Roebourne to Dampier

August 20 to August 28

 

Cossack Heritage Village building (and motorhome)

The Roebourne region includes Wickham, Cossack and Point Samson. Roebourne was settled in 1866 for farming, and were celebrating their 150 year anniversary while we were there. Cossack was settled around the same time and was the primary port for agriculture and the centre for pearl divers (before the pearlers all moved to Broome in the late 1800’s). A gold rush fuelled the development, but the departure of the pearlers and collapse of the gold rush turned Cossack into a ghost town by 1910. Still mostly uninhabited, the stone buildings have been restored and are open as a heritage town.

Wickham Display of mining equipment (and motorhome)

Pope's Nose Causeway creating horizontal falls

Wickham was only built in the 1970’s by Robe River Iron Ore and is now the administration and shopping centre for the area. Point Samson is the fishing port and coastal area where we stayed for 2 nights. Very pretty and quiet, but windy. We had been warned that August can be very windy with constant easterlies. They didn’t really arrive until we reached Point Samson, unfortunately restricting my chances to go fishing. The causeway bridge leading to Point Samson operates like a mini horizontal falls, with the 5 metre tides rushing through a narrow opening called The Popes Nose. I’m not sure why it had to be that narrow? As a tourist attraction maybe?

We did experience the Staircase to the Moon, a phenomenon that occurs when a full moon coincides with a low tide at dusk, with the reflection of the moon creating a "stairway" effect on the mud flats. It only happens a few times in winter, and you need a pretty good imagination but it was worth seeing. My photo is ordinary, but some of the images on posters, tee shirts etc. are pretty good.

Staircase to the Moon

Monday we drove 45 kilometres to Karratha. Only established in 1968 to support Hamersley Iron Ore (now Rio Tinto) and the Dampier Salt Mine, it followed the building of Dampier and the town of Tom Price in 1963 by Hamersley Iron after the federal government restriction on exporting iron ore was lifted. From that time when Hamersley had one mine and one Japanese customer, the area now services fifteen iron ore mines, the salt mine, and the nearby Woodside LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) port and processing plant.

The Karratha/Dampier/Burrup Peninsula area is to be seen to be believed. Particularly the very recent and rapid Woodside development of the LNG business, now supporting five (I think) North West Shelf offshore gas drilling rigs. The LNG plant has a great self-guided tour and information centre, the numbers ($34 billion to build, the volume of gas processed, the dollar value to this country) are mind blowing.

20,000 year old Petroglyph rock etchings, Murujuga NP

On top of that, they have the Murujuga National Park at Hearson’s Cove, where some 10,000 petroglyphs (aboriginal rock etchings, as opposed to paintings) are in the ironstone hills of the Deep Gorge area. This fascinating Park looks like mining spoil hills, but are naturally formed “rubble” mountains. The rock formations are all around the area, creating interesting hiking areas like Stove Hill where more petroglyphs, shell middens and other local indigenous history is accessible.

Red Dog Statue, Dampier

We spent a couple of nights in Karratha and three in Dampier (20km away). I hadn’t watched the Red Dog movie (about a red cattle dog, set around Dampier) so the caravan park manager made sure I had a copy to watch the first night. We have realised (as a number of our readers have also pointed out) we are heading south a bit too quickly, so we have decided to stay in the Karratha/Dampier area for another five days as there is plenty to see and do.

Saturday the wind finally dropped off, so we did a sightseeing kayak paddle into Hampton Harbour in Dampier to visit Tidepole Island, also known as Sam’s Island. Sam decided to build a “castle” on the island as Dampier was being developed in the mid 1960’s, and Hamersley Iron granted him a lease to live there. It is now available to day visit (with a permit) by boat or kayak.

I should have taken a fishing rod with me as there were a couple of bait fish schools around the island. If the wind takes another break I’ll paddle out there to try my luck.

Kayak trip to Tidepole (Sam's) Island

Saturday night the Pilbara Regiment Army Base, the barracks are next door to the caravan park, had their annual black tie ball. Unfortunately we didn’t get an invitation, but got to enjoy a bagpipes band, then a live (pretty good!) cover band play through to midnight. It didn’t bother us too much, but I would imagine a few other campers wouldn’t have been too pleased.

Sunday brought the first “rain” we have seen since the Northern Territory. It was only light but coupled with the wind it was a little uncomfortable. It didn’t stop us from getting out, we spent most of the day at Karratha back beach. Not really a beach but a boat ramp and tidal mud flats where people collect “cockle shells” to eat. We chose to harvest oysters from the rocks, a nice entrée before lunch.

Port Hedland to Roebourne via Karijini National Park

August 14 to August 20

Entering the Pilbara Region the road trains became more frequent and the mine vehicles more common. Port Hedland is an impressive town, everything is big! As it has to be as the major port for BHP, Rio and Fortescue for iron ore export. Port Hedland is a big town, the (fairly) recently developed South Hedland has obviously been planned for massive expansion, and the town spreads some 15 kilometres long and wide. Since the mining downturn the development has halted and the housing market has plummeted, but it is now open for travelers again. At the height of the boom a caravan park site (if you could get one) would be $50+ a night all year round.

Rio Tinto's Port Hedland Salt Mine

We chose to stay at the Racecourse, which is open for self-contained vehicles at just $10 a night.

I had booked the motorhome in for a wheel alignment on Monday, and the facility can align wheels for mine trucks. Nice to be almost too small after no one in Broome could do it because I was too big! I also organised an Auto Electrician to sort out the air con switching, and they did it all at the same place. A quick call to their recommended tyre place and I got all three jobs done in the one day.

Fortesque Falls, Dales Gorge in Karijini National Park

Port Hedland is so industrious with the port loading facilities, rail hub and salt mine (in the middle of town) working 24/7, the nights are a continuous hum of industry. We enjoyed walking the foreshore and viewing the port and massive iron ore reclaimers in action, and the salt mine operation. We checked out the mining museum and walked up to the water tower to view the port lights at night. 

On Wednesday we departed Port Hedland to drive south to Karijini National Park. The Park is 350km out of our way, but on everyone’s recommendation we had to go there. Karijini is famed for its gorge systems formed on the Hamersley Range plateau. We reached the Munjina Roadhouse for lunch when the “Andrew tyre valve stem curse” struck again. After a weird run in February in South Australia, and now two days after new tyres, a valve stem failed while we were (fortunately) stationary at the roadhouse at 2pm. We are 280km from Port Hedland and 160km from the town of Tom Price.

Circular Pool, Dales Gorge in Karijini National Park

After much negotiating with the NRMA, the RAC (Western Australia’s roadside assist) sent out a guy from Tom Price at no cost to me, or should I say to the tyre fitter in Port Hedland! Fortunately (always look on the bright side), they sent out a tyre fitter from Tom Price, I had a spare tyre valve stem (wonder why?), and the roadhouse had a “bead breaker” in an old shed. By 5:30pm we had replaced the stem, with the tyre supplier so thankful for getting it sorted (his tyre fitter didn’t replace that valve stem!!??), he paid for the overnight powered site at the roadhouse.

Reflective magic, Karijini National Park

Thursday morning we were off to Karijini National Park, only 60km from the roadhouse (which also had an industrial hum all night from the diesel power generators, we felt right at home). After arranging park passes and a camp site for the night at Dales Gorge, we were off to hike gorges! As we have found everywhere in the North, the poor wet season has not been kind to the gorge attractions. Again we found the waterways very low and the waterfalls dribbling. Much of the attraction of the Karijini gorge systems is the colourful, smooth, eroded sedimentary iron stone formations of the walls. After little rain and the recent (and current) strong winds, the gorges have a general dull, red dust colour.

After sounding a bit negative, we were actually pretty damn impressed! We met a couple the week before in a camp who said they hadn’t said “wow” so much when at Karijini, and I found myself doing the same thing. We (well, Leah did the Grade 3 trails) hiked the whole area throughout the day.

Full moon camping at Karijini National Park

The local indigenous land owners manage the National Park and, like Katherine (Nitmiluk) Gorge, they are doing a great job of making it accessible and reasonably priced. After a very relaxing (and quiet) night we headed back towards Port Hedland to complete the 700km round trip. We camped at Yule River Friday night, some 140km from Roebourne. Saturday we drove to Roebourne then on to Point Samson where we plan to spend a couple of days RnR and catch up on some chores.

Broome to Port Hedland

August 6 to August 14

  

Between Broome and Port Hedland there are no towns, for 600 kilometres! The highway follows the coastline, roughly 10 to 20 kilometres from the beach, and it is along this stretch that a lot of the “Southerners” in Western Australia come for holidays to get away from the cold. Even though WA’s north is very remotely populated, the mining boom has made a real difference to the Kimberly region (and all of WA). In Western QLD and Northern Territory’s large remote regions, you can go hundreds of kilometres without phone coverage, meaning you need a CB radio or satellite phone if you need to communicate. In WA the entire major highway system is covered by Telstra mobile coverage. Amazing!

We decided to first stop at Barn Hill Station, about 140 kilometres south of Broome, a huge working cattle station which spans 85 kilometres of coastline along Roebuck Bay. The 10 km’s of dirt road into Barn Hill was corrugated. Cars and four wheel drives don’t feel corrugates too much, but motorhomes and caravans do.

Rock Formations at Barn Hill (background, not me!!)

The uncomfortable drive was worth it, this basic camp was very well equipped given its remoteness. We arrived on Saturday afternoon and initially booked for two nights.

The coastline with its interesting eroded rock formations was spectacular. A number of campers bring boats to launch from the shore, as the fishing on the reefs a couple of kilometres off shore is very productive. I would have launched the kayak but the sandy, windy, one kilometre track to the beach (the only wheeled access due to the low cliffs) turned me off. I did eventually rig up and tried lure fishing from the beach. I landed a 60cm barracuda on my first outing which was excellent eating. No further success but plenty of exercise.

Barn Hill beach, quiet and spectacular

They do a three course roast dinner on Sunday night, with a local indigenous band (Family Shoveller Band) as entertainment. It’s a BYO affair, BYO chairs, table, drinks, nibblies, cutlery, crockery, everything except the meal. They served 160 odd people, down from more than 300 the week before. The meal was reasonable, the band and entertainment was very good. It was a pleasure to see these talented local artists from a nearby community, all from the same family, entertaining and interacting with the audience the way they did.

Barn Hill Camp, view from our cliff site

We decided to stay another two nights as it was very relaxing and we had secured a cliff-side spot on the second day (and I was in no rush to drive the dirt road out). We are enjoying switching from tourist in the “attraction” type areas like Broome, to holidaymakers when we get the quiet coastal places. Given how cold and wet it is Perth, we are in no rush southward.

Staying at the camp on Census night was easy as the managers were registered collectors, so we had hard copy forms “delivered” and collected from us the next day.

Barn Hill Barracuda

We departed Barn Hill on Wednesday, and drove a couple of hundred kilometres to reach the Sandfire Roadhouse. Given it is the first stop for hundreds of k’s, there isn’t much there except fuel. I would have thought they would have some reasonable groceries and fruit and veg, but not to be.

We had considered stopping at Port Smith as recommended by Bert and Di, but feedback from campers who had just been there told us the midges/sand-flies were horrendous. They had been fogging the camp each night but to no avail.

80 Mile Beach, a lot of people for no fish

We headed to Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park, about 250 kilometres from Barn Hill, highly recommended by many people. Again 10 kilometres of corrugated dirt road, but again well worth the effort. A very different coastline being sand dunes and not cliffs, and a very different breed of camper. Here it is all about shells and salmon fishing. Low tide exposes about 300 metres of beach as the drop off is very gradual. The low tide sand is littered with all manner of shells. Many people collect the shells and turn them into jewelry, ornaments, collections, etc.

80 Mile Beach Turtle Hatching, way out of season

High tide brings out the fisher-persons. For kilometres either direction along the beach from the camp you will see four wheel drives, quad bikes, trailers, motorbikes, golf buggies, set up for fishing. They cast into one metre deep water and wait. Usually there is plenty of action (like tailor fishing on Frazer I’m told), but while we were there we saw no one catch anything until the last afternoon, a baby shark and two small blue salmon. No one knows why, but the salmon aren’t there this year.

The Park is very well run and maintained, and they have a small but well stocked shop and even do cooked food on the weekends. We stayed for three nights, each day walking the beach at each tide, watching the shell collectors and fishers at their chosen pastime. Leah did her part for the environment, loggerhead turtles nest here and one (early or late) hatchling was flailing on the beach at 9 in the morning, 300 metres from the water. Leah picked it up and carried it to the water, it was a bit disoriented for a while but soon headed out to the ocean.

De Grey River Cattle,  looks like he needs a feed

Saturday we departed late morning (after a beach walk and coffee) and travelled only 150 kilometres and stopped at De Grey River camp spot, 80 kilometres out of Port Hedland. As you can see from the photo the camp and roads are shared with cattle. The roadside from Broome to Port Hedland are littered with cattle carcasses, like kangaroos in Queensland they get hit by the road trains at night.

Broome

July 29 to August 6

   

So, if I remember rightly, I was saying how apprehensive I was before arriving in Broome. The first day didn’t help, with the Iveco air conditioner stopping and paying premium caravan prices for massive overcrowded parks.

Careful where you camp at the Pistol Club

Well, a week is a long time. We found a great camp ground alternative to the caravan parks, less than half the price (not powered, but that’s fine for us). It was at the Pistol Club (no big bore guns, Pete), officially an overflow camp ground for when the caravan parks are full, it had all the facilities, better spacing between the vans, and a quiet location towards the port.

Gantheaume Point, looking north along Cable Beach

After originally booking for two nights at the Pistol Club, we decided to stay for 7 nights, the maximum allowed for the “overflow” parks. There are three overflow sites, the Pistol Club, the PCYC (around a big oval) and the Seventh Day church. The longer we stayed the more we enjoyed Broome. Although we had a couple of issues to resolve we were able to do all the tourist things we wanted at our leisure and enjoy the beaches. I had hoped to go kayak fishing but the wind conditions are interesting here. In Queensland the wind is light in the morning (when it’s cooler) and picks up during the day. “Over west” it blows from 9pm until midday (or longer), then in the heat of the day the wind eases off. It makes for uncomfortable afternoons and a lack of motivation to get organised to go fishing. With tides also not ideal I didn’t get a chance to go out.

Drinkin' with my mates

On Monday I tried to help a guy who got in trouble at the boat ramp, his small aluminium boat washed onto the rocks when launching on the windy morning. It was to no avail as the tides drop very fast (about 9 metres between low and high). He eventually decided to drag it off the rocks, tried to re-float and motor off, and sunk it. Very unfortunate.

We did however see (from the beach) the humpback whales migrating, some spectacular breaching and splashing only 500 metres off the beach. They seemed to be more active during the rough, windy mornings so you probably get a better view from comfort of the beach than from a charter whale watching cruise.

Cool fisheries boats, our tax dollars right there

Regarding the motorhome, I found a great air conditioner repair guy (Millar Air Conditioning if you’re ever in Broome), the owner decided to take my problem on as a challenge and by the end of the week he had repaired the split tube and re-gassed the system. We now seem to have a sensor issue with the air con, which I will try to resolve when I get to Port Headland.

On Saturday we departed Broome after re-stocking food and fuel, with our sights set on Barn Hill Station, 140km south of Broome.

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.

Darwin to Halls Creek

July 16 to July 22

Victoria River Escarpment

We stopped overnight about 15km north of Katherine on Friday night, in a large open free-camp spot which many people knew about but was big enough so it wasn’t crowded. Heading south-west towards Western Australia we drove to the Victoria River in the Gregory National Park, another area of really interesting geology and impressive rock escarpments and formations. A deeper red/purple (burgundy?) than the typical iron oxide, this relatively small area was a delight to drive through with the towering cliffs either side of the road.

Boab Tree and typical rock plateau for the area

The Boab tree also becomes more prolific as you approach WA, interesting in the dry season as it loses its leaves and offers fantastic silhouettes. We stopped at Timber Creek, a small town 200kms from the WA border. We camped at the lookout and had the area to ourselves overnight, however at sunset a number of visitors joined us as it is popular for the spectacular view over the Victoria River.

Lake Argyle

On Sunday we headed for the border, and after being searched at the quarantine stop for fruit and vegies we were finally in Western Australia. Although we had been driving for 2½ hours (+½ hour for obligatory coffee) and it was 11am in NT, and when we entered WA it was only 9:30am!

We drove to Lake Argyle, the second largest man-made lake in the world, to check out the Ord River Dam. The dam was completed in 1973, part of the planned massive Ord River agriculture irrigation scheme. After lunch (longest break between breakfast and lunch EVER) we drove to Kununurra. We planned to stay two nights at the Showground but for some unexplained reason it isn’t open, so fortunately got a site at the heavily booked caravan park across the road (the place is full of tourists!). With the change in time zone the sun now sets at around 5:15pm and rises around 6am, we struggled to acclimatise for days.

Bungle Bungles from the sightseeing flight

We had a chores day on Monday and explored Kununurra, interestingly only established in 1969 as part of the Ord River scheme. It is now the largest town in the north-east Kimberley and a key service centre for farming, mining and tourism.

Tuesday morning we were booked on a light plane flight over Lake Argyle, the Argyle Diamond Mine, and the Bungle Bungles. The two hour flight was outstanding. A clear cloudless day and not too hot (we did a 9am flight). You get a great appreciation of the size of Lake Argyle from the air, but the real impressing was done when you reach the Bungle Bungles in the Purnululu National Park. For a rock formation which was largely unknown before 1983, it is now one of Australia’s best known natural attractions after Uluru and attained World Heritage status in 2003. 

The rock domes are formed from the wind and sand blasting from the Tanami Desert to the south, and the colour banding is from bacterial layers (the grey colour) and oxidised iron (red). There is the typical dome shapes and also amazing gorges and rivers.

Massive gorge in the Bungles

The Argyle Diamond Mine, although impressive in its size and output (especially the rare pink diamonds), is coming to the end of its reserves and the underground mine (the open cut is already closed) will close in 2020.

In the afternoon we visited other local sites around Kununurra before driving 80km towards Wyndham and staying at the Maggie Creek free-camp.

Dreamtime Statues, Wyndham

Wednesday we explored Wyndham, the first settlement in the north-east Kimberley (1886, a bit older than Kununurra, huh) to service the Halls Creek gold rush. It is now a port for live beef exports and Ord River agriculture. It is also where five rivers converge to form the Cambridge Gulf. The Five Rivers Lookout is a fantastic vantage point to overlook the river junction, port and town, and another great spot for coffee! Also interesting was the Dreamtime Statues, an art installation for the bi-centenary in 1988 (erected in 1989!!??).

Emma Gorge, El Questro

China Wall, Halls Creek

We returned to Maggie Creek for the night (just 28km out of Wyndham). Thursday morning we drove to El Questro Station, a privately owned cattle station which covers a number of rock ranges and gorges which is open (for a fee) to the public to enjoy. We had thought we would stay for two days and hike a couple of the gorges, but after the dry, wet season most of the gorges are just “stagnant pools” (the El Questro’s desk guy’s words). He suggested Emma Gorge as the only worthwhile hike, which was certainly worthwhile. It was a two hour, grade four hike with the gorge walls closing in as you reached the top pool. As you can see from the photos there is barely any water entering the gorge, a real pity.

We headed out of El Questro and drove 100km to Dunham River to camp overnight.

Friday we were back into the “drive lots, see little” country. 300km south to Halls Creek and you pass through one small town, Warmun, an indigenous settlement between the access roads to the Bungles and the Argyle Diamond Mine.

Halls Creek wasn’t too exciting either to be honest, although the annual Rodeo and Camp Draft started the day we arrived. Deciding not to stay the night and catch the local horse-persons, we visited the China Wall, a quartz rock vein that is left protruding after the surrounding rock has eroded. A bit of fuel and food and we were off 100km south-west to Mary Pools camp for Friday night.

Emma Gorge hike at El Questro

Ivanhoe Crossing, Kununurra

Argyle Diamond Mine

Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks

July 11 to July 15

Surprising "Dry Season" rain over the wetlands

The timing for being in Darwin was to go on an organised guided tour of the two big National Parks in the Northern Territory, Kakadu and Litchfield. We had booked this tour in late February while in South Australia, when it popped up at a very good price on a travel website, and we had thought about doing a guided tour to make sure we saw the better parts of the parks.

Croc spotting from the boat

So we were very excited to finally be on the bus! Monday we departed Darwin and visited Howard Springs, site of the original dam for water supply, now a tourist attraction where you can feed barramundi and do nature walks. Next stop was Fogg Dam, a spectacular water catchment swamp teeming with wildlife ….. usually. The 2014/15 wet season was the driest on record, only to be outdone by the following (most recent) 2015/16 season. The dam receives run-off from the vast wetland area, but is now very low and with two dry seasons the complete eco-culture of the area has been heavily impacted.

Ubirr Rock Art

We visited Corroboree Billabong, where we did a boat cruise spotting birds and crocodiles. The first couple of crocs took a bit of finding, but as the afternoon went on we spotted many more.

Our accommodation base for the four days was the Mary River Wilderness Retreat, a sprawling property along the Mary River at the edge of Kakadu. Tuesday we entered Kakadu proper, visiting Ubirr Rock, the primary Aboriginal Rock Art site. It is also at the top edge of the Kakadu Park where the spectacular mountain range and its mountaintop plateaus, escarpments and rivers stretch 500km’s south and 400km’s west from there.

The scenery and quality of rock art was greatly enhanced by our guide Rich, who has an incredible knowledge base of indigenous art and culture, and the flora and fauna of the Top End. We also visited the Nourlangie Rock for more art sites, Cahills Crossing (a causeway on the East Alligator River, where crocs feast on the fish, and sometimes the fishermen) where Kakadu meets Arnhem Land, Jabiru, Bowali and Mamukala Wetlands.

Spotting a 4-5 metre monster on a "Nature Walk"

I had heard and read many negative reports on Kakadu (nicknamed Kaka-don’t), but I can say I was impressed as hell with the sites we visited, and can only imagine how much better many of them would be after a decent wet season.

Learning ancient skills from the locals

The Wednesday we stayed around the Mary River area, doing more croc and bird spotting on a river cruise, a cultural walk and talk with three of the local Uwynmill Aboriginals, and doing a couple of long nature walks in the National Park. As you can see from one photo, you need to still be cautious of crocs, after we came across a 4-5 metre beast on a sand bank close to where we were walking.

Thursday was all Litchfield, a totally different experience to the cultural focus of Kakadu. Although another spectacular rocky plateau and escarpment landscape, the main attraction here is waterfalls and bushwalking. We visited the Magnetic Termite Mounds, a unique termite that builds flat, tall, plate like mounds to catch the eastern and western sun.

Wangi Falls, Litchfield NP

The two waterfalls (and rock pools at the bottom for swimming) we visited were Florence Falls and Wangi Falls. Again after a decent wet the falls would be spectacular, but with only a small volume of water tumbling and ridiculous number of visitors it was a bit disappointing. It was also a cool and windy day (26⁰C) so the swimming was a little chilly, especially at Wangi Falls. The walks were fantastic though. I’m sure on warmer days and visiting less known falls and rock pools (and more water over the falls) it could be worth spending a lot more time there. Our day was great but I didn’t feel the need to re-visit the Park on the way out of Darwin like we thought we might.

A bit of nature rangling

Our four day tour, fortunately shared with other easy going and like-minded travellers, was a real joy. Without us having to make too many decisions on what to do, having a well thought out and balanced itinerary, and having such a knowledgeable guide to enhance our experiences, we were very happy with our trip.

Friday it was back to our mo-touring, we stocked up in Darwin and were back on the road heading south to Katherine so we can turn west and head for Western Australia.