The Kimberley
Trip Start
Apr 06, 2009
1
30
39
Trip End
??? 03, 2010
Fitzroy Crossing, Western Australia, Australia
Saturday, August 15, 2009
We are currently en-route to Broome – due there tomorrow. I thought I would just recount a few things/thoughts about the Kimberley Ranges that we have noticed since we left Kununurra yesterday morning.
We left at 6am and it was already daylight of course as the days start much earlier here being a couple of hours behind Melbourne! It is light by about 5.15 am and of course it gets dark earlier at about 5.45pm. We actually found that the days seemed to be quite long and we were going to bed earlier. Everyone on the campsite seemed to get up pretty early and that was the best time for exercising – we played golf at 6.30 am and by 8.30 it was really getting hot!
As we started the trip we saw more 'wild' wildlife than we have in the past – lots of kangaroos and wallabies bopping around luckily not on the road. There are a lot of wandering cows around as well – there are not always fences along the road so they tend to take a stroll along the roads and it can be quite hair raising wondering if they are going to venture onto the road at the last minute. So far so good – no road kill from us. Which reminds me - in Darwin there was a café stall at the Mindil Market called "The Road Kill Café’! Very clever.
We have seen lots of birds tucking into the road kill and we know that the really big birds like black kites and wedge tailed eagles take a while to be able to launch from the road so we have to be sure to slow down. There are lots of these birds around.
I was reading whilst at Kununurra that about 30% of the Ord Valley is now taken up with sandalwood trees, which appear to be more lucrative than the old mango harvest so many of the mango trees are being replaced apparently.
One of the trees I have noticed over the last week or two is a bare looking tree, which is not much more than a large shrub in terms of size. It looks dead except for the glorious bright yellow flowers at the top of the tree and just lately there have been some green pods about the size of a tennis ball but imagine the ball as oblong. I have found out that it is the Kapok tree and inside the green pods are the fluffy kapok that we used to use to stuff cushions etc.
Another tree that you see usually just in Kimberley and the Victoria River end of Northern Territory is the boab tree. They have really thick trunks and at the moment all their branches are bare. I had to look these up as they look so odd! They are deciduous so lose their leaves in the dry season. In the wet they produce new leaves and large white flowers apparently and a fruit which the aborigines use for decoration, as well as for shelter, food and medicine. I also read in the ‘Lonely Planet Guide to Perth and WA’ that there is a story that said the tree upset the gods so much they pulled it from the ground and turned it upside down and hence it has the nickname of the “upside down tree". It certainly looks like the branches could be the roots! Some of them have enormously thick trunks and others look like there are two trees that are intertwined.
Of course the main thing to mention is the landscape. The earth is back to being very red, the ranges are majestic and appear as if out of nowhere. There are hilly ranges gently rolling along and then glorious red rocky escarpments soaring into the distance. The East Kimberley area is particularly beautiful around Kununurra and leading to the ranges around the Bungle Bungles, which are in a National Park called Purnululu. This is situated between Kununurra and Halls Creek. The road between Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing was varied with lots of flat open land and then more rocky bits, plus kilometres of eucalyptus trees and scrubby landscape.
The roads have been pretty good. We managed to travel about 460 kms the first day and stayed at a free camp called Mary Pool between Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing. This was on the Mary River, which was dry, and it was a large, shady site. There were so many caravans there overnight I couldn’t count them. Tonight we are staying in a smaller free camp area called Ellendale about 90 kms west of Fitzroy Crossing and about 300 kms from Broome. There are probably about 10 caravans here so a lot smaller!
16 August
Restless night as firstly the afternoon and evening were very hot and humid and the site was fairly close to the road and I heard road trains and other traffic all night! We got up at 5 am to get to Broome in time to meet Hughie and Katie at Broome airport at 11.30 am! Made it – just.
