Back home in Norway, 59 40 N, 10 36 E

Saetre, Hurumlandet, Friday 20.11

Finally getting my act together after the 12,000 km overnight plane trip from Perth to Oslo via Singapore and Copenhagen, over 30 hours in all from Monday to Tuesday, door to door.

Daily routine still not stabilised and missing the sun and warmth of Australia in the just-above-freezing fog and rain of early winter Norway. And especially missing the outback, just wanting to do the Savannah Way again, next time more by 4-wheel drive off the main roads! Warm thoughts of all the places and experiences on an unforgettable road trip, with not a single bad day or regret - not one unpleasant person on the way either - the Australians are truly a generous, friendly, open and kind-hearted people! Only two bad short episodes - for me my my first experience of a wide-load roadtrain, which nearly creamed me and the Wicked van off very early in the trip, and for Ros her spidery fright in a Cape Range loo! Not bad for such a long trip!

Good to be home though, although our house by the sea doesn't quite look the same in the dour grey half-light of mid-November as it does in the enclosed picture, an aerial photo taken in early summer (ours is the mid-picture pale cream house with the black roof, newly cut grass slope looking quite piebald in front of it...)

Now getting ready for the next venture, leaving in 6 days' time for a working visit to Uganda, helping geologists there establish a working stratigraphical scheme for the surface and subsurface Neogene rocks of the Lake Albert Rift. We'll have meetings in Entebbe and a field inspection of the Lake Albert exposures - in westernmost Uganda on the border towards the DRC - that should be quite exciting - Watch this spot!

Perth, Sunday 15.11, 4157 km

Perth, 31 59 S, 115 48 E

And that's as far south as we'll get on this trip! Which in total, Cairns to Broome to Perth amounts to 8613 km..... And I'd just love to keep going, all the way around the coast back to Cairns, only another 8,000 or so..... Tonight we sleep in a proper bed kindly provided by friend and colleague Myra Keep from the University of Western Australia......

Cervantes, 14.11, 3867 km

Cervantes, 30 30 S, 115 04 E, 3867 km

Woke at dawn to huge flocks of galahs (the local pest, a lovely grey-pink cockatoo) screeching and cavorting in the tamarisk trees and overhead wires, great clowns as they hang upside down and hop around clumsily around the campsite water taps..... Then on to the morning ritual of feeding the pelicans on the beach just opposite the campsite, yet another circus as 6 pelicans fight with the gulls to catch the small fish being thrown by the gathered onlookers. After breakfast, yet more birds as we visit Rainbow Jungle, with the largest parrot and lorrikeet aviary in Australia, hundreds and hundreds of local and foreign birds in amazing varieties of colours. Then the sea-horse aquarium, a real touristy morning! Before heading off along the impressive coastal cliffs in the same old sandstone, with arches and natural bridges, all totally unspoiled by any form of human development.

Then ever southwards for over 300 km along or just behind the massive coastal dunes fringing the pristine beaches with the Indian Ocean’s waves crashing in. Here and there salt pans developed in the lagoons behind the dunes, one of them the famous “Pink Lagoon” , coloured crimson by some strange algae, contrasting with the blindingly white saltpan. Past the buildings of an historic convict colony from 1853 ( I knew Botany Bay – Sydney – was first settled as a convict colony in 1788, but didn’t realise they continued to transport convicts from Britain for so long – now find out they only stopped in 1868). All the time now we were passing into steadily more "civilised" countryside, now farms with grasslands, wheat and flax fields and no longer remote cattle stations. Then Geraldton - the first “real” town with over 20,000 population, that David has seen in the last 8,000 km and 5 weeks – a very strange feeling to be back in urban reality!

On through undisturbed heathland covering the coastal dunes and to Cervantes, with the Pinnacles National Park, arriving just before sunset, a perfect time as the thousands of up to 5m high pillars and needles and monoliths are highlighted by their long shadows in the moon-like landscape of the golden desert floor, accentuated by the white sand of the dunes behind them. Unworldly!!! Then back to a definitely urban camping site, the caravans built on to make little houses, with boats parked beside them and tractors to tow the boats over the beach to the sea besides them again... A good working class escape from Perth, contrasting with the millionaire holiday mansions just over the road.....

Our last camping night? Very cool as the temperature in the camper dropped to a chilly 16 degrees - how oh how will we manage Norway?

Kalbarri, Friday 13.11, 3438 km

Kalbarri, 27 43 S, 114 10 E

A last walk along the Denham beach collecting some of the many and varied shells, then on our way back down the peninsula we stopped at Eagle Bluff, a cliff overlooking the shallow bay with its shell-sand bottom and vast sea-grass meadows. From our viewpoint we could watch the sting-rays and sharks gliding in among the sea-grass, the sharks coming all the way up to the beach, no doubt smelling for unwary tourists’ toes – an impressive last farewell to this unique area!

On almost 400 km southwards to Kalbarri – via the Billabong Roadhouse (shades of “Waltzing Matilda” – the map telling us that we’re on the edge of civilisation, this is the last outback roadhouse, from now on it will mostly be normal towns with gas stations). We’re now in yet another National Park, this one famous for its Murchison River gorges, it’s rocky coastline and (in spring) its wildflowers – yes we’re so far south now that we’ve really left the tropics and here they have winter and summer, although the very short and mild winters are to be laughed at in our northern European terms. The landscape changed drastically as we drove south, trees getting higher, grass greener and more common until we were passing through rolling wooded grassland – almost like rural England, if you forgot that all the trees and plants are totally foreign to us! Then out on to the flat coastal heathlands around the river gorges – which in spring are ablaze with wildflowers, but we’re too late, although there are still some patches of pink, lilac and yellow here and there.

I’d read in advance that the gorges were cut into the Silurian Tumblagooda Sandstone 430 million years old, so was looking forward to coming “home” to my original research interests, though far removed from the Oslo Region and the Welsh Borderlands. But when we stopped at a lookout over one of the gorges it turned out that the rocks are now thought to be older at 450 to 480 million years, putting them back into the Ordovician. Interesting deltaic and tidal sandstones though, with lots of lovely sedimentary structures!

A cool breeze at sunset,the temperarure dropping to a chilly 19 degrees - we had to dig out warmer clothes to wear, the thought of Oslo in mid-November in 4 days time is quite alarming!

(We've been talking several times about the sheer size of Australia - I just checked on Google Earth and found that my little trip across the north from Cairns to broome, 4456 km, was actually 14 km longer than the distance from New York to Los Angeles, so there......)

Shark Bay, Thursday 12.11, 3030 km

Denham, 25 33 S, 113 33 E

The westernmost "town" on mainland Australia, population 1120, incredibly beautiful, with blindingly white shell sand beaches fringing the pale turquoise lagoonal waters of Shark Bay - which more than deserves its World Heritage Site status - probably the most impressive area on the whole trip - not because of the landscape of unrelenting scrub-covered rolling dunes and raised beaches on the peninsulas sticking out into the sea, but its bays, lagoons and marine life are out of this world.

We've seen the famous stromatolites of Hamelin Pond - rocky mounds formed by blue-green algae, one of the few and certainly the most impressive examples of now-living representatives of the first life-forms I saw in 3,500 million year old rocks further north; awe-inspiring in their simplicity and all they represent, bubbling out the oxygen just as their ancient ancestors did, when they were building up oxygen content in the primitive atmosphere long ago. Fascinating and inspiring to walk about the site with Bob Morris, present proprietor of Hamelin and totally interested in all aspects of life and evolution, quite a few laughs with him about my creation/evolution discussions earlier in the trip. Then on to view sharks, turtles, sea snakes and incredible numbers and kinds of fish at Ocean Park, an aquaculture centre just outside of Denham.

Denham itself, certainly the loveliest little town we've seen on the trip, sports an impressive World Heritage Information Centre and also the best caravan site we've stopped at. Then this morning crossing the peninsula to see the local dolphins being fed at Monkey Mia - another unforgettable experience.

Denham lies on the Peron Peninsula, which at its narrowest in the south is only 3.5 km wide. Like the rest of Australia, the original wildlife has been decimated by British colonists' introductions of foreign species like rabbits, goats, sheep, dogs and cats. CALM, the Dept of Conservation and Land Management (great acronym!) has started “Project Eden”, running an impressive electric fence (which even includes recordings of madly barking dogs when you approach it!) across the isthmus and then proceeding to kill of all foreign species north of the fence and re-introducing the original animals and plants – an enormous project, but it seems to be succeeding – Good on’ya!! As the ozzies would say....

We finished our stay in Denham at the “Old Pearler” Restaurant, a quaint little place built of cemented shell sand (looks like breeze/Leca blocks really!), Ros happy and enjoying her longed-for rock lobster (a giant crayfish) and David his fresh oysters and grilled catch of the day, followed by marsala and mango cheesecake, yummy! The best (and most expensive) of many good meals to date, but very cheap at the price compared to Norway.

Carnarvon, Tuesday 10.11, 2612 km

Just crossed the Tropic of Capricorn yesterday on our way south - it's getting cooler already - a maximum of ONLY 33 degrees forecast today. Carnarvon's a lovely place, but problems with the public library's internet system, but now finally here's the last few days' update:

Ned’s Camp, Cape Range National Park, Saturday 7.11, 21 59 S, 113 56 E, 1982 km

Talk about “on the beach” – here we’re in one of 12 camping grounds with a total of 102 spots on a 60 km stretch of National Park, no other camping allowed, no water or electricity, just wild nature and the 300 km long Ningaloo reef just a few strokes offshore, then the Indian Ocean and about 7000 km westwards the first land is Madagascar. A little too much wildlife for Ros in the outdoor loo though – a tarantula looking spider over the door, as big as your hand! Termite mounds she can handle, but not these spiders!

A pleasant sea breeze and tamarisk shade makes a pleasant contrast to the intense desert heat – in fact we were quite “cold” last night – it was only 22 degrees and we had to use a down for the first time. It will be quite a shock getting back to Norway in 10 days time......

A great “happy hour” at sundown last night as people from all 12 spots here gathered for a beer at sundown – an ozzie camping tradition it seems – talking to pensioners who’ve been travelling Australia for 13 years and to “first-timers” who’ve taken a year off work to see their own country... Like other people we’ve talked to, they move from place to place, taking the odd job here and there for a few weeks at a time, generally enjoying life, the nature and the climate – makes us quite envious! So a fantastic night by the ocean, with a kangaroo for company as the sun comes up over the inland dunes behind us....... Today snorkelling and sunning planned, a lazy beach day.

Ningaloo Lighthouse, Sunday evening 8.11

Plans changed a little yesterday – Ros woke with a stomach bug and i got burned to a frazzle snorkelling in the lagoon behind the reef at beautiful Turquoise Bay – very careless, forgetting that I’ve been driving for so much that I haven’t had much time to enjoy the Australian sun! So we decided to hunker down and rest in a pleasant camping ground on Vlamingh Point just north of the National Park boundary, in a basic but (as usual here) very comfortable little cabin, campervan plugged in and recharging outside.

Strange to think that this entire area was barren sheep station country with nothing but a lighthouse until the early 1960s – a temporary air base during WW2, but otherwise nothing. It was only in the 60s that Ozz and the US established a large secret communications base – extreme low frequency to communicate with all the subs in the Indian and Pacific oceans – that Exmouth developed as a town, originally to serve the base, and gradually to cater for tourists – with building now started of an horrific marina complex which will transform this dozy nondescript but pleasant village into a high-rise nightmare....

Today didn’t do much at all, a short trip back into the park for a quick dip, but low enthusiasm because of all the bush flies – and agreed that the lagoon snorkelling wasn’t all that exciting compared to Timor or Queensland’s Barrier Reef. Watched sunset from the lighthouse high on a (Miocene) limestone bluff and then the news on TV for the first time for weeks, followed by a very good programme on Charles Darwin..... Onwards tomorrow, all being well.

Carnarvon, Monday 9.11, 24 53 S, 113 40 E, 2612 km

So now we’re officially out of the tropics! We passed the Tropic of Capricorn about 150 km north of here and duly took piccies of each other in front of the sign by the road. Carnarvon is a major centre in the area, all of 7,000 population, along the Gascoyne River estuary, with fruit and vegetable farming (looks like mainly bananas) and fishing as its main pursuits, as well as servicing all of the cattle and sheep stations in the area (Carnarvon “School of the Air” provides radio schooling for all the stations within an enormous area – including Giralia Station, where we stayed on Thursday). Looks a pleasant place as we arrive just an hour before sundown, and the temperature certainly more moderate than we’ve had for a while – forecast max tomorrow only 33 degrees, quite cool!

In Exmouth we met yet again the Japanese cyclist who we’ve passed several times recently and stopped to talk to him for the first time. He spoke very poor English and had a bad speech impediment, but I understood that he’s cycled the same route from Cairns that I’ve driven – that’s 7,000 km in 11 months – an average of over 200 km a day! And in this climate......

We drove on amazed, then stopped at Coral Bay, near the southernmost point of the Ningaloo Reef, and had a great 2-hour trip in a glass-bottomed boat over the reef, with two snorkelling stops – lots of fish and corals, but again not much colour, not so exciting as the Great Barrier – the Queenslanders we’ve talked to are right!

Exmouth - Friday November 6

We finally made it - beaches and reef here we come. Here's the blog for the last few days:

Auski Roadhouse 22 23 S, 118 41E , Tuesday 3.11, 890 km

We’re now just outside the entrance to the next big attraction – Karijini National Park in the Hammersley Range, with its world-famous Precambrian banded ironstone formations. The whole region seems to be made up of iron ore, all being mined furiously – we passed through Port Hedland today, a very red and dusty town – a third of the world’s seaborne iron ore is shipped from there!

On the way from Broome – a 600 km long trek along a dry coastal plain, the main road running 10 km inland from the sea the whole way, so you can’t see it. We stopped for the night at 80 Mile Beach, a vast and deserted stretch of beach that is actually 220 km long...... At full moon and 2 am watched for the turtles to come ashore and lay their eggs, but didn’t see them, we’d missed high tide when they come ashore, but we saw their tracks over the beach up into the dunes this morning.

We’re now over 200 km in from the coast. It’s very hot – over 40 degrees, but not the humidity that we’ve had on the coast, much more desert-like conditions. Ate supper tonight at the roadhouse diner – a delicious “special” with braised lamb shanks piled high as the mountain range we see ahead of us – they sure have big lambs in this country. The road train truckies around us all tucked in, while we could easily have shared one serving between us.

Tom Price 22 42 S, 117 47 E, Wednesday 4.11, 1108 km

A pleasant little company mining town nestled in the Hammersley Range – at 747 m or 454 m (the guidebooks disagree), the highest town in Western Australia. Iron ore mines all around here – it seems the entire area – even including the National Park – is firmly in the grip of BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto. A park ranger we talked to today clearly hated both companies for the liberties they take around here, but recommended Tom Price (established in 1962, named after a company executive). We saw a corner of the Karijini National Park today, walked down one gorge and Ros swam in a palm, banyan and fern shaded pool filled from a waterfall and springs in the gorge walls, all in the 2500 million year old spectacular banded ironstone formation. Very hot though and lots of flies, so we decided to travel on, passing spectacular Mount Bruce, at 1246 m the highest “mountain” in western Australia – David overawed as these are the first real hills/almost mountains he’s seen since northern Queensland, 5,500 km back down the road.

Giralia Station, 22 40 S, 114 22 E, Thursday 5.11, 1785 km

And although that’s 777 km driven today, it’s only 617 km onwards – David got his come-uppance today, he forgot Mandie’s advice (way back there in Queensland) – “Top up your fuel at EVERY opportunity” and we found out that “there and back is twice as far”. So wot happened? In Tom Price early this morning, D didn’t bother to stop and fill up because it was only 80 km to Paraburdoo, the next mining town, so we could fill up there before the 280 km haul to Nanutarra. Pleasant drive to Paraburdoo through rolling hill country, only to find that the Shell station’s diesel pumps weren’t working, and hadn’t been since 20 September – this is a Rio Tinto town and the company clearly runs on diesel – but none to offer to innocent tourists. We might have had enough to make it to Nanutarra, but it was knife-edge, so swallowing all the swear words (and failing to tell the Shell station they could have made a bomb selling 20 litre cans of diesels at even more ridiculous prices than usual) it was back 80 km to Tom Price, filled up, then back again, the rolling hill country losing some of its appeal. Still, we made it on through Paraburdoo (not stopping this time – a miserable town, poorly signed and with the only supermarket ridiculously overpriced) and 280 km onwards along a very isolated road stretch, meeting only 24 vehicles on the way, and in the 45 degrees heat glad we hadn’t chanced it.

Filled again at Nanutarra (a gas station with a wind-blown caravan site, looking dirty, down-trodden and grim) and decided to press on to Giralia Station (an incredibly isolated sheep station way out on the coastal plain on one of the sand-dune ridges). Of course it’s no longer used as a sheep station, but as a camping spot, caravan site, overnight stay, eco-experience. So here we are, on the red dusty plain at sunset among the whispering pines, the only visitors, looking forward to a genuine porterhouse steak dinner....

Broome, here we go again, Sunday 1.11

Broome, 17 57 S, 122 14 E, 0000 km (nulled out the distance!)

I drove the trusty Wicked camper into the parking lot at Broome airport on Thursday evening to collect Ros coming from Perth, decided to park somewhere else, turned the key to start, and no response apart from a faint click. After 4,500 km without any problems it would go no further. We took a taxi back to the Backpackers' and spent Friday morning waiting for help, Ros taking picture of me and camper. When help finally came and started her up, diagnosis was dead battery - "Take her in without stopping again!" Which we duly did and exchanged her for a little Suzuki 4WD jeep which Ros has been driving happily ever since, both of us living life "Broometime", relaxing in the tropical heat

Nice little place Broome, population 15,000 and up to twice as many tourists in the busy Australian winter from June to September, but now it's quiet (and very hot and sticky) as the build-up to the wet continues. We've done most of the sites - the dinosaur footprints, the crocodile farm, Chinatown, the history of pearling here, the cemetries of the Japanese and Chinese pearl divers - we even took a long scenic flight northwestwards yesterday to the "Horizontal waterfalls" (with a 10-12 m tidal difference, giant surges gush through narrow inlets) , seeing the endless beaches and mangroves of the (largely deserted) desert islands of the Buccaneer archipelago and swimming from paradise spot Cape Leveque - a spectacular and very bumpy flight in a tiny Cessna 210, piloted by Jeremy, who didn't look old enough to be out of high school...... Tonight we're going to the famous Sun outdoor cinema to sit in deckchairs under the stars and watch Meryl Streep in "Julie and Julia", then tomorrow off on the over 3,000 km next leg southwards to Perth - Watch this spot!

And then Broome, Wednesday 28.10, 4456 km

Finally made it! A great feeling to see the Indian Ocean - and to know Ros arrives tomorrow (she's already safely in Perth), we can relax a few days together and then start on the trip southwards back to Perth in far more comfort than I've had recently.... But back to last night....

Derby, Tuesday night, unnamed hotel, 17 18 S, 123 28 E

I'm not naming the hotel, I don't want to be sued, but I'm certainly going to tell Lonely Planet that their description of "basic"should be changed to "derelict"...... Anyway, after a few dollars here and there I managed to get a room a little (not much) better than what I've experienced in the Libyan Sahara.........

An interesting 350 km on the way though, in spite of the unrelenting sameness of the Fitzroy River floodplain - leaving Fitzroy Roadhouse I met a Police patrol car and realised it was only the second on this 4000 km trip (and the first was because of the road train accident between Cloncurry and Mount Isa, way, way back in time and road). Civilised and law-abiding drivers these Ozzies - it must be the road train terror? Or are they just as pleasant as they seem?

The test of that came a little later when I stopped for my mid-morning break at a designated rest stop, each normally about 100 km from the last (no facilities, just a necessary drive-off, trash buckets, maybe shelter from the sun, maybe an outback loo.... ) Enjoyed my ice coffee and cookie, drove off and landed kerbump in an unseen dustbowl in the middle of the gravel, suddenly almost up to my axles in hot red loose dust.... Oh no, not now, after so long and so far !!!!! Luckily a popular stopping place on this long stretch, but first attempts by helpful ozzies got me even deeper in dust and despair... Then along came http://www.thegoodoil.tv/ - you MUST check this website out! Paul Carter, driving around Australia on a motorbike that runs on recycled cooking oil - including all the fish and chips that Australian love - in spite of cracked ribs and other problems he's had on this trip so far, still journeying on, works it all out, his support truck pulls me out, we have a good laugh, all filmed, I sign an agreement that they can use this sequence in any film they might like to make, and on we go... Me thinking back to the Sahara again, the same extreme conditions, no forgiveness from nature for a simple mistake, the same friendliness and help between total strangers....

So on to Derby, where the 800 km long Fitzroy River finally runs out into the sea, not out into the real sea though, but into King Sound, the open Timor Sea still about 150 km to the NW through the labyrinth of the Buccaneer Archipelago. A windswept outpost, surrounded by mangrove swamps and mudflats, at 12 m tidal difference between high and low the 2cnd largest in the world (biggest is Bay of Fundy in Newfoundland I seem to remember from my vague sedimentological past - 15 to 18 m???). Right now a most grey, hot and oppressive place, in spite of all the help from the friendly lady at the visitor centre.....

Broome, Wednesday night, 17 57 S, 122 14 E

Lavishing the comfort of "Beaches of Broome" in a simple but elegant twin room that will be our "home" for the next few days, trying to wash the sweat and dust out of my clothes and mind while I look back over the last 15 days - what a roadtrip!

Unforgettable and unrepeatable.....First though, an apology to Derby - in the warm light of this morning's dawn I redid the town - after all, the night had gone without too many invasions - unlike an unforgettable Saharan "luxury hotel" when a whole ant colony decided to take over my bed just before dawn...

But I got out of NN Hotel and revisited the jetty, still driving over endless mudflats (high tide was in the night), but got my photo of the sailboat snug in its mangrove creek harbour. Then on to the old town gaol, the pioneer cemetery and the "prison boab" - all with remarkably frank accounts of the way the locals were treated until very recently, first the stealing of their land by the European pastoralists in the late 1800s, then the massacres, the segregation, the declaration of Australia as "terra nullis" - nomansland - when the Brits arrived..... Only now are they getting their rights. Maybe this frankness and willingness to really say "Sorry" sets Derby apart from the other communities I've seen so far - the locals here looking like they belong and not like disposessed waifs? Maybe just my imagination....

Then on to the final leg to Broome, nothing eventful, just thinking back to that day in March 2007 when we were visiting Cairns from Timor-Leste and I got bitten by the signs describing the "Savannah Way" across northern Ozz - the feeling "Gotta do it!" And now I done it! A fantastic trip - great people, landscapes and geology all the way!!! But what a bloody big country, one might say!

More on Broome later.....

Fitzroy stopover, Monday 26.10, 3940 km

And just crossed off another "MUST SEE" geological World Heritage site - the Geikie Gorge Devonian reef - or just a tiny part of the over 300 million year old reef system that crossed NW Ozz for 50 million years and was about half the size of today's biggie - the 2,000 km long Great Barrier reef off the Queensland coast way back there to the east.

I took an early morning cruise along a spectacular part of the gorge - with water in the river channel even now at the lowest end of the dry, the guide pointing out that the massive change in limestone cliff colour from white to dark grey way above our heads marks the "normal" and not the high water mark. At real high water during a flood the river goes over its banks, up to or over the clifftops we see - and spreads out over 30 km over the surrounding floodplains - so the brochure I read last night was right - a truly awesome sight, with only natural and artificial islands sticking out here and there - hopefully including Fitzroy Lodge, the village and (most of the modern highway. So the Fitzroy in flood is way up there as one of the 5 biggies in the world..

There are about 30 of us in the flat-bottomed electrically powered boat and as we cruise past these fantastic cliffs the guide tells us a lot about wildlife - the crocs, the roos, the fish, the plants and the trees, but very little about the rocks themselves, apart from telling us it's a big old reef and we're still learning a lot about it..... What a shame, as I can clearly see the bedding patterns in the cliff showing us the different parts of the reef - it wouldn't take much for the guides to make these grey rocks much more interesting! Instead of talking about threats to the Ozz environment, the guy could be saying - "Hey look, there's a big coral colony that broke off the top of the reef and slid down the front!" I restrain myself, keep quiet, BIG WHIMP - but here, like so many other places I've seen, the Ozzies need to be told more about the exciting history of their wonderful continent! Maybe then they'll stop raping it.....

I spend the rest of the day planning the next steps on the way to Broome and onwards to Perth, struggling with the war between this laptop, microsoft and the local wifi, trying to get this blog published..... A quick visit to the historic local pub as a lunch break was unsuccessful - I got totally turned off by the racial segregation between (aboriginal) public bar and (white) "restaurant" and retreated to the lodge and the laptop....

Fitzroy Crossing, Sunday 25.10, 3880 km

Fitzroy River Lodge, 18 12 S, 125 34 E

Yesterday was southwards, today westwards again, 290 km through the flat tablelands of the catchment area of the Fitzroy River, only occasional hillocks of granite with heaped-up rounded boulders, looking like giants’ playgrounds. Strong winds from the Tamani Desert to the south today too, and plenty dust devils, some I chased for ages, trying to get photos, some suddenly hit me sideways, so I largely kept to a sedate 80-90, better for fuel use too.

A fascinating area in terms of landforms – although a non-geologist would probably have called it flat and boring – that’s the fun thing with geology I was thinking, wherever you go you tune in to the landscape and try to work out why it is, what it is – here it seems the rivers have been flowing and the land has been rising for the last 20 million years or so, as Australia has pushed northwards against Asia (the big effects of that we saw in Timor...). So here we see the river cutting stepwise down through the underlying rocks, every few million years creating a new flood plain and tableland....

I pass the Tamani turnoff – the “El Diretissimo” route to Alice Springs through the desert, “only” about 800 km to the SE, but gravel and corrugated all the way – only for the dedicated and passionate 4Wdriver! The usual signs now and then to faraway cattle stations and tribal communities, all on gravel roads and barred to visitors, apart from a couple of tribal art galleries, but my campervan can’t manage the gravel and the galleries are closed anyway on a Sunday. Then about 70 km from Fitzroy, the really big cliff-line around Ngumpan, where the river has cut down to the level it has in Fitzroy itself today – quite spectacular buttes and pinnacles, no problem making cowboy films around here....

I stop at the rest area atop the cliffs, looking at the flatlying sandstones underneath me and am joined by Terry – a retired policeman from Bundaberg in southern Queensland, who is driving his BMW motorbike the opposite direction to me, having taken the whole Australian circuit clockwise - he’s now on his way home, a lot of it on the same route I’ve come - he’s only got about 3,000 km to go now, but admits he’s tired, especially in this heat (much more pleasant in Broome he says, not so violent heat).

After a few pleasant exchanges, we look at the same landscape and come to quite different conclusions – Terry says “I get strength from this – all over Australia I see these same beds testifying to the biblical flood”. For the 3rd time on this trip I’m locked into the same discussion with committed biblical creationists – each time with perfectly reasonable and friendly people, not with any dogmatic ignorance or unwillingness to discuss, but with a deep conviction that their Christian belief is incompatible with my scientific background. How I hate the dogmatic Richard Dawkins and his rampant atheism that does more to destroy religious peoples’ possible belief in evolutionary theory than to promote it – I myself don’t understand at all why evolutionary theory disproves the existence of God, a Supreme Being, the Unknown Prime Mover, the Big Bang, call Her what you will......

I try to explain that the different cliff-lines Terry has seen through his trip are of quite different ages, showing YES that Australia has been flooded, but many times, starting over a 2,000 million years ago, and in between parts have been uplifted, parts have been crushed together and then parts have been flooded yet again – and the cliff we’re looking at tells me of 340 million year old rocks exposed as the land has been uplifted quite recently, less than 20 million years ago. As I try to explain the physical certainties around radioactive half-lives to determine absolute ages and the wonders of the fossil record that support evolutionary theory, he remains totally unconvinced – “You can’t prove any of it” ..... I stop myself from the obvious like “I can prove a lot more than you can mate” and we shake hands part as friends, him driving his BMW ever eastwards and homewards, me looking at the Devonian cliffs realising that I may have been teaching geology for 40 years now, yet I’m not at all equipped for stand-up fights with committed creationists and I hate the Dawkins atheist line even more...

Ah well, on to Fitzroy River Lodge, just by the “old” crossing of the river itself, built in 1935 – which says something about just how “old” this place is. The new overpass bridge was built in 1974 and all the buildings belonging to the lodge are either on stilts or on artificial mounds so that they are even higher than the overpass – making even me believe the tourist hype that “the Fitzroy River in flood is an awesome sight” though not quite accepting “and one of the largest rivers in the world”. Right now most of the river and all of its creeks are nothing but sand, not much water in sight at all – but all that will change drastically in the next 4 to 6 weeks the locals tell me....

I get well established in my “donga” – up on a little artificial mound this too -half of a simple container with a small window, a door and all mod cons, not least air-con. Fine.... Internet connection a bit dodgy though, I’m several hundred metres away from the main lodge – we’ll see , if necessary I can work from the lodge itself.... Sit on the lodge veranda, enjoy an antipasto meant to be a starter, but more than big enough for me (realising again that Ros & I will get by very well by sharing 1 Ozzie main course, and notice that the evening air actually does get a little cooler around here......

Halls Creek, Saturday 24.10, 3590 km

Halls Creek, Kimberley Hotel 18 14 S, 127 40 E

Quite a nice place this, motel rooms around central bar & restaurant, swimming pool - and good airconditioning in the room - in this heat, essential.... The weather changed along the 350 km stretch from Kununurra - less and less cloud, less and less humid -no signs of the wet here yet..... A lot of cross-wind and the occasional dust devil buffeting the van though, so I had to drive slower than usual to avoid being blown into the path of oncoming road trains - especially not the one with an additional big sign on its front - EXPLOSIVES!

By chance I was reading last night about the guy who invented road trains - an Ozzie with a very Scandinavian name - Kurt Johannsen - who figured out the mechanics of how to link up 3-4 trailers to a truck so that they all followed the same track. This revolutionised movement of stock to market - before this they had to be herded by drovers over long distances, arriving at final destination to be slaughtered in poor shape. Now they're driven by road train to Broome and Wyndham, from where upwards of 200,000 live cattle are exported to Asia and the Middle East every year......... So now you know!


Interesting changing geology and landscape too today - first ear the coast, but decided not go see the croc farm at Wyndham, then along the faultline I flew over today, then a far-off view of the Bungles (I should have mentioned they're in the Purnululu National Park - Purnululu meaning "sandstone" in the local Kija tribal language of course (of course.......)). But couldn't see much - they were far away - 53 km along the only access gravel road, 3-4 hours by 4WD. And that was closed today because of the raging bushfires I saw from the plane yesterday.

I was thinking about the immense areas I've seen that have clearly been ravaged by fires this dry season - they've mainly burnt up the grass, not many of the trees, and although most have black trunks from the burn, they're still alive and sprouting new leaves - I guess as soon as the rains start the new grass will grow (like the Californian chapparal, some of the plant seeds actually need fire to crack their pods open!) and by next year all will be healed..... Ain't nature wonderful? Interesting too though that there's rarely been a recent fire on both sides of the road at once - the roads, narrow as they often are, must work as firebreaks.....

Had my first meal in a typical outback pub tomight, food ok, but not exceptional - I should have chosen the Thai menu! Sat at a table with a truckie, interesting chat - he drives on average 1100 km a day, unlike some trucks he's only allowed to drive in daylight - I forgot to ask why.... After a while I asked him about aborigines/indigenous Australians (confused as to which is correct - he said either) - his view is that the government is now doing what it can (finally!), but few take up the opportunities they're offered...... I guess it's very complex, and why are our western cultural values any good anyway? Reading more and more about indigenous beliefs, the dreamtime, the songlines - fascinating - the park ranger I talked to the other day said the aborigines believe that everything, everything goes in a circle, life, death, all of nature (including carbon dioxide - that's their view on "global warming" too....). Meanwhile in the tragic present, 65 % of Halls Creek population of 1600 is indigenous and 90 % of pregnant indigenous women are registered as alocoholics by the local hospital, 30 % of babies born having problems because of alcohol poisoning in the womb....

Ah well, on to Fitzroy Crossing and another geological World Heritage site today - absolutely the longest no-service single haul of the trip at 290 km, just under the camper's limit.....

And at last - the Bungle Bungles!

Friday, Kununurra and the Bungle Bungles!!

I finally saw and totally lost my heart to the Bungle Bungles at 7 am today, in the co-pilot seat of Alligator Airways’ Gypslander Airvan VH-WOG, bush pilot Kate Stewart making an elegant job of flying and guiding.....

But first back to yesterday which I spent in a heat daze (38 degrees and high humidity), switching between swimming pool, washing clothes and trying to get up to date on epost and blog in air-conditioned room, several frustrating attempts to load up photos on blogs, but local wifi and this laptop playing wargames with each other... Confirmed the scenic flight over the Bungles for 5.30 this morning and finally after sundown wandered around a little, enveloped in the warm tropical evening air and the scent of frangipani, stopped at the first take-away and ordered a Barraburger with a small side-order of chips/French fries/pommes frite/callemwotuwill. Total confusion when the small order turned out big enough to fill a wheelbarrow and no wheelbarrows available for rent..... The burger was good though – barramundi is a really sweet-tasting whitefish, lovely grilled, as it was in the burger.

Back to Backpackers’, past groups of local aborigines sitting under the trees, a group totally separate from the whites hurrying by in their SUVs to the Bottle Shop & supermarket, no aggro anywhere, but again this strange and disturbing feeling of a schizophrenic society, a disoriented indigenous and an affluent “European” population not sure what to do about things. It’s only recently that official Australia has started to say “Sorry” (although the right wing, like the Norwegian so-called “Progressive Party” and the UK BNP would probably just say “Get rid of’em!”) But unlike Fortress Europe, terrified of being drowned in a wave of immigrants, here it’s the whites who are the aggressive invaders, for many years killing, destroying, ignoring a 40,000 to 70,000 year established culture......

Sat around the pool for a while in Backpackers’, a truly cosmopolitan group, though me feeling very much the old and odd one out.... then just before 10 pm, the first wind gusts, suddenly developing into a full-blown electrical storm – violent gusts of wind bringing down palm branches (and whole trees different places in town). Power-out and real rain – my tropical “walls of water” as I used to call them in Timor, were suddenly coming sideways as the lightning and thunder made a tremendous “son et lumière” show.... Glad I had a hotel room and not just the campervan as the rain hammered down on the corrugated iron roof and my resident room gecko chirped happily at all the humidity..... By 2 am I’d despaired of a morning flight to the Bungles, but of course by 4 am all was peaceful and by 5.30 it was yet another clear and warm tropical morning. The pick-up driver did say though that the storm had been unusually violent, especially in this “build-up to the wet” – they’d not seen anything like this for 2 years – normally there’s just lots of rain and that’s it.... (Several other locals I talked to today thought it had been great and very entertaining for the whole family - not just your normal boring rainstorm, a real show....)

Then the fantastic flight south to the Bungle Bungles and back – first an orientation and then out to the planes – me and 5 others being under the care of Kate Stewart, a young and lovely Kiwi “who just keeps coming back here to fly around the outback”. I get chosen to sit in the co-pilot seat and off we go, Kate holding her door half-open to cool us down a little as we taxi – it’s now 6 am and getting warm again...... Take off and then South over the Ord River Irrigation Area, relying on water from the artificial Lake Argyll (“the biggest manmade lake in Australia”) . All very interesting, but worrying – here they’ve irrigated vast areas, using large-scale mechanized farming, but (like other areas in Ozz?) don’t seem to have found the right way to do it – cotton failed, sugar failed, now they’re trying sandalwood and tropical fruits..... All very anathema to this very small-scale organic farmer and veggie-grower...

Then over wild cattleland and fascinating geology and on to the Bungle Bungles themselves – beehives, pinnacles, gorges and canyons, all of flatlying (Devonian, 340 million years old) red and yellow striped sandstones, all glowing in the early morning sun, even more spectacular as uncontrollable bushfires raged over much of the area... Beautiful, mysterious, almost impenetrable on the ground, only “discovered” by Europeans in the 1980s, beloved of and sacred to the locals, many songlines going through here.... Words and my poor pictures just can’t describe it – check it out on the web, simply awesome!

Then back north flying over a major faultline marking the pushing together of the southern Gondwanan supercontinent a long, long time ago – and over one of the major assaults on the area's landscape – the Argyll Mine – probably the largest diamond mine in the world, famous for its pink diamonds, no further comment....

Back to Kununurra and the world, planning the next part of the trip – with the wet starting early like this I need places to stay at night, the campervan is just not good enough. Ever onwards tomorrow! Not sure when I can manage to download some photos though, maybe not before Broome next week..... Just follow my texts from place to place......

Mataranka Bitter Springs, Monday night, 2612 km, over the hump

NNWwards towards Darwin along the Stuart Highway, first noticing small changes – the dry Mitchell grass a little greener, the brush a little bushier? Then suddenly we’re out of the dry “Red Centre” and into the seasonally wet “Top End”, with open forestland

Boring stone monuments to explorers, national heroes (& the occasional heroine), signs to now overgrown WWII airfields, staging posts, field hospitals, but still the inexorable 100 to 150 km between roadhouses and nothing much else apart from signposts pointing along dirt tracks to far away cattle stations in between (“Nutwood Downs, 100 km”). And watch your fuel gage and the temporary signs by the road (“Next rest stop 89 km, no fuel”, “next fuel 160 km” for example.....
Few of the monuments are worth a stop, but the choices break the monotony – I break for a few minutes at Newcastle Waters, now a ghost town, but once a major centre for drovers going in all directions, then, following a small road train back to the main road – I see a truck with 2 trailers, horses (for local herding), all the basics for long term work out there (but I do note a small petrol-driven generator – not far too basic!). Remember Anna & Rebecca’s excitement seeing two spurred cowboys chomping their burgers and fries in a diner in Arizona 25 years ago, then the let-down when they jumped into their pickup, horse trailer in tow....

A brief stop too at the Daly Waters Historical Pub, much acclaimed in all the guides, but very touristy and “overquaint”– although they apparently have great raves most nights with cool contemporary aboriginal music and the sweet Irish colleen behind the bar served me up a mean barra wrap (Barramundi – the local catfish, delicious!)

Also a stop at one of the old airfields – this one first a staging post on the many day long flights from London on to Sydney in the 1930s, then a frontline field during the war – we Europeans don’t realise that northern Australia was under threat of Japanese invasion in 1942 and air attacks on Darwin killed more people than the much more famous attack on Pearl Harbour......

And then the most bizarre sight of the whole trip so far – I’ve wondered at the determination/masochism of the 3 bikers I’ve seen on the trip – imagine cycling with a heavy load over these distances in this heat? And the recurrent drive-by of a road-train at over 100 k an hour, blasting you to smithereens and choking/coating you with dust? But then suddenly comes a fella leading 2 camels pulling a sawn-off Toyota Hi-Ace – front engine end all gone, so now a modern day gypsy caravan – I took pics, asked him where he was going - “Back to Alice mate, should make it by Christmas” Now there’s the eternal optimist – of course the only reason he was on the main road just there was to get over a river flood channel, but even so... With around a 1,000 km still to go....

And on to Mataranka where a dip in the thermal pool, a chance of a nice cabin with power, shower, a real bed make me want to cool it and hang around here for a couple of days.... I'm now over halfway after all!

(More about Cambrian aquifers by the way – the Papua connection is of course a load of b...s... – the water in the aquifer flows from the tablelands and then out into the rivers heading northwards to the coast . and these "hot" springs aren’t truly thermal – the 30+ degrees of the water in the aquifer just shows how long the air round here has been so b.... hot......

Kununurra in the Kimberleys! 3235 km

Tuesday night, Sullivan Creek near Victoria River Crossing 15 35 S, 131 E, 2892 km

But it wasn’t to be, cabins all booked up tonite, so on I went, after another dip in the palm-fringed pool (no crocs). First another 100 km or so north to Katherine - original plans were to carry on another 300 km on to Darwin, change vans and then 300 k back to Katherine, but now I’m taking the same van all the way to Broome, saving a day or two (see Google map with next leg!) and so now start SW on the Savannah Way towards the really interesting bits of this first part of the trip – the Kimberleys and Australia’s extreme NW, aiming to meet Ros in Broome next Thursday.

Took a quick look at Katherine, found the big city (all of 11,000 people and several traffic lights!!!!) far too urban and stressy for this outbacker, depressing too, all the down at heel tribal people/aborigines wandering around disconsolate/dispossessed/distressed/waiting for the next drink – I don’t know – I’m not the one to come with great statements or conclusions – but very sad and uncomfortable to see. The Northern Territory (17 % of the total area of Ozz, but only 1 % of the population) has 28 % aboriginal population, but they sure seem to be in a bad way....

(Headline news in Katherine today “Ghan derailed by cow” – the Ghan being the relatively new across-Ozz rail express – Adelaide to Darwin (via Alice Springs, 2969 km & 42 hours...))

Into gradually more rolling hilly country – then suddenly the first real hills for over 2,000 km - lovely sandstone bluffs bordering the Victoria River – first found (by white people that is) in 1839 by the Beagle (on a later exploration trip than that with Charles Darwin on board) and named after-you-know-which-old -queen.... (although she was still pretty and young in 1839) And then I found thIs wildernesss camp site on the banks of Sullivan Creek (this one with crocs), from the sublime cabin to a great camping site, now been joined by 3 more vans, there’s even a fire pit I’ve been collecting wood for ever since Undara, looking forward to a spectacular starry night....


Wednesday night, Kununurra, western Australia, 15 46 S, 128 44 E, 3235 km

But that wasn’t to be either, it was a hot, sticky and hazy night, few stars, lots of bugs (I only saw in the guide this morning that “bush flies might be a nuisance here”.... QUITE..... Definitely not a good night and a very hot and humid day..... Decided the best thing to do was head on westwards to first decent town, which is here – Kununurra, just over the border between Northern Territory and Western Australia.

Stopped for (very) early morning coffee at Victoria River, the crossing itself sitting between spectacular (Precambrian) sandstone cliffs. Then on to Timber Creek, 200 km inland from the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf Coast and at the Beagle’s navigable limit. The museum at the old police station showing some of the history of the fighting between local tribes and the invading cattlemen in the late 1800s, and the Park & Wildlife Centre with an impressive Natural History display telling lots about animals, plants, everything except the geology!!! I complained to the ranger on duty in the nearby office and he agreed that it was a major lack – something I’ve noted most of the way across Ozz, having to work hard to find out the simplest things about local geology – He directed me to a great lookout site though, seeing the vast expanse of the Victoria River heading northwards to the faraway sea....

Ever on, occasionally between spectacular cliffs, and now the landscape littered with giant boab trees, far bigger than any I’ve seen in Africa, but the heat stifling, the van’s aircon struggling...... Through several tribal areas, big signs to the entrances stating bans on taking in alcohol and “certain types of pornography” .... not sure which types though....Finally to the border with Western Australia, here with a serious Quarantine Station and inspection of the van to make sure I’m not carrying an illicit cargo of nuts, fruits, veggies, flakes or honey......... Thankfully they didn't seem to worry that in all the heat I was feeling pretty fruity and flaky....) And clock 90 minutes back, all quite confusing...... now only 6 hours ahead of Norway.....

Finally into Kununurra, a pleasant place set between sandstone hillocks, but very hot – almost 40 degrees and very humid – definitely no more travelling for a couple of days as I shower and relax in air-conditioned luxury at the Kimberley Crocs backpackers’...............