.  It is amazing how raw the emotion is even two and a half years later.

WARMUN - HALLS CREEK

Along the Tanami Track

Bethany opening a gate along the Tanami

The world's second largest meteorite crater, Wolfe Creek, WA

David and Beth, the intrepid adventurers

DAY 45 – WARMUN – HALLS CREEK                                                                     Tuesday, 16^th August

A very big milestone was reached yesterday along our trip to Purnululu – we reached the magical 10,000 kilometres travelled!!!  Amazing!!  My original estimation was 16,000 kms for the trip so I think I am going to be well short!!

Sunset over the Tanami

So, here we are at Halls Creek, which surprisingly has an enormous recreation centre with a big public pool, information centre and a great little IGA.  That is where the excitement ends, I’m afraid.  We came here specifically to go to the Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater which is 150 kms away, down the Tanami Track.  But after our big day yesterday, it seemed hard to put the kids in the car again for 5 more hours of four wheel driving.  So we came to Hall’s Creek and set up the van.  The caravan park is what you would call extremely average, with virtually no shade at all, no grass and the ground is too hard to get the tent pegs into!!  All the bread here has been frozen and is stale.  The water is warm and we are trying to keep things cold in a cooler bag with ice that keeps melting!  Fridge not working at all.  We do have a working freezer, however, so if only we could use frozen milk we would be fine!  Often it is the case that it is much easier to get people and things warm than it is to keep people and things cold!!

So David has put up the annexe for the kids to sleep in – which is a lot more work than the tent – and then gone off with Beth for the long drive to the Meteorite Crater.  All the kids were asked if they wanted to go, and of course Ben, ever trying to impress Dad, said:  “I don’t want to disappoint you by not coming, Dad”.  But the kids really needed a break so I am doing some washing and supervising journal-writing and hopefully, if there has been a good amount of homework done, we can go in the pool!!

I will get David to give the low down on the Meteorite Crater when he gets back, but I was so proud of Bethany, who decided to go with him.  She said:  “I don’t want to say that all I did at Hall’s Creek was go in the pool”.  She is getting so mature.  It will be great for David and Beth to have some time together.  The kids very rarely get one of us to themselves. 

David:  “It was no surprise that my call for a party to head out on an intrepid adventure to Wolfe Creek Crater was met with a deafening silence.  Maybe it was the screening of Wolf Creek the night before, though I suspect in reality it was 280 kms of corrugated roads that put my adventurous family off the journey.  Eventually Bethany took pity on her father and like Burke and Wills (albeit with a little bit more water) the intrepid adventurers set out.  After overtaking two camels on the Great Northern Highway we drove 120 kms along the Tanami Track to Wolfe Creek reserve.  A further 20 kms of spine-damaging corrugations and we arrived at the world’s second largest meteorite crater.  An almost perfectly circular rim, 880 metres in diameter, surrounds a sandy crater bed with a small salt pan centre.  Bethany and I explored the area for about three quarters of an hour and observed Ring-Tailed Dragons along the sandy paths before embarking on the return journey.  It is believed that a meteorite of around 50,000 tonnes impacted here 300,000 years ago.  The crater was originally 120 metres deep which gives an amazing idea of the size of the collision.  The return journey as the sun set was quite beautiful as we observed cattle walking in single file to watering points and wallabies becoming more active in the cooler part of the day.  The day was completed when we returned to romantic music and a candlelit dinner of lemon chicken prepared by my wife.  Burke and Wills could have only dreamed of this at the Dig Tree”.

The trip took them over 5 hours so they did very well!

WARMUN (PURNULULU NATIONAL PARK)

The Bungle Bungles beehive domes in Purnululu National Park, Kimberley

At the Lookout at the South End of Purnululu National Park

Cathedral Gorge at Purnululu National Park

Dwarfed by Cathedral Gorge

Ben and Bridget on top of a top at the lookout at Echidna Chasm at the North end of Purnululu National Park

The family at the end of Echidna Chasm

Walking through the chasm, sometimes in close to darkness

The Livingstonia Palms and conglomerite rocks of Echidna Chasm

Tess at the Beehive Domes, Purnululu National Park

Ben and Beth taking a break in the shade on the walk to the lookout

DAY 44 – WARMUN (PURNULULU NATIONAL PARK)                                    Monday, 15^th August

Up very early this morning!  Howling dogs and dingoes kept me awake from 3am!!  There are stray dogs ALL OVER THE PLACE here!! I went to the toilet and came back and there were two of them on the mat outside our caravan door.  Gave me the fright of my life!!

We drove the 52kms to the turn off to Purnululu National Park national park in quick smart time and then started our drive into the national park.  52 kms on a dirt road that really wasn’t that bad at all.  It only took us and hour and a half to drive which we thought we really good since we had been told it could be much worse.  It must have just been graded.  There were 19 creek crossings (so 38 all together!) to the delight of my husband and children – a few came up well past the footboard!  We went first to the southern end where we went on the Domes Walk, the lookout and then to Cathedral Gorge.  It was a very hot walk but once inside Cathedral Gorge it was lovely and cool.  Cathedral Gorge has been carved out from water erosion and looks like a magnificent amphitheatre with a waterhole in the middle.  It was just beautiful. 

We had lunch and then went to the north of the park where we saw Echidna Chasm which is set amid Livingstonia Palms and conglomerate rock.  The chasm is lovely and cool and just gets smaller and smaller until even a grown man has trouble getting through.  It was interesting walking under the chasm where boulders had fallen and then lodged themselves in the wall, ready to fall the minute there is further erosion!!  It was quite stunning – not sure the photos are really going to do it justice!

It was a really long day – we got home well after dark at 6:30pm – but David did such a great job, not just the four wheel driving, but negotiating dingoes, kangaroos, and Brahman bulls on the road on the way home.  Dusk is such a bad time to drive.  I am glad we only do it every now and then.  I think the kids were asleep before their heads hit the pillow and David and I went to sleep at 8:30 pm and did not wake until 5:30am!!!

KUNUNURRA - WARMUN (TURKEY CREEK)

DAY 43 – KUNUNURRA – WARMUN (TURKEY CREEK)                                 Sunday, 14^th August

We went to Mass this morning at a beautiful church in Kununurra and met a family from Mordialloc travelling for a term just like us.  Patrick Torfey is the principal at the Catholic Primary school in Surrey Hills but used to teach at St. Thomas More in Mt Eliza AND taught our niece, Rachael.   What a coincidence!!  They were going to Broome via the Gibb River Road which they expected to take them 8 days. 

It took us only a couple of hours to get to Warmun which is primarily a closed Aboriginal Community and the only place to stay is the roadhouse – which actually wasn’t too bad.  It had quite a nice little pool so we threw the kids in and I wrote some postcards.