Halls Creek to Broome

July 22 to July 29

 The Mary Pool Camp was last Friday’s overnight spot about 100km after Halls Creek, a huge, heavily treed campground catering for up to 100 caravans and motorhomes, with maybe 60-80 there that night. It is the peak season and most camp areas fill by mid to late afternoon so we have been keen to arrive well before 4pm. To get a good spot at a small camp you need to be there by lunch.

Geike Gorge

Saturday we visited Fitzroy Crossing, another primarily indigenous settlement which is home to the Geike Gorge. Like we haven’t seen enough gorges, however this one is interesting as the walls are dense limestone, the surrounding rock has been eroded and the remaining limestone is white or coloured by algae and with interesting pitting. We hiked the gorge walk after lunch in 34⁰C, not ideal but well worth it.

Geike Gorge limestone walls

Drove to Ellendale Rest Area opposite the massive Ellendale Cattle Station for Saturday night. Next day, Derby. We had a number of ideas for trips in this area, and Derby was looking the best option to base ourselves, so we booked in to the Kimberley Entrance Caravan Park for 4 nights.

Up ‘till now, most of the small towns have been quite compact, all the houses and shops within a block or two. Even Kununurra wasn’t too large, you could walk end to end and back in an hour. Fitzroy Crossing was the first that was spread out. Maybe only a couple of hundred live there, but the town area wasn’t easily covered on foot. Derby more so as the population was a lot larger, it would have been more than 10km from end to end.

Now THAT'S a boab tree!! Morning coffee outside Derby.

Sunday and Monday we visited a number of local tourist sites including the prison boab tree, the old Derby goal and the Wharfinger Museum. We also caught up on washing and other chores.

Tuesday we did the Horizontal Falls day trip, flew in a sea plane to Talbot Bay, where the operators have a floating tourist centre. They cater for up to 200 people per day with military precision organising tourists, staff and activities. It keeps the operation running smoothly and you don’t feel rushed or imposed upon, just well organised.

Derby Township and tidal flats

We did two trips in and through the falls, both incoming and outgoing tides, a trip into the main gorge system, barbeque barramundi lunch, and swimming and feeding the sharks. The horizontal falls is the main attraction, two tight rock gorge restrictions where the massive 11 metre tides rush through every day. They only have a small window during each tide when the drop from one side to the other is low enough to be safe, below 1.5 metres in height difference. We had to wait for 10 minutes for the level to drop, and even when we went through, in a 900HP boat, it was very exhilarating.

Horizontal Falls

The flight to and from the area was also spectacular, flying over the Buccaneer Archipelago and King Sound. An amazing day and well worth the effort and cost.

You can see the water level drop across the falls

Wednesday I had (finally) booked myself a barramundi fishing charter. I had planned to do this around Darwin, but the season was so poor I decided to wait until this area. The river system and breeding cycle is different here, and the type of approach a bit different. Due to the mud stirred by the massive tides, the barra are fished using live bait. I did a small guided trip with only three guests to one guide per boat. We cast net for popeye mullet bait then fish the creek mouths. They caught 10 fish, including 6 barra the day before. Unfortunately we landed one fish in our boat all day, a threadfin salmon, and the other boat caught none. We did have a number of runs, but the barra are so elusive they are very hard to hook up. A great day and I learned a lot, but no barra this time.

The high powered boat negotiating the fall

Thursday we depart Derby, a town I really enjoyed. One funny story on how isolated it is out here, I like the Weekend Australian newspaper to read, it lasts me a week. Normally available first thing Saturday in the capital cities, we have been waiting until Sunday afternoon in many places before it arrives. Monday 4pm it arrives in Derby! Not really news by then!

In the footsteps of dinosaurs

Thursday night we stopped at a non-descript camp spot 110km before Broome. Friday we drove into Broome, a town I should have been looking forward to as it has such a tourism reputation. As the tourist operators only have the 4 months of the dry season (bit like the snow season), I know it is going to be a bit hectic. I am not disappointed, we secure one of the last spots in a caravan park at the bargain peak season price of $57 for a powered site. The caravan park was massive and the nearest to Cable Beach, so it was convenient. Broome is also VERY spread out, no caravan parks are close to the town, and if you flew in to Broome you would need a hire car just to get around. We visited Gantheaume Point, where dinosaur prints are in the sandstone rock shelf, visible at very low tides. We also visited the pearling museum for a history lesson on the industry that defined Broome.

I also had the first problem with the motorhome for this trip, the cab air conditioner stopped working (on a Friday, beautiful). After visiting four auto electricians and air conditioner places, we isolated it to a split aluminium gas tube. Stay tuned next week to see if I can get parts or find a way to get it repaired.