Kennedy Ranges - Broome

1. Camping in the Kennedy Ranges

2. Careful! You are at risk of having fun! (These risk area signs are everywhere! If it's not a gorge risk area, it's a cliff risk, or a water risk, or a grey nomad risk...)

3. Temple Gorge, Kennedy Ranges


4. The sunrise in the Kennedy Ranges - it looks just like a bushfire!


5. Honeycomb Gorge, Kennedy Ranges

6. The line-up to enter Cape Range National Park - and this is before 8am in the morning! We were the last car for the day to get a camp site in the National Park.

7. Our camp spot at Osprey Bay, Cape Range National Park. It was worth the early start and wait in line in the end.

8. Osprey Bay, Cape Range National Park

9. Turquoise Bay, Cape Range National Park. This was a great spot for snorkelling over Ningaloo Reef.

10. Our friendly kangaroo at Cape Range

11. Yardie Creek, Cape Range

12. Snorkelling at Turquoise Bay, Cape Range

13. Snorkelling over Ningaloo Reef

14. The Reef Shark sleeping on the sand floor. Snorkelling at Lakeside, Ningaloo Reef

15. The turtle, snorkelling at Lakeside

16. Starfish, snorkelling at Ningaloo

17. Linda, swimming with the Whale Shark, Ningaloo

18. Whale Shark, Ningaloo

19. Whale Shark, Ningaloo

20. Whale Shark, Ningaloo

21. Following the Humpback Whale migration, Ningaloo

22. The tail splash, Humpback Whales, Ningaloo

23. Us, returning from the Whale Shark trip

24. Dales Gorge, Karajini National Park

25. Fortescue Falls, Dales Gorge, Karajini National Park

26. Bath time for Brendan at Fortescue Falls

27. Shower for Linda at Circular Pool, Dales Gorge

28. Fern Pool, Dales Gorge, Karajini

29. Fern Pool, Dales Gorge, Karajini

30. Views over the Pilbara Ranges, driving through the National Park

31. Linda at the summit of Mount Bruce, Karajini

32. Mount Bruce summit, Karajini

33. Views from Mount Bruce

34. Climbing Mount Bruce

35. Hancock Gorge, Karajini

36. Kermit's Pool, Hancock Gorge

37. Linda, swimming in Kermit's Pool

38. Linda in Hancock Gorge, Karajini

39. Hancock Gorge

40. Hancock Gorge

41. Knox Gorge, Karajini

42. Joffre Gorge, Karajini

43. Joffre Gorge, Karajini

44. Kalamina Gorge, Karajini

45. Kalamina Gorge, Karajini

46. Crossing Pool, Millstream-Chichester National Park. After the pools in Karajini, we were a bit disappointed with Millstream-Chichester.

47. Chichester Ranges, Millstream-Chichester National Park

48. Python Pool, Millstream Chichester National Park. It hasn't rained here in quite some time so the pool is unfortunately closed for swimming at the moment due to algae growths.

49. Tichella - a little known camping area down a track recommended by a local guy. All the beaches around Karratha and Port Hedland area are very tidal and mud flatty.

50. The vast expanse of 80 Mile Beach

51. The moon rising over the red cliffs at Barn Hill

52. Barn Hill Beach at sunset - an hour south of Broome the beaches improved again.

53. Camping at Quondong Beach, north of Broome

54. Quondong Beach

55. Watching the partial moon eclipse at Quondong

56. Cape Leveque

57. Cape Leveque - proof that we really do have a hard life!

58. Western Beach, Cape Leveque

59. The Frill-necked Lizard

60. Camping in the red dirt at Middle Lagoon, halfway up Cape Leveque

61. Beach at Middle Lagoon

62. The red dirt road to Cape Leveque - everything up here is made of red dirt!

63. Cable Beach Broome

Arrival in Broome (Kennedy Ranges – Broome)

June 2010

Time to sit back and try to remember all the things that have happened since the last update…

We left you last in the Kennedy Ranges to the east of Carnarvon, about midway up the coast of WA. Looking back, the highlight of the Kennedy Ranges was the ultra-friendly and efficient camp hosts, Helen and Charlie! Helen had information about absolutely everything, a calendar hanging in the long drop (so that people would stop asking them what day it was) and she even made camp oven dumplings and custard to pass around to all of the campers at night! Now that’s service in a National Park Campground! We reciprocated by making Damper with melted white chocolate in the middle cooked in al-foil on the fire, and shared this around also. Mmm, what did we see in the Kennedy Ranges?? Can’t remember, but we definitely remember what we ate…(See the photos for more information about the sights).

We then headed back to Carnarvon for the third time (a town we are getting to know quite well by now), and once again restocked ready for the drive up to Coral Bay and Exmouth. We stopped in at Coral Bay on our way to Exmouth for an afternoon snorkel over Ningaloo Reef. Thanks to Helen’s long drop calendar we had discovered that it was actually a long weekend in WA and the campgrounds in Coral Bay were full to over-flowing so we decided to continue on up the 4-wheel-drive coastal track to Bruboodjoo Point to camp the night with a few less people – though even this was quite busy. We woke in the morning to the unfortunate discovery that somewhere along one of the awful corrugated roads we have been travelling, we managed to break one of the greasable shackles holding the suspension together right in half! Luckily for Brendan being a hoarder and not wanting to throw anything away, we still had the old one with us as a spare, so were able to change it over and continue on our way. Disaster averted!

After Bruboodjoo Point, we decided to take a break from the tracks for a short time and take the sealed road option on up to Exmouth and around the point towards Cape Range National Park. We had heard horrible stories about the queues of vehicles waiting to get into Cape Range National Park and about all the camping sites being full by 8am, so we decided to camp the night at Yardie Creek Homestead, near the entrance to the park and join the circus at the gate the following morning. As it turned out, this was a good decision, as it decided to absolutely bucket down with rain overnight and we were glad of the roof over our heads in the camp kitchen when making dinner. We also met Peta and Glen and their two kids Sabrina and Jet (on a six month trip from Perth) at Yardie Creek during the downpour – also sheltering from the rain in the kitchen – and have been meeting them on and off ever since.

The next morning we realized that the rumours had all been true as we joined the line-up at the gate to Cape Range. We were the 9th car in line just before 8am, and the last car to actually get a campsite for that day. The rain the night before had been a good thing for us, as a few more people has decided to leave the national park – on a busy day we still wouldn’t have had a campsite – even at 8 o’clock in the morning! We ended up camping at Osprey Bay, one of the southern campsites, with a beautiful view out over Ningaloo Reef. We decided to stop for four nights of R&R – which actually ended up consisting of lots of snorkeling at Lakeside, the Oyster Stacks and Turquoiose Bay and a day trip to swim with the Whale Sharks and see a couple of Humpbacks on their annual northerly migration. While snorkeling, we were lucky enough to see a few turtles, a reef shark, heaps of fish and coral, and a few little stingrays. As we were late in the season for Whale Sharks, we only found one for the day – a little one about 4.5m long – but it was still a great experience to swim alongside him. As the little one seemed large enough, it really would be amazing to swim with the 12m long ones!

Finally dragging ourselves away from the beautiful water and reef, we took the 600km drive east through to the tiny mining town of Tom Price to stock up and then on into Dales Campground in Karajini National Park. We pulled up here for another four nights, packed full of walking and swimming in the gorges. See all the photos for the best descriptions of these, but there were lots of waterfalls (freezing cold but very refreshing!), gorges ranging from big wide valleys to narrow canyons and walks, climbs and scrambles up, down and through them. We explored Dales Gorge, Hancock, Weano, Knox, Joffre, Kalamina and Hamersley Gorges, walked to the summit of Mt Bruce and took a 300km day drive around the outside boundary of the park and into Wittenoom Gorge and former township. Wittenoom was a base for asbestos mining in the past and in 2003 was literally wiped from the map (road signs have blacked over the top of the name) because of the perceived risk of asbestos poisoning. The town is now a ghost town, with most businesses shut down – and we took an interesting drive down the former road into the gorge where we could see the hills composed of the blue-grey tailings.

In Karajini, we also met up again with Michelle and Brenten from Adelaide, on a trip with their kids through WA and the NT. We originally met these guys back near the Pinnacles, but hadn’t seen each other again and are now overlapping somewhere different every few days or so!

After paying an extravagant $14 to fill our very small 2kg gas bottle, we finally headed north of Karajini in the direction of Millstream Chichester National Park. Along the way we stopped at Florance Station – one of our better finds – and had a great night camped on grass with hot showers, flushing toilets, a free washing machine, no-one around and a roaring campfire on which to cook dinner and sample fresh bread baked by the caretaker of the site. (The small things which we have come to appreciate! ) We especially appreciated it after a week of being covered in the red dirt of Karajini and the Pilbara.

Millstream Chichester was a bit of a disappointment to us after all the amazing places we have been visiting – the campground was small and crowded, the swimming holes were coated with a film of red dirt and Python Pool was closed due to algae present in the water. (The wet season for some of these areas was virtually non-existent this year). Instead of stopping for a night as planned we continued straight on into Karratha and Dampier where we spent a few days catching up on jobs as we usually do when we hit civilization! Karratha and Dampier are big industrial areas for iron-ore and the North West Shelf Natural Gas Project. The lights at night over the gas plant resembled something similar to Vegas, I am sure!

We had been told that the drive between Karratha and on up to Broome, didn’t really hold any major highlights, but we still managed to fill in a week easily, driving the 800 or so kms. We looked in at Point Samson, Wickham and Cossack (another bit of a disappointment but they served a good fish and chips lunch at the tavern) and stayed a night in Port Hedland (aptly described by one of the travel guides as being “an island surrounded by mangroves and sludge”). Port Hedland is also home to the world’s largest trains (between 6 and 7 kms long) which transport iron-ore to and from the mines in the Pilbara and then place it on huge boats for export to China etc.

On from Port Hedland, we camped a night on the banks of the De Grey River where we were talking to a local guy who has been coming to camp there for the last 26 years. He was telling us that the water levels in the river were the lowest he has ever seen them, and he also entertained with stories of his encounters with cranky Billy the Bull in the neighbouring station paddocks, while skinny dipping and sunbaking on the banks of the river. (Don’t ask!) He did pass on some useful information however about a little known camping spot about 20kms out to the coast from where we were which we checked out the following day by following what looked like a station track. It was a good drive.

Our next stop along the final route to Broome was at the 80 Mile Beach Caravan Park, one of the only places that allows camping along the long stretch of beach leading up to Broome. We spent a night there, but were still a little disappointed with the beaches – experiencing very high and very low tides, the water is shallow for a long way out and built over a lot of mud flats. We did try some unsuccessful fishing however and there were some interesting shells to be collected.

After a night in a roadside rest stop (witnessing the drinking games of English and European Wicked Vanners), we then found our way to Barn Hill, another station run camping area which recently featured on Getaway (or so we have been told). At Barn Hill, the beaches finally improved and we stopped two nights to enjoy it. With the weather now nice and warm, we spent lots of time swimming, tried unsuccessful fishing again and enjoyed some good long runs and walks along the hard packed beach.

It was then onwards to Broome, where we drove in, stocked up our very bare cupboards and drove out again towards Cape Leveque to the north. We stopped the first night at a free camp spot on the coast just north of Broome called Quondong Beach. After being told it was a nice quiet spot, it proved to be far from deserted, but we still found a nice vantage point right on the beach front, from which we could watch the partial eclipse of the moon. We then stayed two nights at Middle Lagoon, just over half way up to the Cape and took a day trip up to Cape Leveque and back. The beaches in this area were beautiful, however they are getting more and more expensive by the day and sealing of the road in the northern part to aid accessibility between Aboriginal Communities, means that every man, his dog and his caravan can now make it up this way. The resort at Cape Leveque (Kooljaman Resort) is trying to promote itself as an exclusive resort style eco getaway where we were required to pay a day visitor fee to even walk onto the beach for a look. This still wasn’t as expensive as visiting some of the communities however and it became quickly apparent that you couldn’t see very much without being parted from large amounts of cash! The highlight of this area (again it comes back to food for us), was sharing in a very large Spanish Mackeral caught by a couple out in their boat. We were invited to the campfire where the fish was cooked whole in al-foil and then shared between six of us and we still only managed to eat half of it! We were then sent away with two full bowl fulls of fish which we are still eating for lunch and dinner now. Delicious!

Back to Broome where we ended up camped next to Brenten and Michelle again. Kate (a friend from Darwin) was in Broome for a few days with her visiting parents from NZ, so we broke the budget for a night and treated ourselves to dinner and drinks out with them. We tried to see the famous natural phenomenon known as “Staircase to the Moon”, caused by the full moon reflecting off the mudflats, but due to lots of cloud, the only staircase to the moon we managed to see was caused by the lights of low flying aircraft reflecting off the mud flats!

We are now spending the next couple of nights in Broome to make sure we are organized for the next stage of the trip – the Gibb River Road. Sadly, we have just listed our bushcamper as being for sale at the end of August (thanks for your help with that Simone and Ralf!), indicating that the trip is almost at a close for us – but still plenty more to see over the next 6 weeks or so.

Take care,

Love Linda and Brendan. xo.