Home at last - Perth

Well after close to 7 weeks on the road, the Kimberley trip is finally over. I arrived back home on Thursday evening after spending a couple of days in Geraldton with my cousin Wendy and her husband Brian O'Neil.

It is hard to contemplate the distances that we covered and the sites that we visited. In all, the Nissan covered nearly 11000km. However when you take out the 3000km just to drive to Derby and of course the return 3000km it soon adds up. The Red Beast was certainly up to the trip both on and offroad and so was the trailer. Although we had bits that fell off the trailer and others that stopped working, all in all, it did a stirling job. Paul did well to keep the electrics working especially with regard the 12v battery management system. The best feature of the trailer was the fact that it was dust proof inside something that may be no big deal if you have not experienced the red dust before. I have just spent the last three days cleaning the externals on the trailer, the Nissan and of course all the equipment that was stored in the tray of the Nissan. Shame that the tonneau cover was not dust proof as well. My red brick pavers are simply clogged with red dirt that was removed from all equipment once the Karcher was brought into play.

All in all the trip was most enjoyable especially the companionship of my two mates, Paul and Robert. The experiences that we shared will never be forgotten. Let me also say thank you to all those that have taken the time to read the blog and especially to those who shared their thoughts via the comments section. I have enjoyed this experience although as my colleagues will attest, technology can be quite frustrating at times. They were often both on the receiving end of my frustration when things went astray.

I must now get busy and start planning my next outdoor Australian experience. Cheers.

Cossack - Roebourne

Cossack – Roebourne

Sunday 18 August 2013

Today I spent the day exploring the area in and around the historic port of Cossack and the inland town of Roebourne. For some time I had wanted to locate the old tram track that ran between the two towns from the late 1870s through to around 1900. The history books document the difficulties the early settlers had with building the track in and around mangroves and on the salt flats. Anyway I soon found evidence of it and traced it from Cossack to where it originally crossed over the current causeway into Cossack and then proceeded into Roebourne. I was surprised to see just how well some areas of the track have withstood the elements with some of the embankments simply covered in spinifex. The other surprise was the number of gullies and crossings that had to be built – of course these have all disappeared with few traces of the timber. Some of the photos taken are shown below.

Old bridge crossing Cossack side

Remains of ballast on crossing Cossack side

Causeway across saltflats Cossack side

Tramtrack site terminating in Cossack

 

Embankment Roebourne side

Embankment now a trail bike track near Roebourne

Embankment near Roebourne

Remains of culvert crossing Roebourne side

 

I also managed to have a revisit to the old town of Roebourne that brought back memories of my time growing up there.

Old Roebourne gaol

View from Mt Welcome looking east

View of Roebourne looking west

Building remains looking at old Victoria hotel and Jagers shop

Harding river near police station (many memories)

 

The town has certainly transitioned over time – many of the earlier problems in the 1970s and 80s with the local indigenous population appear to have been resolved especially the alcohol issues. I saw no evidence of alcohol abuse. In fact it would be fair to say that in nearly all of the towns we visited including Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing, the towns were all well maintained, clean with no evidence of alcohol abuse. We found it was impossible to purchase alcohol in most Kimberley towns as there was no pub or hotel selling grog. Even in Broome, we found the retail establishments selling alcohol closed until 1130am each day and closed on Sundays and there were restrictions on how much you could buy. We were sometimes able to purchase alcohol at bars but we had to drink it on the premise and were not able to buy alcohol to take away. The restrictions appear to be working.

Jarman Island from Reader Lookout

View to Roebourne from Reader Lookout

Cossack view from Nanny Goat Hill

 

Cossack Courthouse from Tien Sin Viewpoint

View of Jarman Island from Reader Lookout

Cape Lambert from Reader Lookout

I am heading south tomorrow and will be home by the end of the week with my trip now all but over. I intend to do one last post once I am back in Perth. Cheers.

Point Sampson

17 August 2013

Point Sampson

I am currently camped at the Sampson Caravan Park some 19km from my boyhood town of Roebourne. I arrived here yesterday after heading south for the past several days. My last post was after I had departed Middle Lagoon on the Dampier Archipelago and was passing through Broome. This was the only place I could get an Internet connection. I enjoyed my time at Middle Lagoon but again did not catch any fish of significant size. Yes I did land two small flatheads but given that these fish can be caught in the Swan River, it is nothing to write home about. They came in handy for bait but nothing was biting. I did not stay in Broome on my return other than to refuel the vehicle, contact home and post the blog.

I headed south on the Broome – Port Hedland road and after 150km I stopped off at a 24 hour rest stop and set up camp. The next morning I headed off with the intention of stopping off at Pardoo Station about 300km down the road. Anyway I had a change in plan while still driving and decided to push on past Port Hedland and camp somewhere between Hedland and Roebourne. I settled on the Sherlock River which is about 60km from Roebourne. I remember as a kid coming out to Shirlock Station with dad and the family to watch a corroboree and then driving back home all in darkness and on a dirt road. Dad had a state of the art Holden EK station wagon in those days and it seemed to handle the conditions pretty well other than filling up with red dust. Anyway, the Shirlock River always seems to have water in it and it was nice to be on my own without other campers around. Mind you they were around but on the other side of the river. The only distraction was the large number of semi trailers passing over the bridge at speed at all hours of the night and I mean big trucks most with either 3 or 4 trailers attached. Of course another fantastic sunset over the river so could not help myself taking more photos.

Shirlock River

Camped on the banks

Shirlock sunset

Anyway next morning I decided to drive into Port Sampson and see if I could obtain a campsite at the old caravan park. I was aware of this site as it is the location where Dad used to bring us kids to go swimming when we lived in Roebourne. Port Sampson has the only safe swimming beach in location given that it has a reef offshore (offers some protection from sharks) and is free of mangroves. The water is blue as opposed to murky brown. Anyway I was lucky as they had one vacancy – the park itself is very small with only 20 bays and at this time of year is booked out by Perth people for several weeks to 3 months at a time. Some book their site 12 months in advance. Anyway, this park now has competition as there is a new caravan park called the Cove Caravan Park. This was my fallback if the old park was full. It does not quite have the ambience of the Sampson caravan park but it is still very close to the swimming beach.

Location opposite Sampson beach

Delux annex site with terracotta tiling

Once in I set up camp pretty quickly – it was nice to have a site that had terracotta tiles for my annex. I can walk around without getting my feet dirty - a somewhat novel experience after the Kimberley experience. Not sure why it is tiled as it is the only spot in the park to have tiles. All the other sites and common areas are brick paved so no dust – another bonus. Yesterday afternoon I set off for Karratha to have a coffee with a female work colleague from the WA Regional Education Office. Later on I met up with her and her husband at the Karratha Golf Club for a few beerss. What a far cry that place is now from when I played golf there as a young teacher in the 70s. The fairways were all mown spinifex in those days with the putting greens being oiled sand. The course is now all grassed and with the Pilbara Golf Championships being on this weekend the place was absolutely buzzing. One of the WA Senators was there to announce a $400 000 grant to the club for lawn fairways. I think her name was Pratt – bit unusual for a Senator to be announcing these things during an election but anyway it was very interesting to be there to witness.

Today is the local Sampson chilli mussel festival in the park directly opposite to where I am camped so it will be good to go over and try some of the local seafood. I could not resist dropping into the local restaurant yesterday for lunch and buying a $16 feed of two pieces of local fish and a good helping of chips, lemon and tartar sauce. Washed down with a cold beer it was just heaven after my cooking of the past few days.

Beach view from near camper site

Sampson Beach looking toward Jarman Island

Sunrise at 6.30am this morning

 Tomorrow I intend to visit the old ghost town of Cossack (about 12km away) and doing some exploration. I am particularly keen to find evidence of the old tram track (horse pulling a carriage on rail) that existed between Cossack and Roebourne in the late 1890s to turn of the century so will do a bit of walking. In those days, Cossack was the port for Roebourne. The walk is something I have wanted to do for a long time! It is nice to come back to this location – whilst I did time in Karratha as a young school teacher in the 1970s and enjoyed this time immensely, it was my time in Roebourne in the 1960s as a 9 to 11 year old boy that really shaped who I am today. My memories are all very positive of this time and my experiences in all things outdoor at this time are simply endless. I guess it still continues today. Cheers for now.

Middle Lagoon - Dampier Peninsula

Monday 12 August 2013

Broome via the Cape Leveque Road to Middle Lagoon

Last night proved interesting as some of the campers in caravans decided to take on the bats. The bats would return for roosting around 6-6.15pm each evening when the daylight had all but disappeared. There would be much fluttering and squawking as they would jostle for a position in the tall gum trees within the caravan park. This would go on for an hour or two and of course you would hear their winds flapping throughout the night. The campers had their hoses ready and would squirt the trees as well as flash spotlights into the trees. This went on for 30 minutes or so and eventually the bats moved elsewhere in the park. Most campers had spent yesterday cleaning down the tops of their caravans which were a real mess covered in bat poo and urine. The smell unfortunately is a real put off for what is a pristine location. Lucky we were on the fringe of all this excitement. The tree providing us with shade is a sheoak; the foliage must be a turnoff for the bats as they stayed clear of it.

Today is my first day without my travelling companion Paul. The pack up was always going to be a challenge especially in disassembly of the annex. I was surprised as to how long it took me to pack up which was around 2 and half hours. That was not a sustained effort though as neighbours would come over to talk when they saw me packing up. We must have blocked a few people’s views as we had the prime position. I’m sure that quietly some were happy for us to be going. Interesting that the woman in the caravan behind us came over to let me know that they had gone to the office and booked the site for their friends who were turning up today. They were enamoured by the location and had moved twice inside the park just to get the water views. So much for blocking views!

I departed Broome around 10am and headed up the Cape Leveque road along the Dampier Peninsular. The first 12 km of the road is sealed and then you hit the dirt for the next 100km. The first section of road was as wide as an airstrip – take your pick as to where you drive it was so wide but it soon settled into the normal goatracks that we have come to expect. The road was a sand base with no rocks – a nice turnabout as sand does not wreck your tyres. Instead the suspension and springs were in for a real workout given the corrugations and undulations in the road. I am being too kind by calling it a road – maybe a road you would expect in a third world country. I have also never seen a road with a concave profile – the low point was the mid part of the road. Most have a convex profile so that the rain can drain away – during the wet season I’m sure that this road would just turn into a flowing creek. Sometimes the inward slope of the road was at 45 degrees and I was sure the trailer would tip if I hit a bump. Again the driving conditions were different to those experienced in the northern Kimberley.

The other notable was that the road was often a good 30cm to a metre below the surrounding landscape. Sand was pushed on the side so that there was no way to get off the road if you wanted to stop. You just had to stop and cop all the dust from oncoming and passing traffic. I only countered three places you could pull over on a 100km stretch of dirt. The trailer took a real pounding with the strap holding the fridge in place working loose, the earth wire attachment falling off and the restraints holding the tyres loosening. And that was only on 100km. I liken elements of the Gibb River road as a veritable highway compared to this road.

After the 100km of dirt, the road becomes sealed. I am not sure how or why this happened but I had heard that the Army sealed the road some years ago. The 100km or so of sealed road continues until you get to the top of the Dampier Peninsula all the way to One Arm Point. Of course I had to turn off to Middle Lagoon and drive 34km into the site. The road in required 4wd high range as it was very sandy in parts, corrugated in others and mixed with some good conditions. In total it took me nearly three hours to drive the 180km from Broome.

 

Tuesday 13 August 2013

Cape Leveque - Middle Lagoon

This morning I woke to a heavy fog – the first I have seen since leaving Perth. I grabbed my camera and went for a walk around the camp site but struggled to see the beach area for a good photo opportunity. It was a surreal experience. According to the local caretaker it is not uncommon to get a heavy fog at this time of the year.

Heavy fog until 7am

The condensation this morning was the heaviest that I have experienced since we departed on our Kimberley adventure – it was on everything – even the inside of the trailer had condensation on the metal frames and there were small pools of water in some areas. When I visited the shower/toilet block, I noticed large droplets on the underside of the tin roof. I could not work our why the toilet paper had wet spots through it and then noticed the droplets falling directly on the paper. Just as well there was a spare roll in place unlike our time at McGowan’s Beach. You cannot walk around the site in the early morning without growing an inch or two - the wet dirt sticks to the underside of your thongs. The mats I purchased for the trailer are the best thing for the trailer floor – without them the floor would be covered in wet red dirt that I’m sure would have transferred to my bedding.

Middle Lagoon is an interesting place. It is not like the developed resorts in Broome but was developed by a local indigenous family since the early 1990s after they negotiated a 99 year lease from the church in Beagle Bay. They have made a pretty good attempt in providing some basic accommodation and facilities for tourists while capitalising on a prime bit of real estate centred on the beach. The beach area is free of mangroves and has dunes and white beach sand although there are some rocky headlands. The site is ideal for launching small boats – no launching ramp but simply drive onto beach and back your trailer into the water and launch your boat. As we have come to find out, the only way to catch fish up here is with a small dingy and outboard motor. The chap camping next to me who has a dingy caught a heap of fish – but listening to him talk, more fish got away than what he caught. The other problem is the sharks who tend to eat the fish before they can be landed – all you end up with is a head.

Looking at beach ramp

Campsite

Camp area

Yes fishing !

At Middle Lagoon you also have a choice of your accommodation. I was not aware of this until I got here and was pleasantly surprised. Most sites are unpowered and offer shade whilst the premium camping sites are on a cliff top overlooking the beach. Great views! I would have grabbed one of these sites if I had done my research earlier and was aware that they existed. I elected for a powered site and these are limited in location to one of the ablution blocks. You just run a power cord from one of the outlets in the building – there is also plenty of shade in this vicinity. 

Basic cabin

Simply stunning for $50pn

There are a couple of alternate accommodation options. There are some beach shelters right on the beach itself only metres from the water. They have shade cloth on the walls and thatch on the roof. Nothing else. Not bad for $50 per night. You can also book a cabin – different options are available but the most basic has 4 beds in a room with shade cloth walls for beach viewing. It comes with a bar fridge and camping stove. Cost is $140 per night for 2 people. Of course there is an upmarket cabin which is self contained for $240 per night for 2 people right on the cliff overlooking the ocean. Quite good after our experience with McGowan’s Beach north of Kalumburu.

The rise and fall of the tide every 6 hours is quite phenomenal. I now understand the meaning of the term just sitting and watching the tide go out as that is exactly what we did when sitting in oour campsite at Roebuck Bay. When you see the beach area at high tide and then again at low tide you really gain an appreciation of its magnitude. I am told the variation is around 13m.

Premium unpowered sites

Sunset from campsite

Broome layover

Roebuck Bay Caravan Park - Broome

Friday - Sunday 9-11 August 2013

We arrived in Broome late morning on Friday 9Aug after a short 2 hour drive from Derby. I was keen to stay at the Roebuck Bay Caravan Park in the old part of Broome and fronting onto Roebuck Bay but was aware at this time of the year accommodation in Broome is very tight. We checked in with the local tourist body and were advised that the park had a couple of powered sites available but that we needed to be quick. Anyway we were lucky and managed to be allocated what we think is the best site in the park. We are right on the beach sitting up about 3-4 metres above the sealevel. The site is small but accommodates a small trailer like mine perfectly. We just could not believe our luck and have spent many hours just sitting and watching the tide come in or go out.

The Roebuck Bay caravan park is different to many we have stayed at as most people here are grey nomads who have moved up here for several months. There are few people moving in and out as we have found in many of the other parks we have stayed at. The only problem we have are the birds - bats at night squawking and carrying on and of course peeing on the tent. This is followed by the rosellas who are in a feeding frenzy during the morning and evening or each day. Same again with them peeing and crapping on anything that happens to be under their domain. The price we have to pay to live in paradise. Or as Paul says we are sitting on a site with 10 million dollar views.

After our hectic schedule of the past 5 weeks it has been fantastic to down tools and just relax for several days. We have done just that by taking in the local sites.

Gantheaume Point looking toward Cable Beach

Cast of dinosaur footprints (only seen low tide)

Paul checking out the sites

 

 

Broome jetty - fishing platform

Pesky rosella's eating sheoak seedpots above our tent

Fish being caught but not by me

Sunrise from our campsite (tides out)

Sun rising over Roebuck Bay

Tides out

Hovercraft heading back from WW2 flying boat wrecks

 

Preparing dinner (doing a Huey)

Sunset at the famous Cable Beach (low tide)

Sun going down over Cable Beach

Today Paul departed for Melbourne after close to 6 weeks being on the trip. His presence will be missed as he played a large part in ensuring that we always had power - be it 12v or 240v. The battery recharging for the trailer was a constant challenge for him but he persisted and eventually sorted out the problem. I take my hat off to him! He was also chief washer upper of all dishes. Not looking forward to that. Also I will miss our evening movies - a huge selection of dvds that we never had any chance of seeing or viewing all but we gave it our best shot. After initial teething problems with the equipment, Paul came to the fore again and sorted that out. His problem solving technique is interesting as he sleeps and ponders on the problem then suddenly will announce when he has found a solution to the problem. Unbelievable. Paul thanks for all your support and for being such a valued member of the team. I am sure that Sue has a squillion jobs for you on your return. Good luck. 

I have decided to press on and am keen to explore the Dampier Peninsula for another week or so. I head off to Beagle Bay tomorrow and hope to find a campsite at a place called Middle Lagoon. It is supposed to be a top spot. Until then - Cheers.