Posts From Australia

Todays flight was scheduled for 20:15 so we had plenty of time on our hands. But the neighborhood around the hotel was a wierd mix of industrial, low income housing, agricultural and other stuff, so not encouraging to explore. In addition it was hot (36°C) again. So we contented ourselve relaxing mostly in the hotel.

As arranged we were collected from out hotel at 9:00 am by a representative from WaExperts and delivered to their depot where we had a couple of hours training on the systems of the vehicle and then we were on our own.

We spent a good deal of time this morning entertaining ourselves with the local parrots. We saw these guys yesterday afternoon but did not get a chance to feed/photograph them; made up for lost time this morning. After we had taken more than enough photos of these colorful little birds the camp host dropped by for a chat and during that chat informed us that the local name for this species of bird is twenty eights. Apparently this name originates from the fact that this species is 28th on the state list of vermin.

A Firetail is a bird that is indigenous to the Margaret River area of Western Australia and it is also the name of a small winery close by and recommended by our friend Richard. We started our day with a stop there and had quite a chat with owners Rob and Jess. Oh we also tasted some wine, bought some wine, and discovered that they keep a flock of guinea fowl as a way of controlling insect pests that would otherwise damage the grapes.

Today we visited Cape Leeuwin and its lighthouse (in the photos below) the most South Westerly point on the Australian continent and is also the junction of the Indian and Southern Oceans. Along the way we spent time visiting a number of remote beaches.

We started the day with a visit to Glenoran Pools and the One Tree Bridge, a bridge built by original settlers that consisted of a single tree felled across a river. Near the bridge is a stand of four Karri trees called the Four Acres which are quite spectacular but alas it does not seem possible to capture the grandeur in a photograph.

Today was about Tingle trees, another form of eucalyptus that is unique to South West Western Australia. There are three forms of this tree, Red Tingle, Yellow Tingle (named after the color of the wood) and Rake Tingle, named after the person who recognized that there was a third form. Like all Eucalypts Tingles are hard wood. The word Tingle is the aboriginal name.

I forgot to mention in yesterdays post that places like our Panorama camp is typically called a Caravan Park in Australia and may have the phrase Tourist Park added in there somewhere. I also forgot to mention that there where two fifth wheels in the camp last night and both where being towed by Chevy Duramax Pickup trucks. I talked to one of the owners and discovered that GM Australia is now importing those trucks and performing the conversion to right hand drive for local consumption. It is also possible to buy Ford Super Duty and RAM Cummins pickup trucks but for these the right hand drive conversion is done after market not by the manufacturers.

We started today with a 3 mile, 2000 ft climb, to The Granite Skyway. A steel walkway and observation platform that wraps around a large granite outcropping. After the 2000 ft climb, one must negotiate a rock scramble and then a 20 ft ladder to get to the walkway. The reward for this effort is great view of surrounding forest and farm land. As much as we enjoyed the experience we wondered whether the effort required to build the skyway was justified by the number of visitors.

We started the day with the obligatory walk around and over Wave Rock, which was after all the point of coming to this place. I can see why some people described it to us as "under whelming" as it is not very high nor very long. But is interesting to discover how such a rock formation comes about. Its a result of differential erosion - different levels of soil moisture erodes the buried granite at different rates and soil moisture is at its highest somehwat below the surface (as surface moisture is evaporated by the sun). You will be pleased to know that there ends the days science lesson.

We did some historical research on the town of Coolgardie this morning. It was not difficult to do because the town has conveniently placed plaques at strategic locations that give visitors like us a glimpse into the hey-day of this now sleepy town. Coolgardie was the site of the original gold discovery that eventually gave rise to the mining operation at Kalgoorlie (25 miles away) which today is the largest open cut gold mine in the world. But initially the gold rush was sited in Coolgardie. At its peak the town sported two stock exchanges, 25 stock brokers, 26 hotels, 3 breweries, 7 news papers and 14 churches. Today Coolgardie is a sleepy town of 1200.

The Super Pit is the name given to the open-cut gold mine that is the economic reason for the existence of Kalgoorlie. The statistics of this mine are truily impressive. The open cut pit is 3.5km long by 1.5 km wide by 750 meters deep (in US measures that is 2.1 miles x 1 mile x 2500 ft. Gold bearing ore is brought from the bottom of this pit in trucks that carry about 230 tons per load, each trip uses about 50 gallons of diesel fuel and the mine in total uses between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000 liters of diesel per month (thats 1.5 to 1.75 millions gallons per month). A tour of this operation has been on our Australian todo-list almost since the start of our planning and today was the day.

At the Tourist Information Center in Esperance this morning we discovered that Cape Arid National Park is closed indefinitely, and that all the camping grounds at Cape Le Grand are full and are booked out into the future. This disrupted our plans a bit as we had expected to spend the next couple of days exploring Cape Arid and to camp at Cape Le Grand. So after some replanning we spent the day touring the sights of the area, which are mostly beaches (hence the photos) and doing a little beach driving. This latter activity I saw as a good opportunity to get a sense of how our troopie will behave on the soft sand that we expect to find on some of the inland roads we plan to drive.

The first photo below is a representation of a whales tail one of the many attractions to be found on the foreshore of the town of Esperance (I should note that Esperance is a popular whale watching spot). The next few are scenes from the nearby Kepwari Wetland Trail. The dead trees are a result of deforestation of the area which causes the water table to rise and along with it salt which kills salt intolerant trees. Thereafter the day became a perfect example of how a plan can go completely out the window. As we started the day we both expected to head towards a place called Balladonia on the Erye Highway but after about 30 km we suddenly decided to give that idea a miss and see if we could find the vehicle track to Alexander Bay where there was apparently a beachside campground. So that became the new plan.

OK, so today we got back on the plan and headed for Balladonia. When originally planning this part of our trip we had expected to travel the Balladonia Track from Cape Arid National Park, but as I mentioned in an earlier post the park and that track are closed so we had to select an alternative route and that alternative was the Parmango Road, which as you can see is noted as a 4wd route only and also a route devoid of services for nealy 120 miles, and so it turned out. It tooks us nearly 6 hours to travers the 120 miles (4 hours driving and lots of stops), the first 45 miles were paved (though sometimes the paving was only wide enough for one vehicle), and much of the unpaved section was firm and often rock, making for easy driving but there were definietly a few sections of very soft sand/dust that could have been a problem for 2wd low clearance vehicles. Had the road been wet or had the weather been raining the story could have been very different. There were very long sections of clay with deep troughs from previous wet weather travels still visible.

The sign shown in the first photo below is encountered a little way East of Balladonia, and as advertised for the next 90 miles, all the way to the road house at Caiguna, the road is absolutely straight. A little while with google will soon determine that this is NOT the longest straight section of road in the world, that title belongs to a section of road in Saudi Arabia that is 60 miles (approx) longer. It is worth noting however that the railway line from Perth to South Australia does have the longest straight section of rail line in the world at 478 km (298 miles).

Our day started with a retracing of the Baxter Cliffs route back to Caiguna Roadhouse; no navigation issues this time. A bit less than an hour East of Caiguna we found Cocklebiddy Road house and got some details of the route to the Eyre Bird Observatory (see below for a few details).

Try the Nullarbor Golf Links for your next golfing holiday. The course stretches the 1365 kms of the Eyre Highway between Kalgoorlie Western Australia and Ceduna South Australia. Each hole is located at one of the towns or road houses along the way. We decided to provide a few photos of the course so that our friends who are keen golfers can accurately assess the course conditions before buying plane tickets to Kalgoorlie.

Before hitting the road today we drove a rough track from Eucla Roadhouse to the nearby coast to get a look at the remains of one of the early Eucla telegraph stations which is now partly devoured by the shifting dunes. Thereafter as we traveled east we visited a number of lookouts perched on the edge of the Bunda Cliffs (the sea cliffs that mark the eastern end of the Greast Australian Bight). At one of these lookouts we happened upon the same group of cyclists we passed yesterday and spent sometime chatting with them while they fueled up on some (high energy ?) food.

On waking this morning we were surprised to see a light fog and to find all the camping gear we left outside during the night wet from the mist. We thought this was a dry part of the world. I noted last night that we were camped in a eucalypt forest where many of the trees had multiple trunks sprouting from the same base and I thought that this type of eucalypt was called mallee. Later in the day I got a chance to google it and discovered that such trees are called mallee and they grow from an underground lignotuber.

Smokey Bay, Streaky Bay (Hotel), a few rugged coastal cliffs, Venus Bay and throw in the sea lions of Point Labatt and in brief that captures today. What's missing from that brief narrative is just how beautiful todays stretch of coast is and how sparcely populated. The country side is mostly grain or sheep farming country with farm land abutting the coast, with scattered small communities every 60 miles or so. Smokey Bay was one of the smaller communities we passed through today (photo 4), it consists of maybe 2 dozen buildings only.

The Eyre Peninsula is at the western end of South Australias time zone so sunrise is around 8:00am at this time of year. However for the guests at the Venus Bay Caravan Park darkness did not prevent an early start on the important business of the days fishing. So by the time there was enough light for a photograph many of those tinnies had alrerady been launched at the local natural sand boat ramp and we only got photos of the late comers.

Port Lincoln might be described as a small city, but a large town is probably a more accurate description. Situated on beautiful Boston Bay it is (by South Australia standards) a large grain port with a very large grain storage complex and ship loading facility as its reason d'entre. The town was founded in 1839 because of its very large protected harbor (3 times the size of Sydney Harbor) and is now the regional center for the Eyre Peninsula.

Regular readers of this blog will probably have already deduced that Nina and I like photographing animals/birds, so this morning we could not resist the opportunity to visit Glen Forest Animal Park a short drive from Port Lincoln. It is a bit corny going to such a place but on the other hand if did give us a chance to capture a number of iconic Australian animals.

The goal for today was to make it to Whyalla, a largish town almost at the head of Spensers Gulf. Along the way we visited the town of Kimba whose claim to fame, is that it is half way across Australia (from east to west), and that it is the home of the Big Galah. On a nearby hill we also found metal statues of John Eyre (the first European to cross the continent of Australia from Sydney to "Perth") and his aboriginal companion Wylie.

We did a driving tour of Whyalla this morning before hitting the road. From the Lookout on Hummock Hill the scope of the various industrial areas was apparent. This must have been quite an operation in its day.

Today was to be a nostalgic day for me as our destination was the small beach town of Wallaroo. This was my mothers home town and the place I spent my first 10-11 years. Wallaroo's original reason for existence was as a copper mining and copper smelting town and in my childhood the old smelter works and the piles of cinders from the defunct smelting operation were great play grounds. After the copper era ended the Adelaide and Wallaroo Fertilizer Company produced agricultural fertilizer from imported fertilizer rock. The piles of ferilizer and rock were also a playground for us kids.

Today started with a visit to Wallaroo Museum and a walk around the town to see if my memory could match the geography and I could find my old elementary school. The museum visit was particularly satisfying because I found a series of photos that allowed me to match up my memories of the beach front area with that areas current arrangement. And I found an old building that is still part of an active elementary school that I recognized as my old class room. So I counted the morning a success.

We continued our shortened exploration of the Yorke Peninsula today with a visit to a few of the small seaside towns on the eastern shore of the peninsula and saw more great beaches, jetties and well maintained small towns. If one wanted a beachfront lifestyle, largely devoid of other people the Yorke (and Eyre) peninsulas would be good places to consider. At the town of Ardrossan we came across a Museum that featured the Stump Jump Plough, ... a what you might ask (see below).

We spent the morning walking part of Wallaroo's Tourist Drive and capturing a few more photos of my "home town"; I now surely have enough to satisfy my nostalgia.

Victor Harbor is South along the coast from Adelaide, it is the major town in a large wetland area that constitutes the mouth of the Murray River (Australia's longest river), and that's where we ended today, a base for a couple of days exploring the area.

We put a bit of effort into doing some sightseeing around Victor Harbor today but really the weather was against us. So around midday we headed for Cape Jervis (about 50 km away) where we decided to spend the night so that we would be close to the ferry to Kangaroo Island which we have to catch tomorrow morning at 8:30.

As I mentioned in yesterdays post, this morning we were off to Kangaroo Island on the 8:30 ferry. What I did not mention was that we had booked to pick up a day long bus tour once off the ferry. The hope was that the bus tour would give us an overview of Kangaroo Island since we did not have the time in our schedule to spend days touring by ourselves.

The reason we came to this part of the country was to see an area called the The Coorong. For us (particularly Nina) the Coorong has a couple of attractions or at least points of interest. Firstly it is the setting for a famous Australian story and film called Storm Boy and secondly it is the point at which Australia's biggest river system (The Murray Darling) empties into the ocean. The Coorong is an extensive tidal estuarial region that encompasses the mouth of the Murray River.

We spent the nights of April 1st, 2nd, 3rd in Adelaide primariliy for the purpose of "business" (more vehicle work and completing US tax returns) rather than sight seeing. Never the less we took the opportunity to renew our aquaintence with Adelaide city/downtown and the area around the Torrens River. The Adelaide metro area has grown dramatically since our last visit over 20 years ago and is quite a sprawl. The city and Torrens area have undergone some major upgrades but has retained the charm of the city we knew.

We spent the morning navigating our way through the northern sprawl of the Adelaide metro area, passing through the township of Elizabeth, which was once a major car manufacturing center for GM when it was still building the Australian car the Holden.

The pictures in this post start with a few of the interestng signs we encountered during the day. The first of the signs is self explanatory, it just struck us as pretty typical Australian - anything with beer in it.

The cockatoos were out and about while we were fueling up in Hawker this morning and Nina managed to capture a flock of them in flight. There after, as you can see from the rest of the photos, we spent the day sightseeing by following a series of rough unpaved scenic roads or tracks through gorges or steep sided creek valleys. Morolana Road, Brachina Gorge and Bunyeroo Gorge. We found these gorges quite fascinating. In this incedibly dry country where most of the vegetation is low scrub, the creeks are an avenue of very large River Gum trees.These trees survive in this place by driving their roots down hundreds of feet to find the creeks water that is often still flowing underground.

Today was intended to be a bit of nostalgia, we planned on camping the night in a place named Chambers Gorge, it is an informal camping area on private property that is somewhat off the beaten track and being "informal" has no facilities at all. The nostalgia relates to the fact that we camped in this place in 1997 when on an outback trip with our then young children and we remember this place with some fondness.

As you can see the flies were back this morning as soon as the sun appeared; this prompted us to get moving and keep moving. The second photograph are the signs at the junction of two gravel roads; the view was the same in every direction. It is amazing even to us how empty this place can sometimes feel; in todays driving we passed 3 other vehicles and one of those was a road grader.

This morning we retraced yesterday afternoons route to the Bolla Bollana Smelter ruins and there after a series of 4wd tracks south through part of the Gammon Ranges National Park. Again this was a nostalga exercise reliving past adventures. It was also the first time on this journey where there was any substantial need for 4wd low range as there were some steep rock climbs and descents. The descent to the abandoned Idninha out station building was probably the most demanding.

We got going early this morning wanting to be at the Leigh Creek gas station at 8:00 (its opening time) to get the flat tire fixed. However Leigh Creek does not fix tires, I was directed 5 km up the road to Copley where the task was completed promptly. More evidence for me that Copley will eventually win out as the tourist stop on this part of the trek.

Yesterday while planning our current little side trip I wondered about the name of the Borefield Road but this mornings drive south towards Roxby Downs answered at least part of my question. The road was lined with capped bores (spear point wells down to the artesian water table) with periodic larger structures including filling stations for water tankers.

We spent the morning retracing our route of yesterday along the Bore Field Road and then rejoined the Oodnadatta Track. Along the track we stopped at a few points of interest, either old railway sidings (with ruins of railway buildings, broken bore machinery and in one case an old cast iron water tank) or natural springs. This part of inland Australia sits on top of the Great Artisian Basin, a large underground water deposit that covers 22% of Australias area and is estimated to hold 15,600 cubic miles of water. Along the Oodnadatta Track this water comes to the surface in natural springs in mound formations and provided natural staging places for early settlers and the early railways.

The first stop after leaving Lake Eyre this morning was the village/roadhouse of William Creek which consists of a pub, a scenic flight business in a single building, a bush campground and a gas station attached to the pub. One of our guide books described it as an iconic outback pub, it certainly is an interesting building. Seems to be mostly built from railway sleepers. Perhaps the most interesting thing about William Creek is that it is located on Anna Creek Station the largest cattle station (ranch) in the world. At 9142 sq miles it is just a little bit bigger than the country of Israel. The station was originally established by Sidney Kidman who realized that the only way to run cattle successfully in the Australian outback was to have a very low ratio of cattle to land. ß

It took us a little while to get ourselves out of Coober Pedy this morning. What with queuing up to buy fresh drinking water, buying a new gas stove, Nina's 10,000 steps and my mandatory cafe visit for a coffee we did not even get to the underground museum and mine until 10:00am. The museum was pretty good and of course depicted the story of opal discovery and the development of mining in this region. Like a lot of pioneer stories the beginning of opal mining at the Coober Pedy location is a tale of determination bordering on crazyness. After the initial discovery two men arrived at the site with 100 gallons of water on a bullock dray and stayed mining until their water ran out. To extend their water they collected all used waste water in a drum and skimmed the "clean" water off the top. When that finally ran out they had to walk 90 miles to a nearby rail head. All this in a region that is recognized as the driest part of Australia, the driest continent on earth.

We discovered this morning that the family that manages Arckaringa are on vacation and the young man that arrived last night works for the company that owns the station (the same company owns an adjacent property). Our route this morning, as planned yesterday, took us through what is called the Painted Desert, an area of small mesas with multi-colored soil and rock layers from the variation of mineral content.

I have used the word "iconic" a number of times in recent posts and I am now regreting that as I want to use it again, to describe our destination for today. The place is called Dalhousie Springs and it is well known in Australia for a number of different reasons, perhaps the most common being the complex of hot thermal pools that make it a little oasis in the desert but also because it is the western entrance to the 4wd track across the Simpson Desert to Birdsville, one of the most famous outback 4wd trails. As you can see from the photo of the sign that track was now (or recently) closed due to of all things flood waters coming down from northern Australia.

Today is my (Robert's) 70th birthday, but there were no birthday celebrations this morning, but instead an early start in order to have an excuse to be in the fly proof air conditioned interior of our vehicle. About 75km from last nights camp over more rough sandy/rocky tracks we came to Mt Dare Homestead which is now a hotel and restaurant/cafe as well as a station homestead. We cooled our heals at Mt Dare for a few hours having coffee, lunch and talking to the couple from Zimbabwe who were managing the place for a few weeks.

It took us until just after lunch today to retrace the Chambers Pillar track, complete the Ghan Hertiage Trail, and arrive in Alice Springs - often called The Alice by Australians. The Chambers Pillar Track had a spectacular example of a bull dust hole. This is an area on a road or track where the soil has turned to dust about the consistency of talcum powder and the powder or dust fills one or more large holes in the roadway making the hole very difficult to see. The last three photos are of our vehicle driving through that bull dust hole.

As the reader may have deduced from the date on this post we spent much longer in Alice Springs than would be usual for us. The main reason for such an extended stay is that I have a shoulder/neck problem which has limited my ability to drive for the past few weeks and I needed to rest that offending body part and find a doctor with whom to discuss the issue and get some pain killers. In addition early in our Alice stay we lost one of our wallets containing a number of credit cards, cancelling those cards and arranging replacements took up over a day; and we were thankful that we were in a country and city with good communications and with English as the language. Finally we decided to indulge in the luxury of a campground cabin to assist with the resting of my recalcitrant shoulder.

Today we commenced the very popular tourist route of the Western MacDonnell Ranges, a route that will eventually take us to the rock, "Uluru". The MacDonnell Range is really a small remnant of a much larger mountain range that has been weathered away to its current modest size. Many of the tourist attractions on this route are gorges, cut by creeks, through the MacDonnells or adjacent ranges, and often such a gorge has an almost permanent water hole at its heart. The water remains in the narrow chasms because of the lack of direct sunlight and the much cooler environment. In a number of cases, such as Serpentine Gorge, the water is also fed by a natural spring with water either from the mountain's own rock which acts as a sponge or the Great Artesian Basin.

We start todays post with a couple of photos of last nights camp. Thereafter a few photos of an aboriginal ochre mine or pit. Aboriginal people collect minerals of various colors from this river bank (and other ochre pits like this one) and use them for body paint and making art. In other parts of Central Australia such colored minerals were traded between tribes and regular trade routes existed.

Today was packed full of interesting sights, but the one that stands out was Palm Valley; but that comes a little later in this post. First off was another gorge, this one called Red Bluff Gorge and as you by now can guess there was a wide dry sandy riverbed with lots of Ghost and River Gums that led to a narrow cleft in a wall of red sandstone and in that cleft there was a waterhole. This particular waterhole had its own supply of floatation toys to entertain the children of those families that neglected to bring their own "floaties".

Today started with a photo of last nights camp. Then today was just a travel day, retraced our route over the rough gravel track to Hermannsburg, a quick picture of the house of Albert Namatjira (famous Australian Aboriginal artist) then 200+km of more rough road to Kings Canyon Resort.

The Kings Canyon Rim Walk starts about 10 km east of the Resort so we had to pack up for the day in order to drive to the start of the walk. The start of the walk could be a bit intimidating, with all kinds of safety warnings. For example if the days max temperature is going to be over 36°C (approx 100°F) then it is manditory to start the walk before 9:30 am (there is a gate to enforce this). Along the walk there are periodic emergency beacon stations where walkers can signal for help (like one of those personal safety satellite devices), there are periodic helicopter landing zones and large outdoor medical chests. One can only conclude that lots of people have been injured and/or rescued on this walk; or maybe the parks management are a little overly cautious.

Todays post starts with some images from King Creek last night and this morning. The first image is of an ancient plant called a cycad, this one is female. The birds fluffing up their wings are Spinifex Pigeons, they started this behavior when one of the King Creek workmen turned on a water sprinkler. A number of these birds landed in the area being watered and essentially started taking a shower in the spray. There is an interesting story associated with the donkey pictured in image 6. When the camel in image 5 was young it was abandoned by its mother and the donkey took over nursing the then small baby camel. Now the two are inseparable. The images of the tents are examples of the range of accomodation that was available at King Creek.

As planned the three of us arrived at the Sunrise Viewing Area at 6:50 (20 minutes to spare). The place was crawling with people, at least a couple of thousand, cameras, smart phones, and selfies everywhere. To everyones disappointment there was cloud in the east at sunrise so while the sun on the cloud was spectacular the morning rays did not illuminate and color the face of Uluru.

Today was sunny and warm so we were keen to get back to Uluru and capture some of the more typical photos of the big rock in sunshine. No walking around it this time just drive around it and look for some good images, because today we wanted to do a hike at another nearby bunch of rocks called either The Olgas or Kata Tjuta.

Today we made the long (for us) trek from Curtin Springs to Alice Springs, all on good quality sealed roads and with surprisingly light traffic. Much of the route was on the Stuart Highway, the main North South road to Darwin, and it provided a good diet of "Red Center" scenery, rolling hills of red sand soil broken by regular creek crossings with their Red River Gums and/or Snow Gums with various mountain ranges in the distance. A good highway to drive for anyone that wants a taste of Central Australian scenery without the dust and currugations of the unpaved roads that make up the Red Center tourist loop.

As you can see from the heading of this post and the dates we have spent another stint in Alice Springs and while Alice is a good place to resupply we would not have spent another 3 nights here except for the tent problem. Though to be honest without this break I would have had difficulty catching up on the blog posts. While on that subject I apologize for posting so many entries at the same time. I had planned to upload from Yalara but the tent issue and the rain put paid to that plan.

Today we started the long trek to Darwin, but first we had to take a short trip into the East MacDonnell Ranges and look at a few of the closer attractions. As I have mentioned previously the MacDonnell Ranges are the remnant of an acient much larger mountian range that has been weathered down to what is the MacDonnells today. The present day MacDonnels are relatively low (a few hundred feet to maybe 1200ft), consist of a long jagged ridge of exposed strata with gorges and gaps breaking through from south to north where rivers have carved their way through. So today we were off to see a few of these "gaps" which typically are dry sandy stream beds with jagged side walls and picturesque stands of ghost gums. Along the way we happened to find the largest Ghost Gum in Australia (and hence the world).

Today was a pretty tedious day. The road was mostly straight, the scenery low scrub, towns non-existent, and flies in swarms anytime we stopped and opened the car door. The only break from the monotony of driving were the occassional Road Houses. These are basically a gas station, restaurant and pub, maybe some basic motel rooms, maybe a caravan park and a few dwellings for locals (population usually well under 100).

A little north of Wycliffe Wells is a collection of granite boulders known as The Devils Marbles. We made a point of getting an early start so we would get to the marbles while the morning light was still shining on the boulders. It's quite an impressive collection of boulders in various states of erosion, including a few that have been split down the middle like they were cut with a knife.

We got a visit from some birds of prey this morning while packing up. They looked particularly spectacular against the bright blue sky so we spent a while trying to "get some pics". The remainder of the day was not note worthy until we reached Daly Waters, our next camping spot.

I neglected to mention in yesterdays post that Daly Waters was also an important base during World War II. The old airfield and related buildings can still be seen. Indeed some sources claim that Daly Waters was the first international airport in Australia as planes from Asia set down here on their way into Australia.

Back in 1984 when the movie was made from the novel "We of the Never Never", a replica of the Elsey homestead building was constructed as a set for many of the scenes in the movie. This morning we visited that replica.

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Arrived in Darwin on Saturday 11th May, a day earlier than we had originally planned. Our early arrival was deliberate as we wanted to be in Darwin, and settled in, by Sunday in order that we could go to the Mindil Beach Market which operates Sundays and Thursdays from about 4:00pm until 9:00pm.

Today we are at Litchfield National Park, about 130 km SSW from Darwin. One of the early "photo ops" in Litchfield is a (or some) very large Cathedral Termite Mound, and they are impressive but mounds of a more modest size are everywhere in this country so they are only of passing interest. What Litchfield is really about is water and the ability to swim in it. During the wet season the entire country side floods to a depth of meters and areas like Litchfield (large raised plateaus of rock) act like a sponge and absorb vast quantities of the wet season water. Once the dry season starts the sponge starts to disgorge that water and many rivers are created. Litchfield is one such outcroppings and the outflowing water has created a number of nice waterfalls with large pools at the bottom of the base. These pools, the falls, and the rivers/streams that feed the falls make great swimming holes. Of course only after the rangers have checked them to ensure there are no crocodiles hanging about.

We had planned to spend three nights in Litchfield and tonight was surposed to be spent at Surprise Creek Falls along the Litchfield-Daly Road, but that plan got changed as the Litchfield-Daly Road has not re-opened after the wet season. So we simply jumped to the day 3 plan and headed for Wangi Falls. This is probably the main draw card within Litchfield. It has a kiosk, an office of one of the helicopter tour companies, wifi, and a most spectacular pool and water falls. We spent a nice lazy day there taking advantage of the cooling effect of the water.

So we are a day ahead of schedule thus the sunset cruise on Corroboree Bilabong we have booked for tomorrow night would, ideally, be more convenient if it could be tonight. So as we leave Litchfield and start the trek towards Kakadu that is our plan, to see if we can rescehdule. Thus we head for Corroboree Roadhouse on the Arnhem Highway (the road to Kakadu) where we are supposed to meet the shuttle to the cruise tomorrow night in the hope we can reschedule.

Today was our first experience of Kakadu National Park, the largest national Park in Australia at 20,000 square km (about 1/2 the size of Switzerland). Over half the land that comprises the park is actually owned by Aboriginals and the entire park is jointly managed by the Parks Australia . A quick look at a map of the park will reveal two main access roads, The Arnhem Highway and the Kakadu Highway that meet at the town of Jabiru. Interestingly Jabiru's primary purpose is as a "company town" for the nearby Ranger Uranium Mine. Although tourism is also a major activity within the town.

This morning we noticed that we were not the only refugees from last nights rain storm. There were a number of 4x4 vehicles in the parking lot that looked set up for camping, and there was a lot of wet gear hanging on the clothes line or laying on the concrete building porch.

So we came back to Darwin after Gunlom because I noticed that the solar panel on top of the tent was not doing anything and we anticipate that over the next 6 weeks we will have many camps without electricty to recharge the battery that runs the refrigerator. So the folks at WAExperts.com.au had organized for a sparky (auto electrician) to drop by our campground and fix the problem. Turned out to be a corroded connection which was fixed by replacing a bunch of wires and some connectors. We also took the opportunity to update what we think of as the banner photos, the photos at the top of the home page. click this link and watch the slide show.

The solar panel is fixed, we are stocked up on supplies and are on the road again. So south to Pine Creek (again) to spend another night at the Lazy Lizard campground.

Last evening we noticed that the trees at the entrance to the Lazy Lizard had a good size population of fruit bats. They were quite noisy, sqwarking away for much of the night. This morning with some better light Nina caught a few photos of these surprisingly large creatures, as well as a few scenes from the town of Pine Creek, the railway museum and a local cricket match.

In order not to waste the 3+ days in Katherine today we decided to take one of the boat cruises on the Katherine Gorge in Nitmiluk National Park. This park is another parcel of land that has been returned to the original Aboriginal owners and is now leased to Parks Australia and is jointly managed.

This morning we delivered the vehicle to RJ Autos as arranged and the problem was fixed by 2:00pm. As suspected the issue was a broken right rear axle. To my surprise the break was NOT in the axle shaft itself; but rather the flange at the outer end of the axle had separated from the shaft. We filled some of the afternoon with a visit to the swimming holes at Katherine Hot Springs located in the valley of the Katherine River. Finally we added some photos of the campground, a very pleasant setting.

The vehicle problem put a bit of a dent in our schedule as we have a booking for a lake cruise on Thursday as well as reservations for a camping site for Wednesday and Thursday at Lake Argyle and we had planned to spend 3-4 days covering the distance to Lake Argyle. Now we have only 2 days thus this morning we were up before sunrise getting ready for an early start.

We took an early morning hike before leaving Limestone Gorge and captured a few more pictures of Boab trees (which we learned from a nearby plaque probably arrived in Australia from Madagascar on ocean currents). Then retraced our route over the rough entry track.

We spent most of the day cruising Lake Argyle. The cruise started at 11:30 and did not finish until 5:30 about 30 minutes after sunset. In terms of what we saw; rock wallabies clinging to the red cliffs, archer fish bombarding our hands to get the bread we were holding, lots of birds, and a few fresh water crocodiles. The cruise was topped off with a swim at sunset and the novel experience of trying to drink champagne while swimming.

We declared today a rest day and hung around the Argyle Resort. For me that meant a chat with neighbours, catching up on my audible novel and coffee (and cake) at the Resort restaurant. For Nina it was a walk on one of the resort hiking trails and some photos of the resort Infinity Pool.

Today we ducked back into the Northern Territory a few kilometers to visit, and camp at, Keep River National Park. On paper the attractions of this park are a couple of nice campgrounds and a couple of interesting walks amongst some sandstone cliffs. The first of the days hikes introduced us to the small stone and twig structure in the first picture, which was explained by the info-plaques in pictures 2 and 3.

We were up well before sunrise this morning as we had decided to undertake the Jarnem Loop hike and all the advice we had read suggested getting to the lookout for the sunrise. Well we did not quite manage a sunrise at the lookout but we did get some photos of the rising suns rays on the sandstone cliffs. Towards the end of the loop we came to Nigli Gap; a series of cliffs which show signs of aboriginal habitation.

Before getting underway this morning we took a few photos around our campground, and around the town of Kununurra. In particular we wanted to demonstrate the relative lushness of the area as the Ord River Valley around Kununurra is the region that is irrigated by the water released from Lake Argyle.

We spent the day exploring some of El Questro's attractions. In particular we took the hike into El Questro Gorge and while the walking was difficult for us the lush vegetation and crystal clear pools were very attractive. To add a bit of excitement the vehicle track to the start of the El Questro Gorge walk had a long water crossing.

We started the day with a little bit of a 4x4 adventure on an El Questro track called Saddle Back Ridge. A long steep climb with lots of "steps" and a few off camber hairpins before arriving at a lookout that gave a good 360 degree view of the property. That seemed like a good note on which to take our leave from El Questro and start the "famous" Gibb River road.

Before leaving Ellenbrae this morning we drove back to the homestead to try their coffee and scones. This seems to be a feature they are trying to cultivate as a "differentiator" for their tourist business. While sitting in the quirky but attractive cafe devouring said coffee and scones we started reading an information sheet that is provided at each table. From it we learned some interesting facts.

It's a bit hard to put into words the contradictions that today brings. On the one hand we are in an incredibly remote place and on the other hand tonights campground will have quite a population (maybe 100 people), we will see a number of offroad tourist buses at the campground, and there will be a helicopter base at the campground. Our starting point for today is already 500km (310miles) from the last town we passed through (Kununurra), it is the only fuel stop we have seen since that town, and today we are going to drive another 185 km (110miles) north and west from Drysdale.

Today is one of the big days for this trip. This region, known as The Kimberley, is one of the remotest and least populated parts of Australia and the Mitchell Falls is perhaps its most iconic tourist attraction. It is also the attraction that stretched this particular adventure for us to 6 months from its original conception of half that much time (originally we were planning a 3 month trip to Australia and then Nina found Destination Kimberley and the plan got extended to 6 months). So its a big day.

The route between Drysdale Station and the Mitchell campground consists of two road segments. From Drysdale one follows the Kalumburra Road north for 100km and then turns west onto the Mitchell Plateau track for 80km. So of course todays return journey to Drysdale reversed that route. As mentioned previously much of tne Mitchell Plateau track travels through Livistona Palm forest which we both really enjoyed. Just west of the junction of the Mitchell track and Kalumburra Road is an Aboriginal Art Site that we missed on the way up but called in on todays return.

With our Mitchell excursion done today we returned to the Gibb River Road and continued our westward journey. The first leg of the days journey was 60km south from Drysdale to the Gibb River Rest area and then 110 west to Mount Barnett Road House and the nearby Manning Gorge Campground. There was not much of note on todays drive, lots of road corrugations, a surprising number of fellow travellers, maybe 50 other cars most towing a camper of some form and two notable river crossings where we took a few photos. We crossed the Gibb River just before rejoining the Gibb River Road and the Barnett River just before the similarly named road house.

We made a start before sunrise this morning and walked from the campground to Manning Gorge. The start of the walk is quite interesting as one has to cross a large waterhole, and a small aluminium boat with rope tow is provided for the purpose. By the time we returned from the walk the kids staying in the campground were up and playing in the waterhole and a couple of them offered to be our ferrymen. The walk to the Gorge was hot and a bit tedious but the gorge provided some nice photos of cliffs reflected in the clear water.

This morning we visited another attraction of the Napier Range, Tunnel Creek about 35km south of Windjana. The "tunnel" which is about 750 meters long is nothing more than a small limestone cave carved out by a wet season river/creek. The thing that sets this cave apart from other limestone caves are the resident fresh water crocodiles. The one in picture 8 is real. This cave was once the hideout of an aboriginal outlaw or freedom fighter (depending on your perspective) name Pigeon or Jandamarra. See Tunnell Creek

Today turned into a long day, at least by our standards. We got an early start from Windjana, eventually the paved road arrived and we made good time into the coastal town of Derby on King Sound at the mouth of the Fitzroy River. We found the place a little crowded (with tourists), and the single campground seemed packed so we decided to push on to Broome.

We have a few things planned in Broome next week but the thought of hanging around in one place for over a week was more than Nina could tolerate so we decided to take a little excursion to Cape Leveque about 200km north of Broome. The peninsula that is tipped by Cape Leveque is all aboriginal land and hence is very lightly inhabited but non the less is a very popular tourist destination.

Before returning to Broome this morning we wanted to visit Kooljaman, an aboriginal owned tourist resort that provides accommodation ranging from luxury cabins through to unpowered campsites. They were fully booked so we could not camp there last night. Also this property is the only place where one can access the beach front at Cape Leveque. Photo 2 is the access road to Kooljaman. We spent a couple of hours at Kooljaman exploring their beaches and facilities before starting the return trip to Broome.

One of the big events in Broome is called Stairway to the Moon. This takes place whenever a low tide and new moon coincide. Since the downtown beach area of Broome face East one can watch the new full moon rise over the sea, and when the tide is low the moon light reflects off the sand/mud to give the impression of stairs leading to the rising moon. This is now a big event and attracts thousands of spectators. So this evening about 6:17pm we were at the Town Beach to buy dinner from one of the many food stalls and watch the moon rise. Photos were difficult.

Today we visited and "rode" a tidal phenomena called The Horizontal Falls. These falls are located about 120 miles North and a little East of Broome and to visit them we took a 1 hour flight in a small plane to Cockatoo Island, followed by a 4 hour ride in a fast and powerful boat (3 x 250 Yamaha outboard engines) with 18 other people, and then a return flight (passing over the Horizontal Falls) back to Broome.

Today we leave the coast heading towards Fitzroy Crossing and then Halls Creek eventually. Todays route retraces part of the route we followed from Derby to Broome and then branches onto the Great Northern Highway. When researching this leg of our journey we noted that camping places were few and so todays leg is a longer one than usual and ended at the unusually named RAAF Boab Quarry. For non Australian readers RAAF is an acronym for the Royal Australian Air Force. There were few scenic attractions on todays route, the Boab Rest Area (photo 1) being an exception, otherwise the day was an easy drive on good paved roads with light traffic.

In contrast to yesterday today was a very short drive, less than 100 km, into Fitzroy Crossing and then north about 20km to a small National Park containing Geike Gorge. The gorge is formed by the Fitzroy River cutting through the Napier Range. You might recall we visited another part of the Napier Range at Windjana where we saw lots of "freshies" and observed fruit bats trying to avoid those same crocs while taking a drink. At Geike we took a boat tour of the Gorge. The photos tell that story well.

The main accommodation building at Fitzroy Crossing Lodge (photo 1) was quite interesting as the entire structure seems to be corrugated metal, and surrounds the swimming pool.

The access road to Purnululu National Park and the Bungle Bungle range is about 100km north of Halls Creek and it was an easy drive on paved road to that access road. From there to the Park Visitors Center is another 56km and we had heard all kinds of horror stories about how bad this twisty gravel road was. But to our surprise the road generally was in ok shape and had some very interesting scenery though we did not get any views of the Bungle Bungle Range at this time.

The main activity today was our 30 minute helicopter tour of the Bungle Range, and as with our previous heli tours we both were well satisfied with the experience. The ariel view gives an entirely different perspective. I won't make any other comment about the flight but rather let the photos tell the story.

In her inimitable style Nina had another hike on the agenda this morning as a last taste of the Bungles before we made the trek back to Halls Creek. This one was called Echidna. We had no idea why that name was chosen, nor what we would see. The guide to the hike suggested there might be some climbing at the end of the hike but that was all. Unlike our earlier hikes this one was in the North West of the park so we could be certain that there would be no beehive domes.

Today we started our traverse of the Tanami Road which will take us back to Alice Springs 1057 km from last nights camp at Halls Creek. Historically the Tanami Track (as it was called) was a cattle droving route along which pastoralists in the Kimberley moved their cattle to market. In the 1960s (after overland droving ceased, and there was no need to detour to find water for the cattle) the track was rerouted and shortened to approximately its current route. Today it is still a remote 80% gravel road that is almost devoid of services. At the North West end it starts 16km from Halls Creek (at a junction with the Great Northern Highway) and to the South Eastern end it joins the Stuart Highway 20km north of Alice.

We made it to Billiluna this morning during their operating hours and bought 30.77 liters of fuel. Why such a strange amount? Well the rules for buying fuel at Billiluna are, you tell them how many liters you want, they will work out the price of that and round it to the nearest A$10, then give you a fuel card for that amount for which you must lodge a $5 deposit, you take the card out to the pump and dispense the fuel, then return the card and get your $5 deposit back. It turned out that 30.77 liters was almost too much I had to dribble the last 0.77 liters into both tanks to get it all in. But, non the less, we now definitely had enough fuel.

Another day, more kilometers, more red dust and surprisingly few additional creatures. We spotted the dingo at our morning tea break and the snake was crossing the road just a little later. The aeroplane needs some explanation. Roughly mid way along the Tanami Road there is a gold mine called the Granites Gold Mine run by Newmont Gold Mine. While passing this mine we spotted this passenger jet getting ready to takeoff. It was a little mind blowing. Here we are in what feels like the middle of nowhere and we see a jet plane just off to our left!

This morning we knocked off the remaining 260kms into Alice Springs and thus brought our Tanami adventure to a true conclusion. When we fueled up in Alice we had travelled 1084 km since taking on fuel in Halls Creek. In addition to the 30.77L we got in Billiluna we added another 127.5L today in Alice for a total of 158.27L, so we could have made the entire distance without additional fuel. In addition to keeping track of fuel we also kept track of the other vehicles that we passed while we were driving. Over the 3 days prior to today we passed a total of 2 non-articulated trucks, 8 road trains, 34 pickups or SUVs pulling camping trailers or caravans, and 62 non towing pickups, or suvs or actual sedan cars. Since we drove for only 3-5 hours per day and did not count vehicles we saw while camped these numbers are well below the total number using the Tanami Road. The interesting thing is the mix, as well over half the non towing pickups/suvs were travelers like us with camping gear on board. The conclusion is that the vast majority of vehicles using the Tanami Road are doing so for recreational purposes. We find that interesting and entirely consistent with our less formal counts of vehicles we have encountered elsewhere on this trip.

We stayed in Alice Springs a few days, catching up on some business and having our vehicle serviced in preparation for the next leg of this journey.

Today we headed back to Uluru where we will start our travers of the Great Central Road, which is the south western leg of Australias (The Worlds?) Longest Shortcut. However, for us, Uluru is a long drive and we plan on ending the day at Curtin Springs and along the way take a detour to Rainbow Valley. Rainbow Valley it turns out is a small but colorful rock outcropping, the track in is typical red sand and the scenery a mix of red sand, light colored spinifex, and desert oak trees. .

It was cold overnight, we estimated (don't have a thermometer) in the mid 30°F. So consequently we did not hang around at our bush camp but got underway towards Uluru where our observations about the tourist season was further confirmed. Just take a look at the line of people climbing Uluru and what you can't see are the 1000+ vehicles parked just near.

While out for her morning walk Nina found these ants nests (see photo 1) positioned in the middle of a spinifex plant and with their entrance mound covered in spinifex "leaves"; we could not work out whether it was camouflage or some other form of protection.

Last night in camp some dark clouds accumulated and this morning they pretty much covered the sky, and of course we thought rain, possibly. This could be a problem because outback roads are definitely NOT all-weather. With even modest amounts of rain that red sand/dirt turns to mud and the roads either become impassable or get closed by the local police. So we did not want to get caught in that situation. Hence an early start was called for and an extra effort throughout the day to get as close to the end of the dirt as possible.

Another beautiful sunrise, more camels, lots more dirt road and dust clouds from oncoming vehicles and we are finally in Laverton; the end of the Great Central Road. Laverton turned out to be a very nice looking tidy town, which surprised us a bit as we have seen it described as "uninteresting". There was a nice new information center in the town that had the best maps and info sheets on The Great Central Road we have seen. Pity we could not have got those maps and sheets in Alice Springs or Yulara before we drove the road.

Our first stop today was only a few kilometers south of Leonora at the Sons of Gwalia Gold Mine. Anyone who was associated with share trading in Australia (like me) would have heard this name before, and maybe unlike me knew the origin and meaning of the name. The discovery of the gold deposits and starting of the original mine was undertaken by some Welsh immigrants. Gwalia is the Welsh name for Wales. Today the mine still operates, though now as an underground mine, rather than the original open cut. Next to the present day mine site is a museum and a collection of old equipment and old buildings including the mine managers house (called Hoover House). That house is now a Bed and Breakfast and a cafe. Interestingly Herbert Hoover (eventually 31st president of the USA) took over as Mine Manager in 1898 at the age of 23 and had the managers house built; hence the name.

Before departing Lake Ballard this morning we could not resist a few more photos of these strange little statues by the light of the rising sun.

About 100km north of last nights camp we came to the town of Wiluna. This is yet another Western Australian town that was once a major gold mining town and in the 1930s had a population of around 9000. Today the population is around 700 and is probably most well know as the southern entrance to the Canning Stock Route and the Western end of the Gunbarrel Highway. It is interesting to us that one of the motivations for the Gunbarrel was to place instruments as part of rocket development at Woomera. While at Woomera earlier in this trip we heard from an Airforce Officer just how valuable the Woomera Rocket Range is because of the length of flight path over un-inhabited territory it offers.

There is not much to say about today. Just another day traveling North on the Great Northern Highway with many road trains, mines and not much else. Just to illustrate the point; the app we are using to find camping places (and other places of interest) noted that near 25 Mile Well was a sight of interest called Sponge Bob mail Box. This is nothing more than the mail box for one of the local pastoral stations decorated up a bit. Other wise we just recorded some of the heavy vehicles we encoutered.

Today was really about getting to and finding a camping spot close to Karijini National Park so that tomorrow we would have an entire day to commit to exploration of the park. This is because we could only get one night in either of the campgrounds at the park. Todays photo record, starts with a few photos of Kumarin roadhouse and a few "along the way" shots as well.

We were at Karijini and starting our first "hike" by 8:30 thereby facilitating what turned out to be a very full day.

After yesterdays achievements, and in light of the fact that we could not camp at Karijini tonight, todays plan was to "do it all"; or at least our version of that. We would "do" Dales Gorge and hit all the high points. See below.

As you can see from the date of this entry we spent three nights in Tom Price dealing with some family business. This morning when we departed our plan was to head west towards Millstream-Chichester National Park. But we quickly discovered that all roads in that direction were unpaved and had a lot of mine traffic, particularly 4 trailer road trains. Now we dont mind dirt roads but in conjunction with road trains they are tedious and dangerous, and we are a bit weary of dirt roads anyway. So we changed plans late morning and returned to Tom Price with the intent of going towards the town of Marble Bar.

The first half of the drive into Marble Bar was on paved road with a good deal of road train traffic servicing local mines. The second half was a good quality gravel road with almost no traffic. Along both sections the scenery was interesting with striking red rock and soil covered in "buttons" of spinifex, some bright green patches presumably from recent rain and a few creek crossings with some water still present.

Port Hedland is a major shipping port for iron ore mined in the Pilbara Area of Western Australia as well as being a major service center for such mines and having a major salt mining operation right on the outskirts of the town. With a population of 14,000+ it feels like a small city.

We took a little tour around the Dampier area this morning including stopping at the information display at the town entrance where we read about the Red Dog. It seems a red dog named, among other names, Tally Ho became a well known figure around the Pilbara region as it traveled the region by getting rides with and adopting as temporary owner a bus driver and other travelers. It is said that the dog was made a member of the Dampier Salts Sport and Social Club and the Transport Workers' Union.

The little town of Exmouth sits towards the top east corner of North West Cape, and is surrounded by Cape Range National Park and is the gateway to Ningaloo Marine Park with its coral reefs, colourful fish and migratory whale sharks. Not surprisingly then Exmouth is definitely a tourist town and the population swells from 2200 to over 6000 during the height of the tourist season. In addition North West Cape is the sight of an RAAF base and a Naval Communications base.

We set out today to get a small taste of the sights of the North West Cape. Yesterday we discovered that there were a myriad of boat tours of the Ningalo Reef all included swimming and snorkeling and offered the chance to swim with whale sharks or some other exotic sea creature. Since we are not really into snorkeling at the current temperatures we opted for the glass bottom boat tour so that we could see some of the coral and sea life without getting wet. Unfortunately as we approached the pickup point for that tour we got a phone call telling us the tour had been cancelled due to high winds. Thus our chance to see the reef at anything like close quarters was gone. We contented ourselves with viewing it from afar, the bright turquoise water and the surf breaking over the reef some hundreds of yards off shore.

There is not much to say about today. It rained lightly off and on all day and we stayed inside our temporary appartment taking care of chores like washing and planning the final leg of the "troopy" part of our trip into Perth.

Today was mostly a travel day, we needed to take a big slice out of the distance to Carnarvon. However we did make a couple of scenic stops. The first, Shot Hole Canyon just a few kilometers south of Exmouth and around lunch time we dropped into the village of Coral Bay a very popular spot on the Ningaloo Coast.

A few hundred kilometers of the coastal highway with its red soil and low scrub brought us to the town of Carnarvon. Originally a shipping port for the local wool industry, the town is now perhaps more well known for its role as a major tracking station for NASA's Gemini and Apollo Programs and of course there is an extensive museum of paraphernalia from that era. In addition to visiting the Tracking Station Museum we spent a little time exploring the towns beach front and its now closed but impressive "mile long jetty".

After retracing yesterdays drive from Carnarvon to Quobba our day came to an unexpectedly quick end. For some reason we were both feeling sleepy, and even took the unprecedented step of stopping at a rest area, putting up the tent and having a sleep. This convinced us that rather than continuing with the our original plan of spending the night at Hamelin Pool (a day of about 300km) we should stop early. As luck would have it we were not far from Wooramel River Retreat when this decision was made so that became our nights stopping place.

While packing up this morning I noticed that the solar panel was coming adrift from its mounting. The panel had been afixed to some aluminum L sections on the roof with pop-rivets and all the vibration from the rough roads we have travelled have worn the heads off the rivets. As a result one entire side of the panel was no longer fastened to the L section. A few kilometers after leaving Wooramel we stopped at Wooramel Roadhouse and borrowed an electric drill and got some self-tapping screws to re-fasten the panel. That first photo is yours-truly demostrating his balancing skills while installing the new self-tappers.

This morning we finished our exploration of Francois Peron NP by driving the remainder of the sandy track to Cape Peron where we spent some time trying to get the "perfect" photo contrasting the red soil against the white beaches and blue ocean. It was a lovely morning and in addition to the great scenery, the great luck of spotting a goanna sunning itself under a bush we enjoyed the bouncing bucking ride along the sandy tracks.

This morning we spent our time attending the Dolpin Feeding Experience, the reason we came to this place. Each morning starting at about 8:15 the rangers invite guests to stand on the beach front and watch a feeding "experience". After about 15 minutes during which one of the rangers does a monologue about the dolphins of the area a small number of members of the audience are invited to feed the dolphins with fish provided by the rangers. Each dolphin is limited to three fish at each experience. So this morning only three guests got to feed a dolpin as there was only one adult dolphin lining up for food. The "experience" is repeated 2 more times if the dolphins show interest.

Today was spent in the Kalbarri National Park which has the Murchison River and its associated gorges as its key attraction. Somewhat to our surprise the Murchison had flowing water, we found out from talking to a park worker that this is a result of 6 inches of rain in June. In addition a lot of flowers were blooming including the red flowered flame trees in the photos.

We spent a little time this morning in the town of Kalbarri. This gave Nina a chance to complete her daily walk (and achieve the necessary 10,000 steps) and allowed me to do my morning physio exercises. There after we travelled down the coast south of Kalbarri, which has some nice coastal scenery and is part of the Kalbarri National Park.

It finally dawned on us this morning that the countryside has changed over the past two days and we are now back in green country where there are wide farm fields of green and flowing water. The deserts and the dry salty coastal plains are no more. Unfortunately this change also signals that our adventure is winding down.

As we left our camping spot this morning we happened to see this Sea Eagle sitting atop a post. The scenic highight of today was a visit to The Pinnacles at Nambung National Park where one can walk and/or drive amongst these strange limestone blocks poking up out of the yellow sand.

Today was the last driving day of this adventure. Tonight we camped in a caravan park in Fremantle just south of Perth City. We will be in this caravan park or a nearby hotel until Sunday 11th when the next short non-driving leg of this adventure starts. Our time in Fremantle will be mostly chores such as cleaning our faithful troopy and catching up on family business. But we do plan one sightseeing day while in this area and will report on that when it happens.

The one last sighseeing adventure we had always planned to undertake during our wind-down in Fremantle was a visit to Rottnest Island. It is about 30 minutes from downtown Perth on a fast ferry and is famous for its population of Quokkas. These are small macropods (like mini kangaroos, approximately) about the size of a family cat and are the reason the island got its name. In 1696 Dutch captain Willem de Vlamingh spent 6 days on the island and mistaking the Quokkas for large rats named the island 't Eylandt 't Rottenest ("Rats' Nest Island"). The current population of Quokkas is estimated at around 10-12,000 and they appear to be everywhere on the island; particularly where human visitors are likely to be consuming food. You will notice in the last few photos below that Nina had some difficulty eating her lunch without sharing it with a quokka. There is a $150 fine for feeding the animals.

The driving part of our adventure came to an end today when we returned our faithful 'troopy' to the guys at Waexperts.com.au. We were sad to say goodbye to the trusty vehicle, pleased to get it back to them without any last minute accidents or problems, pleased to share some of our adventure with the guys and sorry to say good bye to Taia and the team that have supported us so well.

Today marks the start of a new Australian adventure. Well at least "sort of".

Anyone that has travelled by vehicle will understand the idea of a getting organized day. This involves repacking the entire vehicle so we both know where things are, buying food and packing it into the very limited space provided by this new vehicle, planning a detailed route for the first few days.

This morning we continued along the Herberton-Petford road towards the town of Irvinebank with various attractions, an old tin mining town, a very large snake with a black head, a very impressive Brahman bull, and in Irvinebank a very industrious flock of guinea fowl, and an impressive display of old ford cars and trucks in the garage of a local resident.

This morning we completed the Railway Trail to Lappa and dropped in to the Lappa train station which apparently still operates with two trains per week. Interestingly next to the station are the remains of the hotel that once served railway passengers. It is now a private museum of sorts. We had quite a long chat with the operator of the museum, a gentleman in his 60's who has lived 35 years in this location.

We decided overnight that today we would return to Lappa, say hello to the old guy (look whose talking) at the Lappa Train Station pub and drive the old railway trail otherwise known as the Lappa-Mt Garnett Road. Why, becuase we would like to get a better photograph of the cuttings and culverts constructed to flatten the train route.

This morning Nina informed me that she did not like the sleeping bag she was using; and after much discussion we concluded that we were close enough to Cairns that a return journey with the goal of getting a "better" sleeping bag would be possible. In addition we quickly invented a list of other essential items that we could get IF we went back to Cairns. This list included a few things that Brendon (currently between Georgetown and Croydon) would like us to get for him. So that set the plan for the day. Drive back towards Cairns. Stay the night somewhere close but not in Cairns and tomorrow (Monday) do a bunch of shopping.

We did not get Nina a new sleeping bag. She decided that the choices on offer at the Cairns Anaconda store were less appealing than our current bags. But we got everything else on our list except the M15x1.75 nut that Brendon wanted for the front axle of his mates bicycle.

Babinda, where we stayed last night, has a tourist attraction called The Boulders, which we thought was a very uninspiring name. But it turned out to be a jungle creek just west of the town center where the water runs through a steep gorge and has carved channels and holes in the granite bedrock. A very pleasant and well presented place.

Somewhat west of Mt Garnett is an area called The Forty Mile Scrub which has been designated a National Park. It has a picnic area just off the highway and a short walking track. On one of the information panels Nina learned that many of the trees in the Forty Mile Scrub NP are semi-evergreen. That is they have leaves most of the year, but can shed them briefly at the end of the dry winter months to reduce the loss of precious moisture to preserve the tree.

The next few days are going to be an exercise in "delaying". There are two reasons for this. The first is that we have to be in Croydon (west of here) as late as Friday 4th August to pickup some parcels from the Croydon post office for Brendon and Daniel. Second we could not get either a tour of the Lava Tubes at Undara (now booked for the afternoon of 30th July), nor a tour of Cobbold Gorge with out some delay(now booked for the afternoon of 1st Aug). Thus the next few days are an exercise of finding something to do.

Today continued the "finding something to do" exercise started yesterday. So from our gravel pit camping spot we headed back into Greenvale so that Nina had somewhere safe and civilized to walk (rather than doing laps of the gravel pit) while I bought coffee at the local gas station and sat at one of their picnic tables and was entertained by a wide variety of local feathered birds who tried to entice me into sharing my breakfast and coffee with them.

We started our day with a walk in Copperfield Gorge. This is in actuallity the river bed of the Einasleigh River in the town of Einasleigh. But it really is a small, spectacular, rock gorge. In past days this was the site of a short lived copper mine.

In 1862 Thomas and Charles Collins travelled beyond the blazed tree to claim new land. About 40km south of here one of the thirsty bullocks strayed. The sound of its bell drew the stockman to a spring fed creek. Recognizing the importance of permanent water they claimed 100 squre miles of surrounding country and named it Spring Creek Station. They built a hut similar to the one in the photos below.

Today we simply had to move on from Undara to be within easy driving distance of Cobbold Gorge tomorrow morning. We chose to target the small town of Forsayth via Einasleigh.

The story of discovery of Cobbold Gorge and it becoming a tourist attraction is quite interesting. The gorge is situated on land that was established as Robin Hood Station in the 1800s by the Clark family. On the sandstone walls of the pool at the entrance to the gorge is a carving J E Clark 1900 but despite having obviously found the pool the clark family did not know about the gorge. The property was sold to Cobb Terry and his family in 1964. In the 1990s the Terry family decided to divide the property between the members of the next generation and the youngest son Simon Terry got the worst of the subdivision. It was considered the worst because it had large areas of sandstone outcroppings which cannot support cattle. Simon discovered the gorge 1992 after the division and almost immediately started running tours through the gorge.

As I mentioned a few posts back we have been "marking time" around the Forsayth/Georgetown area waiting for the expected delivery date of some parcels in Croydon. Well today we moved on to Croydon and were pleasantly surprised to find that 2 of the 3 parcels were waiting for us. The final one is not expected until Friday (4th) so we will spend 2 nights here in Croydon.

A waiting day in Croydon. A chance to do the washing. Nina started her day with a walk to the railway station to watch the Gulflander depart on its weekly return journey to Normanton. There are a number of interesting buildings and other sites in town. We spent some time looking at those.

Unfortunately the parcel we expected did not arrive in todays mail. The lady at the Post Office offered to forward it to Katherine, so with that we departed Croydon. We did however require a couple more photos of True Blue and the town pub.

The day started with a few Icons of Normanton. Krys, the largest confirmed salt water crocodile in the world ( see this link for more info) and the associated info paque, the Purple Pub and in tribute to Nina's father the local Westpac Branch.

This post starts with a photo of the Gregory Pub and a couple of shots of the lower campging area on the lower part of the Gregory River Bank. I was spoiled this morning as the town of Gregory, population 125 (2023 census) has a coffee shop that sells home made pastries as well as the usual range of excellent coffees. As you can imagine the horde of tourists roughing it in the outback flocked to this city comfort. I was one of them.

Going West today we were presented with a couple of noteworthy rivers. The first was the Gregory River which required getting our wheels wet on an interesting curved causeway. The second was the Nicholson River which was just before entering the Aboriginal Town of Doomadgee and was surprisingly wide but the causeway was dry.

You have heard of the novel "A Tale of Two Cities", well today was " a day of 6 tales".

It took a few hours on the phone this morning to start the process of organizing tyres and parts for the tent, and then a few more conversations throughout the day to get a plan together. TyrePower in Katherine will get in 3 tyres for us but it will take until the week of 22nd Aug for them to arrive in Katherine. Ivan at Peak Offroad, will send some replacement latches for the poptop tent. TyrePower have allowed me to have the tent parts sent to them so that fixed the "where to send stuff" question.

A beautiful morning encouraged me to get up before the sun and I even took a photo of the rising sun to prove it. Nina got a picture of the strange ants/termites nest on the tree near our camp.

Before leaving Daly Waters this morning Nina did her usual walk around and visited the Stuart Tree, the nearby WWII air field, railway bridge and we said goodbye to the campground cattle.

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Today was the final leg to Katherine, civilization for the first time in some weeks. For Brendon and Daniel it will be an opportunity to prepare for the second leg of their odyssey, for Nina and I it will mean some new tyres and repairs to the pop-top tent. Nina and I were the farewell party for the guys as they prepared to get underway and finally departed. Then we did a little tour of the Mataranka area visiting a few of the local sights; Bitter Creek, the replica of Elsey homestead built for the movie We of the Never Never, and the old Elsey Cemetery.

This weekend is the annual Katherine Horse Races. Accommodation is hard to get, drunk and loud behavior will be rampant (it started already last night) and no tyres are going to arrive until at least Monday. So we decided we should take a little excursion out of Katherine for a few days.

Today we made the short drive North of Katherine to Edith Falls. This is a small National Park where the Edith River cascades through a series of large ponds and a series of water falls. It is very popular as a day trip as it provides good swimming and as we discovered good sun tanning (or is that good sun burning) opportunities.

Another day killing time waiting for tyres and other stuff to arrive in Katherine. Rather than go back to Katherine we decided to spend another day in Pine Creek. It is a very pleasant little town. The Lazy Lizard campground has lots of shade and generally feels a little cooler than Katherine. Mid afternoon we heard from Tyrepower that our tyres had arrived so tomorrow we will get them fitted. Hurray !!

Most of the day was focused on getting back to Katherine and having tyres fitted. I had ordered three new tyres. Two of the new ones went on the front and the two spares are on the rear so effectively the Troopy is now running 4 new tyres. I also took the opportunity to visit the local weigh bridge to get front and rear weight in an effort to figure out what pressure I should have for the tyres. It was 1400 kg front 2000 kg rear. Interestingly this means that already the vehicle exceeds the stock GVM and hence it is good that we had a GVM upgrade as part of the fitout.

Overnight we got a tracking update that suggested one of our packages had been delivered at Tyrepower so this morning that was a priority stop. As it turned out there were 2 packages waitiing. One that Brendon had ordered from Europe and the replacement tent latch that Ivan at Peak Offroad in Sydney had acquired and sent. A big thanks to Ivan this was definitely a case of customer support as there was no profit in this transaction for him. Also a big thanks to Rene and Simon at Tyrepower Katherine for allowing us to use them as a mail drop in addition to delivering our new tyres ahead of schedule.

It seems to be the way of this country that the day starts off with a gentle feel, the birds are out, the light is soft and it feels comfortable, and this morning we tried to absorb that feeling. Nina took in her usual early morning walk and I repaired that broken tent latch. On leaving the Roadhouse we visited the nearby ford crossing of the Victoria River. The grass near the river was surprisingly (to us) high and we tried to capture this by comparing it to Nina. Not sure that worked.

It was a very peacful night and we were up early to watch the sun rise on the nearby escarpment, we could not resist one last shot. We have encountered this sign in photo 2 in many places. They seem to be cast them about when ever there is slight or major road damage. We have guessed that they signal "danger". Nina finally caught a photo of one for us this morning.

Today may turn out to be the highlight of the trip as we accompanied the cyclists along the King River Road and then onto the Kurunjie Track (which was once called the Bedford Stock Route). In order to give the cyclists a bit of a start Nina and I started the day with a return visit to Parry's Lagoon and the nearby Telegraph Hill which once was a wireless radio relay station but is now just a set of foundations with no buildings.

The final 8km of the Kurunjie Track proved to be quite rough. This is probably because it is close to the Gibb River Road and gets more traffic with travelers on the Gibb doing some exploring. Again the cyclists out paced our 4wd vehicle on this rough track and we arrived at the Gibb River and its crossing of the Pentacost River behind.

It has been great to have a couple of days traveling with Bredon and Daniel, but today we go our separate ways. They will stay another day at El Questra while we (Nina and I) will start West along the Gibb River Road with the aim of being in Broome in about 4 days. So after a big cookup by the boys this morning, we said our goodbyes and were on the road by about 10:30.

It was a surprisingly cool night, so cool I got up during the night to find my down jacket. But as we were about to find out the day would be a counterpoint to the night. Today the temperature would top out at 37°C making every stop a hunt for shade.

At the start of the day we were focused on our role in a geo-location game we had agreed to play with Brendon. We were to hide some small treasure in the bush along the Gibb River Road and send him the GPS coordinates. The game was whether he could find what we hid. So for the first few hours of todays drive we were on the loolout for a suitable location. We eventually selected Bells Creek.

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We started today with a tour of Broome, the port and some of the beaches. The seaside and blue ocean are really beautiful. Maybe not so much the town. This was in some sense a final goodbye to Broome as I cannot imagine we will be back here again.

We were keen to get to Mount Barnett this morning so were on the road by 7:30 and arrived there about 10:30. Brendon and Daniel of course had nothing to do while waiting for us so they had walked the 5km round trip to Manning Gorge one of the prime attractions of a trip on the Gibb River Road and hence were not at the campground when we arrived but turned up looking refreshed from swimming in the Gorge about lunchtime.

With the tyre repaired yesterday we all decided we would spend today taking the hike to Manning Gorge. The first obstacle on the hike is a river which requires about 100m of swimming and then a 2-3km walk over rocky ground and up and down through a number of sharp creek beds. Brendon took on the job of being guide and assistant to Nina and did a splendid job.

This morning we again said goodbye to the cyclists even though our routes coincide for the next 200km or so. We will almost cetrtainly not see them again on this trip. We will travel West to the Lennard River (200km) and then South while the cyclists will probably do the 300+km West into Derby.

The highlight of the day was finding that RAAF Boab Quarry was still operating as an informal campground, and that the quarry was full of water offering good swimming opportunities. There was no water in the quarry in 2019 when we camped there.

Today really was just a driving day, we have some business to do in Katherine and would like to have some of Friday available for that business.So the goal for the day was to get to within 300km of Katherine by the end of the day.

Readers may recall that back at the start of August we spent a few days in Croydon Qld waiting for a parcel that was supposed to arrive there on Aug 4th but did not. That parcel contained a special nut for the front axle shaft of Daniel's bicycle and is supposed to help hold the front wheel in the front fork of the bike. The nut was lost and this new one was ordered via ebay on July 20th. So since at least July 20th the front axle (and hence front wheel) of Daniel's bike has been held in by a couple of zip-ties pretending to be an axle nut.

The big news of today is that Brendon and Daniel completed the final 165km of their bicycle ride from Cairn, Queensland to Broome, Western Australia. A ride of some 4000km which they started on July 8th. For some images of the final day see Brendon's Instagram account brenwell.

These two cyclists were at the campground in Elliott last night but we did not get a chance to chat so this morning we stopped on the roadside and offered them a cold coke each. Mark is from Edmonton, Alberta and Everlyn is from Switzland. They are cycling from Darwin to Adelaide and were finding the 36°C temperatures a bit trying not to mention the strong headwinds.

Today started with a few more photos of the bird life on the remainder of the lake at the Frewina rest Area. Once underway we were soon at Barkley Roadhouse which seems once to have been part of the homestead for Barkley Station (it may still be). We were really impressed by this roadhouse. It is the best maintained and most up-market roadhouse we have seen in all of our Australia Travels. In addition the kissing lizards out the front of the roadhouse entrance were very impressive and the Guinea Fowl running around the place were entertaining.

It was a shortish drive into Mt Isa this morning and thereafter the day was about the town and surrounds of Mt Isa. The mine and associated works certaiinly do dominate the town.

We thought today would be "just a driving day", but as it turned out there were a few things along the way worth seeing. But first there was another effort to capture the extend to which the mine-works in Mt Isa, visually dominates the town.

Well, what a surprise. This morning just after we woke up there was a sort-of "honking noise" outside the truck which turned out to be a pair of Brolgas which are very large long necked birds a bit like a crane only much much larger (almost Emu size).

Today was allocated to visiting the The Australian Stockmans Hall of Fame which, afterall, is what Longreach is best known for. Although the town has somewhat gone all-out on tourism as there are a number of Australiana/historical attractions in the town not the least of which is the QANTAS exhibit which boasts its own real Boing 747.

We loitered a bit today in the tiny town of Barcaldine. It is a tidy place with a nice picnic area beside the highway so there was plenty of shaded tables to lounge on so it was a pleasant place to spend some of the day. But it is also a historically and politically significant town as in some ways it is the home of the Australian Labour movement and the Australian Labour Party. To emphasis this the town is host to an enormous museum called The Australian Workers Heritage Center

Some readers will know of the song Augathella Station by the Australian Folk Group The Bushwackers. This is a song Nina and I have listened to for over 40 years and today we will finally get to visit the town of Augathella which is in Queensland cattle country and is central to the song.

There is not much to say about today as we are at the end of the trip and the "lets get home" feeling is trying to takeover our days. This can be seen by the distance we drove today, much greater than we would normally drive.

The plan was for today to be a driving day and to end the day in a position to arrive in Sydney tomorrow. Thus there was not much sight-seeing today.

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Today we started a planned 1 month trip to explore parts of Western NSW and what is called "corner country", the area where NSW, SA and QLD meet. In the process we hope to visit the iconic outback town of Birdsville.

A somewhat late start this morning. The morning was comfortable and sunny, I had morning coffee to consume and Nina had her daily walk to complete.

North of last nights camp we stopped in the very small town of Peak Hill and paid a visit to its now defunct open cut gold mine and the unusual sculptures of two miners panning for gold.

When we woke this morning it was raining heavily so we were certainly glad to be housed in our nice cabin. Eventually the rain eased and we started the day of travel. First stop was a little tour around Nyngan, a look at the Coach House a display of wagons and other stuff from the pioneer days. At the same place is a very large statue of The Bogan a guy with a fishing pole. We guessed this name comes from the Bogan River on which the town is situated.

After a short run into Bourke this morning we spent a few hours reacqainting ourselves with this town and its pivoltal role in the wool and shipping industry of the 1880s. Shipping!, thats right even though the town is nearly 1000km from the coast it was a major shipping port for the trade along the Darling and Murray River systems. In the town there is still a revived remnant of the dock used in this trade. In fact there are a number of towns we will mention and visit over the next few days that were founded mainly because of that trade.

During her morning walk around Louth this morning Nina came upon the sign in the first photo and the ex-school teacher in her was horrified that the words on the second line were not spaced.

This morning we spent some time exploring Wilcannia, another major port town from the days of Darling river shipping. The past importance of the town is depicted in the number of elaborate sand stone buildings. Today however, it is a shadow of its former self, with many closed shops and buildings for sale testifying to its decline. Even the supermarket is supported by the Federal government.

This morning the sky was grey and there was a light drizzle of rain, but unfortunately that rain was enough to put paid to our plans of visiting a nearby National Park. In this part of the country rain often has the effect of closing gravel roads and stranding travelers. So we returned to Wilcannia for a few more photographs and then on to Broken Hill.

Today we visited the Menindee Lakes which are 90+km south from Broken Hill. Like yesterday the drive was through barren countryside mostly of salt bush and hence it was a surprise to arrive at the complex of lakes that make up the Menindee Lakesand provide a home for an amazing bird population.

This entry will make a little more sense with the following map of the Menindee Lakes complex.

Today was simply a travel day. We needed to get to Tibooburra and that would be the longest days drive of the trip so far. Before starting I got a coffee at the Silverton pub and then we were on our way.

Our plan for this trip was to get to Birdsville via Tibooburra, Cameron Corner and Innamincka. However yesterday afternoon we discovered from the local roadhouse owner that we could get as far as Cameron Corder but thereafter all roads were closed. So today, hoping for a bit of luck, we setout on the 140km drive to Cameron Corner with the hope we could go farther but with the expectation that we would have to return to Tibooburra.

A few more photos around Tibooburra before departing. The boat up in the air is a replica of the boat carried by Stuart's Expedition while searching for the fabled inland-sea. Can you imagine hauling that thing halfway across Australia only to never find enough water to get it wet.

A shorter drive today only 168km to the Queensland town of Thargomindah via another isolated dirt road, we only saw one other vehicle. The name Thargomindah comes from the local aboriginal language and means something like "cloud of dust", which seems appropriate given the terrain we have travelled through. The town is well setup for tourists with a tourist info office handing out maps and other info, a very well equiped caravan park, and even a marked route for a walking tour of the towns historic sites. Perhaps the most interesting historical fact about the town was that it was the 3rd town in the world to have electricity. The water from the local artesian bore comes out under high pressure and a creative local engineer realized that pressure could be used to drive a generator so in the mid 1890s the construction of a water powered electric generator was commissioned. It became operational on Sept 9th 1893.

Today was supposed to be a short day on a paved road; from Thargomindah to Quilpie (don't you like the names). However it turns out that towards the end of the drive the paved road was still under the waters of the Bulloo River (a major river in this area) and as a result there was a diversion of 40 or so km to bypass the problem.

If you look at the right kind of map of South West Queensland you will see a region called Channel Country. It is an area where largish rivers like the Cooper, the Barcoo and the Diamantina break out into braids of creeks surrounded by flood plains. When the creeks flood (after the wet season in Norther Australia) the creeks overflow and the whole area turns into a temporary lake. Well today we got our first experience of Channel Country. As expected there were many many causeways over creekss and between those long stretches of low lands that were green and lush vegetation due to recent flooding.

The drive today of nearly 400km to Birdsville was in some ways interesting, in some ways boring and uncomfortable. The road was about half sealed and the gravel half was in good condition. The route is generally flat with long stretches of straight road. It was hot, 33°C, and the flies were pretty intense. That's the boring half.

Today was a bit of a rest day, with a few chores like washing thrown in. We did a little sightseeing around the town.

We started the day with a visit to Birdsville Bakery, just like a lot of other travellers. Thereafter we started the long trek down the legendary Birdsville Track to the town of Marree. The track was in much better condition than we had expected though there was a lot of small scale water damage with most of the small creek crossings being rough. There was also a lot of water still around in the paddocks beside the track and in ponds in the creeks. We only encountered maybe half a dozen pools actually on the track that we needed to cross.

The notable feature of today is probably the flat tyre we had to deal with. We parked at the campground where the track crosses Cooper Creek and noticed the tyre was going down so was able to change it without driving on the flat tyre; fortunate as that saved us from destroying the tyre.

Before leaving Lyndhurst this morning Nina went on her usual morning walk and got captivated by thee effect of the early morning sun on the earth dams behind the hotel. The photos in some sad way captures the essense of Lyndhurst. A cross-road settlement that barely earns the title of a town and consists of two gas stations and a pub.

As the title of this post suggests today would be about Burke and Wills though we did not know that at the start of the day. A little after getting started today we came to the oil settlement of Moomba. Aussies of my age might remember when "the Moomba oil discovery" was a major news story. One never hears of it now but the town of Moomba and the surrounding area is alive with activity and as a result we would encounter many work vehicles and heavy trucks from this point until after Innamincka.

Today seemed to be never ending; with the black strip of tar (sealed road) heading off into the distance through flat and almost featureless country. Though to be fair the type of country changed from time to time. Sometimes bare rocky desert, othertimes lush grass lands thanks to recent rains, and othertimes mulga strub. But always with the red-sand or red-rock underneath.

We are now in the mode of "lets get home".

Today is the last of our prep days and we think everything is in order.

Today is a prep day; the goal - collect the rental bike Todd is going to ride (a brand new BMW R1250RT) and go for a test ride to help our US visitor get his first taste of riding on the left hand side of the road and taking round-abouts clockwise.

NLTI ? - Notorious Left Turn Indicator. You see I am riding a bike that is a very old design and amongst its charming features are the absense of "turn indicator cancellation" and the absense of a fuel gauge. The first of these features mean that I constantly forget to cancel my turn indicator and it seems that this happens mostly on left turns. Todd seems to have taken on the role of "my wife" in regard to this topic and now reminds me whenever needed.

A pleasant morning getting a small taste of Mudgee wines in the form of a short tour of 3 vineyards. The first visit of the day was to Robert Stein's where in addition to some nice wine we got a chance to visit their museum of antique motorcycles. Thereafter we got a chance to checkout Petersons and Bunnamagoo.

Recent rains in NSW closed the route we had originally planned for today (which was via Gilgandra, Walgett to Lightning Ridge) so an alternative was required. The alternative turned out to be a much longer ride, some 700 km, and just to add insult to injury the rains returned to make the first half of the day a wet ride. However after lunch the weather gods smiled upon us and we had a great ride, in sunny weather and on empty roads from Moree to Lightning Ridge.

A very fast-paced day. We started with two mine tours; the first the "walk in mine" kept around to show tourists like us without any climbing of ladders. Later in the morning we got to ride the "man-lift" down 65 feet into our hosts actual working mine.

There was a little bit of uncertainty about today. Our plan was to leave Lightning Ridge on the road that was closed to us a couple of days ago. We made this decision after discussion with our LR hosts most of whom had driven that same road in their 4x4 trucks on their way to LR on Friday and assured us that the water was only 200mm or 8 inches deep.

As the reader can see from the previous blog entry we stayed last night in the little NSW town of Gilgandra. An interesting little town that is somewhat sadly still living on the notoriety of The Cooee March, an event that happened in Oct-Nov of 1915. To read more about this event click here

We noticed last night that the Kandos Hotel was under new management. The guy servicing at the bar was the new owner (of only 2 weeks he told us) and we noticed some things that highlighted this fact.

The riding is over, so its time to become just plain tourists. Todd spent the morning cleaning the dead insects off the rental bike and returning it to the rental company. The afternoon Nina acted as tourist guide with a visit to the heart of Sydney, and a ferry ride to Manly beach.

Todays activity was a bushwalk (hike) into the nearby National Park. Again Nina was the guide on this 2+ hour stroll on a somewhat rough, mostly down hill, track. Weather was cloudy and the bush was wet from recent rain. That probably explained the leeches that found Nina to be an enticing meal. See the last photo.

Today was the final chance for our visitor to see those elusive animals that Australia has to offer the world. Kangaroos, Cassowary, Echidna, and Koala to name just a few. Fortunately these days there is a very compact zoo in the center of Sydney that makes most of these aniimals easily accessible.

This is the first entry for my proposed motorcycle ride around Australia. The start date for this adventure is still 3-4 weeks away so there is no riding to report on as yet. But I am reasonably far into the preparation.

Sydney celebrated the first day of this adventure with grey skies and light rain which was not the upbeat start I had hoped for. To be honest the weather somewhat matched my own nervousness about the size of the undertaking on which I was embarkiing.

When I alighted from my tent this morning I was greeted by a large group of Kangaroos and a cool but clear day. The kangaroos gradually dispersed as I fussed around packing up my gear. Once underway Orange was my first destination for coffee and breakfast.

From last nights camp it was a nice but cold ride of about 75km to the town of Lake Cargellico. I had never been to this town before so was interested to see whether the lake was "real", as often lakes in Australia are only seasonal. However Cargellico was a sizeable body of water, which at least this morning, was teaming with bird life. The town itself was larger than I had expected but does seem to be dying as there are many closed and closing businesses.

Over the past few weeks I have noticed a petrol smell around my motorcycle, and I have made various efforts to see if fuel was leaking or whether the smell was some combination of imagination and vapours escaping from the fuel cap. Well the question was answered yesterday when I noticed a wet patch under the bike after it had been parked at the Kidman motel overnight. I even managed to see a few drops of fuel fall from the skid plate onto the ground. After some thought I googled for motorcycle repair shops in the area and eventually found Motorcycle and Marine in the town of Hay and made an appointment for today the 20th May. Thus the task for today is to get to Hay and make that appointment.

It rained heavily overnight and was still raining moderately at departure time this monring. That made the 130km from Hay to Balranald uncomfortable and completely destroyed any thoughts of photographs on that leg of todays journey. Fortunately after Balranald the weather started improving and by the time I got to the little town of Euston the sun was out. Which was fortuinate as Euston is spectacular in a modest way. Just before the town the road passes Lake Benanee a sizeable lake on the south side of the road which is accessible by a large picnic and over-nighting area. Euston is situated on the Murray River and the town make good use of the situation with a large and up-market recreation club right on the river bank.

It was a little difficult getting out of Renmark this morning, as it is a sizeable town with lots of relatively new housing -- like in the last 25 years. Using two GPS devices was also a contributing factor to my navigation difficulties.

When I woke this morning the weather was calm but cool, however the streaky clouds in the sky gave a warning of the windy day to come. By the time I had packed and ridden the 20km south to my old home town of Wallaroo the promised wind had arrived and with it dust. Why dust, well much of this part of South Australia is grain farming and for at least some farmers it is ploughing time. So high winds and ploughing makes for dust. And so it continued for much of the day. Indeed the weather was so unpleasant that I did not spend long in Wallaroo just long enough to get a photo of our old family home and another of the two land marks that I remeber from childhood.

As promised in yesterdays entry I spent some time this morning looking around Whyalla. It is certainly a town of contrasts. On the one hand there is the rusty iron color that dominates anything to do with the steel works that is the reason this town exists. On the other hand it has a beautiful waterfront and beach area. Finally It is a sizeable town and hence a big political problem as the many people who live here and work here NOT at the steel works are still dependent on the survival of those works.

There is not much to say about today. This morning the wind was even stronger than yesterday, and to add to the pleasure, the day started out wet and throughout todays ride patches of blue sky alternated with heavy rain. The wind was constant. This mornings weather report forecast gusts upto 120km/h.

Onto the Eyre Highway and heading west, that is the story of today and will be the story for a few days. A few kms down the road we got a last look at Ceduna (or actually the grain silos of Thevenard) looking backwards across ploughed agricultural land.

I have travelled a long way west since the start of this trip and hence my body clock is a little out of sync with the sun. I also try to touch base with Nina at the start of the day via satellite communicator. Between these two factors I was awake very early this morning, well before the sun. As a reward I got to watch the changing light as the day emerged in the east. It also meant I was underway early, 7:30am (South Australian Time).

The first photo in todays record is of the motel building at Cocklebiddy Roadhouse. The photo was taken at around 8:00 local time (1 hour and 15 minutes behind Sydney) as I was captured by the quality of the light. Interestingly the bike was quite wet from dew overnight.

Not much to say about today. Over the past few days Nina and I have been having communication problems with our phones. Along the Eyre highway there is supposed to be almost continuous Telstra 4G coverage, but the Telstra account on my phone has not been connecting. However my T-Mobile account (US based) will connect and shows that it is connecting to the Telstra network. So I think it is an account problem.

A quick look around Esperence this morning before getting underway. The beach front is the crown jewel of this town and the weather went out of its way to give me a fine view.

Today there were more names ending in "...up", more farmland and more interesting stands of trees; though I neglected to photograph the farmland and trees.

Today was about getting to Margaret River. I am going to spend a few days there with an old University mate named Richard. Thus I was viewing the day as a travel/get-there day but to my surprise the scenery through Boyup Brook, Bridgetown, and Nannup was wonderful.

The bike is serviced and has a new rear tyre and I have had a delightful visit with my old mate Richard and his lady Jenny. And Nina is waiting with controlled impatience for this old mans adventure to move on to completion. So it is time to get back on the road.

The place I stayed last night was very nice. An old brick house, thoroughly renovated, a bed room for each guest and shared kitchen, dining room and tv room. It was called Avon Homestay.

Before getting underway today I did a short tour of the town of Southern Cross and sought to capture some of the effort by the locals to make their town charming. Once fueled up it was time to hit the road. And some road it was going to be. As I would discover the 180 km to Coolgardie that I saw on a sign as I left the town completely overlooked the fact that there was nothing else in the way of civilization before Coolgardie.

I was cold last night; if I can believe the Apple weather app 3°C. So I got up early hoping to warm myself with tea while waiting for the sun to rise and start warning the world. In the first group of photos below you can see steam condensing in the air from the hot water and tea. There is also a small patch of ice on the black saddle bag in the 4th image.

My first task this morning was to visit the site of the Gwalia mine just south of Leonora. I have visited this place before and the following link here will take you to that blog entry. I could not help but add a few more photos.

I spent some time this morning before departure looking at, and photographing, the town and its attractions. It really is a cute little place and a considerable effort has been made to make it attractive. I was particularly taken by the old postoffice building that has been turned into a cafe decorated with old postoffice memorabilia.

Today started with the closing of the Strawberry Moon. And with the sun now in the East it was possible to get a couple of acceptable shots of Lake Nallan.

During last evening the clouds gathered and covered the sky. Fortunately this did not result in rain but did make for a much warmer night than the previous one.

Not much to say about today. Over the past few days Nina and I have been having communication problems with our phones. Along the Eyre highway there is supposed to be almost continuous Telstra 4G coverage, but the Telstra account on my phone has not been connecting. However my T-Mobile account (US based) will connect and shows that it is connecting to the Telstra network. So I think it is an account problem.

Before leaving this morning i decided to capture a few more images of Newman, specifically the motel I stayed in called The Lodge Motel, some of the feathered residents of Newman wearing their latest iron-ore red outfits, a couple of images of the mine site itself, and finally a little after leaving the town I got a picture of Mt Newman after which the town used to be named.

The Auski Roadhouse was a very busy place with road trains by the dozens coming and going; and it was a preview to the days riding. During todays the 2-3 hours riding to Port Hedland I estimate I passed a roadtrain every single minute and many of them were big ore carriers, like the one in the images below. The ore carrier below has 4 trailers behind the tractor, the tractor has 2 steering axles at the front each with two wheels, the first trailer has 2 sets of 3 axles (each with 4 wheels), and the subsequent 3 trailers have 3 axles (each with 4 wheels) at the front and 4 axles at the rear. Thats a total of 112 tyres/wheels (3 x 7 x 4) + (3 x 4) + (3 x 4) + 2 + 2.

The first task this morning was a quick look around Port Hedland and some photos to try and capture this town. The BHP sign on the tank in the first picture below seems to me to sum up this town. It is without a doubt an industrial site that happens also to be a town. There are large bulk carrier ships in the harbor, hugh fuel storage tanks close to the main street, and the large salt production facility on the main entrance to the town. In the large flat area south and west of the harbor are all kinds of facilities like the airport, power station, and depots for all those road trains I discussed in yesterdays post.

Before leaving Marble Bar this morning I wanted to take a photo of Marble Bar Pools. These are a series of water pools about 3 km west of Marble Bar on the Coongan River. Unfortunately the roads down into the river bed and to the pools were closed for some kind of earth works project.

This morning while having breakfast and packing up I got a visit from some of the permanent residents of the Sandfire Road House.

The primary business today was to get a new rear tyre for the bike. This was completed by 9:00am at Kimberly Motorcycle Center. I owe Peter and his team a big thanks as they went out of their way to fit me into their schedule.

Today marked a noteable event for this short tour of Australia because today I reached Derby on the North West Coast where the Indian Ocean meets the Timor Sea. From this point onwards my travel will have a general South East direction and will be heading home as Derby marked, in some sense, the turnaround point of the trip.

Todays plan was to ride to Fitzroy Crossing a shortish ride of only about 240kms, and to camp at Fitzroy Crossing Resort. Since I did not want to arrive at midday and spend all afternoon sitting in the sun the challenge of the day was to leave late and travel slowly. You see it is cooler riding the bike than being stationary in the sun.

Today started with a crossing of the newish bridge over the Fitzroy River. This bridge was rebuilt after the flood of 2023 washed away the old one. You may recall that I crossed the floodplain of this same river 2 days ago on my way to Wallare Roadhouse.

Somehow spending a night in a tent always results in getting up early. So this morning I was up very early, like 6:00 am, and with nothing to do at a bush camp I was under way by about 7:00am. During the 20km drive into the town of Halls Creek I passed the first significant turnoff of the day, the start of the famous Tanami Track which is a lonely 1000km dirt track that provides a short cut from the Kimberly area to Alice Springs.

Before leaving Turkey Roadhouse this morning I took a few photos of the place. Since I spent 2 nights and 1.5 days here I figured I should try to remember the place.

The main goal of todays ride was to visit Lake Argyle which is the center piece of the Ord River Scheme which I have mentioned in an earlier post. This side trip starts about 40km east of Kununurra and goes south. As you can see in the photos below I found some more interesting plants, this time with vivid orange flowers.

The first stop in todays journey was a ride of about 55km into a small town called Timber Creek but just before entering the town there is a turnoff to the south to a hill-top monument to The Nackaroos. Nina and I discovered this place the last time we travelled through this area. The Nackaroos was an Army Detatchment stationed in this area during WWII to detect infiltration of enemy troops. I found it an interesting story and the link above will take you to a wiki entry on the subject.

The goal today was to get some new tyres for the bike. That was done by about 11:00am and later in the afternoon I did a short photo expedition around Katherine. The big attraction in the town of Katherine, apart from supplies, is the local river (of the same name) and the thermal pool.

I could have called this post familiar territory as Nina and I have travelled the road south from Katherine a few times and are now familiar with the tourist stops along the way. The first one is Mataranka about 100km south. It is famous for its pools of blue fresh water that make great swimming holes for locals and visitors.

As promised in yesterdays post, I will include some photos of the Daly Waters Road House, below. The roadhouse has a lot of accommodation, at least 60 rooms in addition to a caravan park. Perhaps the most interesting (or unique) feature of the roadhouse is the wrecked aeroplane.

While researching the Tablelands Highway I discovered that it was built in the 1960s to facilitate the transport of beef, there are absolutely no services available anywhere along its 375kms, it is mostly a single lane of paved road, the pavement is in poor condition, and there are many large and small pot-holes.

From Barkly Roadhouse this morning the road (which is called the Barkly Highway) heads towards the border with Queensland and the town of Camooweal. Along the way there are a few rest areas which I remember from our last trip to this part of the world. At the last of these rest areas about 60km from Camooweal I met a guy named Norm who was on an expedition to walk from Townsville to Darwin. He is carrying his survival gear in a modified garden troller.

The first order of business today was to stop at a camping shop in Mt Isa and get myself a new functional sleeping mat. On the 100km drive into Mt Isa I stopped at a rest area that had a very nice red/pink flowering plant next to one of the picnic shelters. This rest area was a memorial to the completion of the Barkly Highway joining Camooweal and Mt Isa.

The first stop of note on todays ride was the town of Cloncurry something like 60-70km from last nights camp at Mary Kathleen. This town is famous as the birth place of QANTAS. At the local airport the original hanger building still exists and is labelled with the original name of the airline Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service, from which the initials QANTAS were derived.

For much of this morning Nina and I were still dealing with the electrical issue from yesterday. So my mind was not really on what I was seeing while traveling along. Mind you the scenery was cooperating with my level of indifference as for much of the first 150km the land was flat grassland.

Todays ride was notably different. Firstly the country side was made up of gentle hills, and covered in Eucalypt forest as compared to the grassland of the past week or more, and there were more towns (or at least villages). In the 250kms of todays ride I stopped at 3 intermediate towns, Prairie, Torrens Creek and Pentland. I also stopped at Balfes Creek but it seems to be abandoned. I did not stop at the village of Homestead. All those places in 250kms, I must be getting close to civilization.

Before getting underway today I did a very quick visit to the main street of Charters Towers to see the old Stock Exchange building which is now a shopping mall, followed by a visit to Tower Hill for a view of the city from above and to note the conical hills in the distance which are (according to some theories) responsible for the "Tower" part of the towns name.

On todays ride I saw lots of bright green fields. I think it is some form of vegetable oil plant but cannot be sure. Even google did not help me as it came up with a list of about a dozen things it could be from sorgum to wheat to cotton. I did see evidence of fluffy white cotton on the road side.

Today was cold, thanks to a strong cold southerly wind, and the result was a destinct lack of enthusiasm on my part to stop and take photos. The stretch of road south of Rolleston to Injune (about 165km) was interesting with views of the mountains of Carnarvon National Park for much of the stretch. South of Injune the terrain was forested rolling hills.

I did not spend any time this morning looking around Roma, that may have been a mistake, but it explains why there are no photos of the largish town that I stayed in last night. South from Roma the first stop of the day was the town of Surat which is located on the banks of the Balonne River. On the north side of the town is a large free camping area which was well occupied by caravaners. In the town the river provides a great setting for a walking trail.

Before hitting the road this morning I walked the few meters to Dirrenbandi's town park and photographed the metal relief-statue of a charge by Australia horse soldiers in WWI, and some coloured poles (which I think have some aboriginal significance). After that I had coffee at the town bakery which is run by a Russian family.

Todays ride passed through a series of towns with names that might seem unusual to those who did not grow up in Australia. So I decided to share those names in this post in the photos below. Some of the towns also have icons other than their names, suchs a grain silo art. I have included those icons after the name of the town. I started the day at Coonamble and Finished at Kandos.

Every trip has its last day, and it is today for this trip. There are some mixed feelings as you might imagine. Pleased to have completed the adventure and to be home to see my lady Nina, but also sorry to see it come to an end. And of course my brain is running over all the things I would do differently next time and whether there will be a next time at my age. Time will tell.

Just a brief update to let you know that we spent most of November on a visit down-under, or at least to Sydney. It was a catchup with family and a chance to do some personal business. As always Sydney harbor was picturesque and impressive with some really lovely walks around the foreshore. On the other hand Sydney traffic dense, slow and frustrating. It was great to catchup with family and meet the new members that have arrived since our last visit.