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(Cross posted on Overlander)
A month in the Kimberley, well not quite. 9987kms. I'll keep this short as I'm not much of a writer. Western Australia is big, really big. You may think it's a long way to the chemist, but that's nothing compared to WA... The main trouble is I live in the south west, and where I wanted to go was a week away, so we had to skip a few things to fit it into a 4 week holiday, a week up, 2 weeks there and a week back. But on the positive side this gave us a list of places to go next year, and a couple to deliberately avoid next time.
Travelling up the coast we tried to drop in everywhere. Highlights and random recollections?
Cervantes has a nice caravan park, very quiet and 1960's. A crayfish town with a tavern and lots of boats. I liked it.
Kalbarri has grown a lot and is a proper tourist town, still worth a few days in the national park and great fishing.
Coral Bay is a full on tourist trap nowadays, to enjoy it you need to go on boat tours and charters, we spent our time mostly on Ningaloo Station, which has camping and is quite remote.
Avoid Nanutarra roadhouse like the plague, the most expensive fuel in Australia I think. There is a free camprground just down the road. BTW there was no LPG at the remoter roadhouses, so be aware if you rely on it.
Millstream National Park is a good diversion on the trip North or South, getting off the Highway and avoiding Roebourne and Karratha. We stopped in at Pannawonica, where we found the cheapest fuel of the trip, a little servo subsidised by the mining company. Fill the Jerries. There are a few campgrounds in the park with toilets, nice spots by the rivers.
Skip Port Hedland if you can. Supplies can be got at Soth Hedland on your way through. Pardoo Roadhouse has good value overnight camping, Sandfire was destroyed by a fire but still sells beer and petrol.
My favourite caravan park was 80 mile beach, 16 k's off the highway. Lounge around all day waiting for the tide then fish for dinner. 6 metre tides mean you start off parking 300 metres from the water, and when the tide comes in it is at your wheels. Great Fishing for mulloway and giant threadfin salmon.
Broome. I'll skip Broome here, but the Croc Park is a must see. Some really big lizards here. I used it to learn what croc sign, drag marks and croc slides look like.
Gibb River Road. My favourite part of the trip, we did about 850 k's and saw about half what we would have liked to. Tips would be to be self sufficient in everything for 2 weeks. There is fuel available at Imintiji and Mt Barnett, El Questro and a few other places, but it rained while we were there and the fuel trucks cannot get through, heaps of people were stuck at Mt Barnett for more than a week, nearly 2 in some places with no fuel, so carry enough to get from Derby all the way to Wyndham.
Deepest water was the Pentacost, just under bonnet height in my 120 Prado. Mostly corrogated road but in good condition overall, roughest was 50 k either side of Mt Barnett, dry mud sections.
I would allow 2 weeks at least to really enyoy it, 3 if you explore up Mitchell Falls and Kulumbaru way. You could spend 5 days at El Questro, camping and exporing. Lots of tracks and gorges and rivers to see. The odd thing about El Questro is you can't get simple things in the store, like soap. There is a campground by the river with all facilities, but no power, your camper batteries need to last as long as you are there.
Dry mud sections
The Pentecost River
Boabs, I love them.
Gorges, gorges and more gorges!
This is Bells Gorge.
This is Manning Gorge
This is a Wandjina, and the second is a Bradshaw I think.
And lots of crocs, this is a freshy who posed for me.
We missed Purnulul, Kulumbaru, Wolf Creek and a short section of the Tanami Road because of rain, all the roads were closed for 2 weeks, some are still closed. Rain in June is very unusual I'm told. Kununurra was a great town for a couple of days. The camps all looked full so we stayed at a quaint caravan park at Lake Argyle.
An honorable mention to Hutt River Province! On the way home we went through all the small coastal towns south of Dongara, and stopped in at the Province. Pricess Shirley gave us the tour, we bought some stamps and souveniers. Get your passport stamped! Poor old Prince Leonard isn't well so who knows what the future holds. Do yourself a favour and visit if you can. Here is a farmer who took on the federal government on a matter of constitutional law and won, what a legend.
That will do, I said it would be short eh?
A month in the Kimberley, well not quite. 9987kms. I'll keep this short as I'm not much of a writer. Western Australia is big, really big. You may think it's a long way to the chemist, but that's nothing compared to WA... The main trouble is I live in the south west, and where I wanted to go was a week away, so we had to skip a few things to fit it into a 4 week holiday, a week up, 2 weeks there and a week back. But on the positive side this gave us a list of places to go next year, and a couple to deliberately avoid next time.
Travelling up the coast we tried to drop in everywhere. Highlights and random recollections?
Cervantes has a nice caravan park, very quiet and 1960's. A crayfish town with a tavern and lots of boats. I liked it.
Kalbarri has grown a lot and is a proper tourist town, still worth a few days in the national park and great fishing.
Coral Bay is a full on tourist trap nowadays, to enjoy it you need to go on boat tours and charters, we spent our time mostly on Ningaloo Station, which has camping and is quite remote.
Avoid Nanutarra roadhouse like the plague, the most expensive fuel in Australia I think. There is a free camprground just down the road. BTW there was no LPG at the remoter roadhouses, so be aware if you rely on it.
Millstream National Park is a good diversion on the trip North or South, getting off the Highway and avoiding Roebourne and Karratha. We stopped in at Pannawonica, where we found the cheapest fuel of the trip, a little servo subsidised by the mining company. Fill the Jerries. There are a few campgrounds in the park with toilets, nice spots by the rivers.
Skip Port Hedland if you can. Supplies can be got at Soth Hedland on your way through. Pardoo Roadhouse has good value overnight camping, Sandfire was destroyed by a fire but still sells beer and petrol.
My favourite caravan park was 80 mile beach, 16 k's off the highway. Lounge around all day waiting for the tide then fish for dinner. 6 metre tides mean you start off parking 300 metres from the water, and when the tide comes in it is at your wheels. Great Fishing for mulloway and giant threadfin salmon.
Broome. I'll skip Broome here, but the Croc Park is a must see. Some really big lizards here. I used it to learn what croc sign, drag marks and croc slides look like.
Gibb River Road. My favourite part of the trip, we did about 850 k's and saw about half what we would have liked to. Tips would be to be self sufficient in everything for 2 weeks. There is fuel available at Imintiji and Mt Barnett, El Questro and a few other places, but it rained while we were there and the fuel trucks cannot get through, heaps of people were stuck at Mt Barnett for more than a week, nearly 2 in some places with no fuel, so carry enough to get from Derby all the way to Wyndham.
Deepest water was the Pentacost, just under bonnet height in my 120 Prado. Mostly corrogated road but in good condition overall, roughest was 50 k either side of Mt Barnett, dry mud sections.
I would allow 2 weeks at least to really enyoy it, 3 if you explore up Mitchell Falls and Kulumbaru way. You could spend 5 days at El Questro, camping and exporing. Lots of tracks and gorges and rivers to see. The odd thing about El Questro is you can't get simple things in the store, like soap. There is a campground by the river with all facilities, but no power, your camper batteries need to last as long as you are there.
Dry mud sections
The Pentecost River
Boabs, I love them.
Gorges, gorges and more gorges!
This is Bells Gorge.
This is Manning Gorge
This is a Wandjina, and the second is a Bradshaw I think.
And lots of crocs, this is a freshy who posed for me.
We missed Purnulul, Kulumbaru, Wolf Creek and a short section of the Tanami Road because of rain, all the roads were closed for 2 weeks, some are still closed. Rain in June is very unusual I'm told. Kununurra was a great town for a couple of days. The camps all looked full so we stayed at a quaint caravan park at Lake Argyle.
An honorable mention to Hutt River Province! On the way home we went through all the small coastal towns south of Dongara, and stopped in at the Province. Pricess Shirley gave us the tour, we bought some stamps and souveniers. Get your passport stamped! Poor old Prince Leonard isn't well so who knows what the future holds. Do yourself a favour and visit if you can. Here is a farmer who took on the federal government on a matter of constitutional law and won, what a legend.
That will do, I said it would be short eh?
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