Kununurra to Karratha

 It's been a little while since updating, but we've done a lot since then, I can't believe it was only 2 weeks ago when we were at Derby. The trip has been getting progressively better every day since then.
 Hitting the coast again was definitely a big factor. I can't believe it but I had started to forget how good diving and spearfishing in clear water was. It's still a bit tricky this far up the coast (still big tides, even as low as Karratha) but it's been getting better as we go down.
 One thing I can't believe is there are apparently salt water croc's down this far south, and even as far as shark bay.
 I've been blatantly ignoring the warnings though and haven't seen any crocs. If you can survive diving around Darwin I'm guessing they aren't going to bother you this far south.

Trapped in the Derby Prison Boab. This was actually used to house aboriginal prisoners back in the day. There seem to be a few of these prison boabs up north. Probably not the best time to be an aboriginal in those days...

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Bus Buddies at Port Hedland - Can you guess which one we're driving? (It's not the size of the bus that counts, it's what you do with it)

Rent is way cheap in Port Hedland. Notice thats $500 a week for a room in a share house, not a whole house...




The first real taste of the west coast was when we stayed at a cattle station about 120Kms south of Broome, (Barne Hill Station) this place had a small reef coming off 80 mile beach which I kayaked and swam out to religiously over the two days we stayed there. I even managed to spear a little tusk fish for dinner which was nice.
 Also saw a very big olive sea snake one day which was very cool (couldn't get a photo though as I was spearfishing). These are meant to be quite aggressive for sea snakes but they seem very placid to me, this one didn't even look twice at me.

Barne Hill was a cool little campground, It had a really nice feel staying there. We met some new friends on the road (a Belgian couple who work in Belgian T.V, I'm pretty sure they are some sort of celebrities) and have run into them since so it will be good regularly catching up with some more people closer to our age. There was even a band playing from one of the local aboriginal communities who were surprisingly good.
 All in all we had a good stay there.

 

80 mile beach at Barne Hill Station

 We also headed over to Karijini national park where we ran into our Belgian friends again.
 In a lot of peoples opinions this is the best national park in Australia. I was very excited about getting to Karijini, and have been excited for a long time, but was a little underwhelmed after all the hype about it. It was a really nice national park, but because it is so accessible and has such easy walks it was full of the usual swathes of elderly four wheel drivers which was a bit annoying.
 It was pretty good though all the same. I'll let the photo's do the talking though.

 Dales Gorge Karijini

 Fern Pool Karijini

 Me at some chasm in Karijini

 Some kind of lizard in karijini

 Rachael traversing a chasm at Karijini

Wood pigeons in Karijini are weird.

 I can't really remember what we've been doing since Karijini, but we've spent the last 4 days at cleaverville beach near Karratha.
 This has been fantastic. There's no water or anything there, but there's an island nearby with great snorkelling. I took 2 trips out there on the inflatable kayak. The first time I went without Rachael (I was the guinea pig to test whether you could get out there easily with the strong winds) and saw heaps of fish. There were black tip reef sharks, other big sharks which I don't know what they are, heaps of sea turtles, kingfish trevally, and all sorts of reef fish. It was great. I took my speargun out though and not the camera, so no photos... On the way back in I also ran into a shark in really shallow water which was pretty cool. I tried to get a good photo but the camera wasn't working too well. The shark came right up to the kayak in the murky water, then realised how big it was and shot off really fast through the shallow water. It was very cool.
 
  The second time we headed out we both brought our cameras, but we must have put them in the housings in humid air, because they both fogged up really badly in this cold southern water and we couldn't get any good photos...

 Fish Guitar with two mangrove jacks caught at the island. Very tasty fish

 The paddle out to Dixon Island (about 2/3rds to go)

 The shark. It got a lot further out of the water, and came within a foot of the kayak. But the Olympus strikes again...

 Sturts Desert Pea on Dixon Island

Ornate Painted Crayfish were EVERYWHERE.

Crayfish and Mudcrab Dinner - We O.D'd on crustaceans at Cleaverville. Have to change to fish for a while

That is all. We're in Karratha now, which is just another mining town. We'll check out nearby dampier tomorrow though which looks nice. It is very nice being back in society with fresh water on tap.

as far as the lemon is concerned we've had a few regular issues. We headed out to a free camp north of Broome and the front left grease cap on the bearing blew again. We were driving on pretty heavy duty corrugations though so I can understand.

 What I can't understand though is how difficult it was to get the part. I rang almost every toyota dealer on the west coast and had no success. So then I rang Cairns where we got it last time and the dude there was all like 'we can't get that part' even after I told him I'd got it off them before.

 It took a lot of arguing to get the part. All that for a little bit of plastic...

 We've also had the water pump break on us (which I was waiting for... It never sounded too healthy) and the solar regulator stopped working (it was $12 on eBay, so I should have expected that...) Also the auto gas meter is now always saying it's full... (not sure how to fix that)

 Also after the bungle trip one of the chain tension adjusters on the rear wheel of the bike had come loose. This has caused the rear wheel to turn at a bit of an angle, which has resulted in the rear bearing getting a bit damaged and having a bit of play so I'll need to replace it soon...

 The usual dramas really, but nothing too expensive or which we can't handle.

The Kimberlys

It’s been an interesting trip so far. We stayed at an old RAAF quarry a few days ago (which is a really nice spot) and woke up to see the whole place was on fire…

 There were two couples from the Netherlands staying near us and they’d lit a campfire next to some of the Spinifex and the whole lot went up. We had to spend the morning battling the fire which was getting pretty out of control.

 I breathed in so much smoke I’ve been coughing all morning. Its hard work fighting fires, I was breathing really heavily running to get buckets of dirt and rocks from the quarry and then you copping lungs full of smoke when you get to the fire.

 I lost a lot of leg hair as well. We managed to stop the fire though, luckily the wind was going away from the Spinifex tinderbox. It was a close call though.

 

Burnt Campsite at the old Quarry - There definitely wasn't time to get a photo when the fire was going, it was starting to get pretty big though. It was really hot.

The Quarry - 40K's west of Fitzroy Crossing then up 10K's of dirt road on the right, one of the best camp spots we've stayed at (not in the Australia camps book)

So, since Kununurra we’ve headed down to the Bunge Bungle ranges. This is meant to be tough 4wd only dirt road to get into. We stopped at a free camp just across the road and set up the bike, and my god, every grey nomad in the town had to stop and comment about us going in on our crappy dirt bike.

 They really can’t handle anything out of the ordinary, I think it’s boredom that makes them come over really, but after a while you get over all the helpful comments.

 It was pretty easy getting in there in the end, and actually a really fun road, there were about 7 shallow creek crossings which the bike had no problem with, a fairly corrugated road for the most of it, which the bike also handles really well, and heaps of little hills which you could shoot over, it was a heaps fun ride in, and not a terrible road, we’ve definitely been down worse. Definitely not for 2 wheel drives though for sure.

Here’s Rachael at the Bungle Bungle Ranges

Picaninny creek, normally this is an overnight hike, we just went for an hours walk though. It was a really nice walk, there were some cool formations in the rock on the creek bed, and of course the bungle bungle rock formations as well.

Cathedral Gorge, it looks like it would be a great place for a concert. Good luck getting it in there though.

Here’s the entrance to the echidna chasm walk. The chasm is a very narrow crack in the cliffs which goes up for ages. It’s a nice walk to do during the heat of the day

The start of the chasm. It was pretty unnerving walking through the chasm, if a rock had fallen down off the cliff it would have been a pretty serious thing. The cliff was a good 6 stories high, but it was impossible to get a photo showing how high the chasm was in the dark

 

The northern end of the park is a lot different to the south. The south has all the beehive domes, while the north has more of the classic Kimberly range type of stuff which you see through the drive across the top end. The entire highway is amazing, some of the views you get are really incredible.

After the bungles we headed down to Halls creek, and then down to old Halls creek town (which was remade into new Halls Creek due to constant flooding) to camp out for a bit and maybe strike it rich finding some gold.

 This was about 13 K’s of corrugated dirt road which the bus handled fantastically. It even made it down into the riverbed and didn’t get bogged.

 Having four tyres on the back makes a huge difference with traction, we have only bogged the bus once, and that was in my front yard at Coffs Harbour, when it sunk after about 6 days of non-stop rain.

 The riverbed camp (Caroline pool) was a great spot. I only found some fools gold though panning for gold. We got there on a Saturday, and didn’t realise that being a weekend it would be a popular spot with the locals, there were so many Aboriginal kids running around, they were hilarious; they wouldn’t listen to anyone when they called them, and just ran around all day attacking each other. It was a great spot to camp.

 After that we took the bus on some more serious 4wding to the china wall (we were too lazy to take the bike off for a 2Km road)

 Caroline Pool

 

The China Wall & the bus in the background

The China Wall. It went on for ages, but I couldn't get a shot of it all, there were too many trees in the way and when I stood on top of the wall I almost got blown off (It was really windy)

Off road driving

After that we headed to the quarry, where the fire was, and headed another 60K’s up dirt road on the bike to Tunnel creek. This is just like the name describes, a long creek which has tunnelled through the range behind it.

 It was a great walk through pitch black, with cool stalactites hanging down, and some interesting fish, bats and even a fresh water cave crocodile in a hollow up the side of the cave.

 As usual though, it was full of grey nomads! They were EVERYWHERE!!! I couldn’t believe it, I thought we were way off the beaten track.. I found out later that the Gibb river road ends at the turn to tunnel creek, and so a lot of people heading down to Broome head down that way..

 It was a great walk though.

  

Some Stalactites in the Tunnel Creek

 

Inside Tunnel Creek  - As you can see you had to bring a torch to get through to the other side, photos were pretty difficult inside the tunnel but it was pretty cool

Cave Crocodile

 After that we headed pretty much straight over to Derby where we are at the moment. It’s a nice little town, and the town with the highest recorded tides in Australia (a whopping 11 metres). For that reason (along with all the crocodiles) spear fishing is off the cards here.

 We’ll just have to wait until Broome. The marine life around there won’t know what’s coming.

 Old Boab Tree

 

The visibility at Derby. Pristine visibility for Diving and Spearfishing

 

 As far as lemon news is concerned the bus is going great. There haven’t been any problems, which is a first. I’ve learned not to get too complacent though. The poltergeist still hasn't come back in the dash and the wheel hubs don't seem to be getting hot after cleaning all the crap out of the hubs.

 Rachael’s done the budgeting for our trip, and we’ve gone way over budget already. We can’t afford to have any more break downs. Or, at least we can’t afford to go to any more mechanics. Which is probably a good thing considering our track record with mechanics.

Kakadu to Kununurra

So, we've finished work and are back on the road.
 Darwin has been a good city to us, we stuck around for Territory day, which was probably the best day of my life. It's better than Christmas or New Years. It was so dangerous on the day, the blend of alcohol and fireworks made just the right combination for a great day, I can't believe no-one we knew went to hospital. It was such a great day, fireworks were shooting into cars and people were shooting them at each other, we saw one guy on a scooter who had a volley shot at him, and there were so many close scrape explosions, it was just a day of non-stop danger and good fun. I'm definitely coming to Darwin for the next territory day as it's probably going to be axed soon..

 At least $1000 worth of fireworks which we let off on territory day

 Fireworks going off on the rickshaw

The view of the constant fireworks going off outside the house

   After leaving Darwin we headed back home for a bit to catch up with family and drop Rachael's car off before we headed off again. The drive was so long, and it was freezing, we decided to camp along the way and it got down to - 6 degrees in alice springs, and probably less than that in South Australia. Rachael was getting pretty over it by the third night, but we got there. It made us appreciate the bus a bit more after sleeping in a tent.

Me and my Brother and the harbour bridge

 After hanging out down south we came back up to Darwin and hung around for a bit until some of our friends came up to Darwin.
 Before they came up we decided it was time to finally go to Kakadu, which was a pretty cool national park.
 Before we left though we had the usual bus drama's. We took it in for a service and whilst it was getting it's outrageously overpriced service the starter motor suddenly stopped working (very suspiciously).
 Then, when we got out of the mechanics the front right brakes started grabbing, which was really alarming because it would jerk the steering wheel out of your hands and veer right violently.
 And if you managed to hold the wheel the front right wheel would lock up...
 I thought the mechanic had readjusted the brakes dodgily, but it turns out there was a whole lot of crap in the front wheel hub.
 Also the rear right drive axle seal started leaking oil again. Which I have replaced again, and have now found out that if you drive for a long period on a fairly tapered road (as we do) then all the oil can pool on one side of your diff and axle, and the elevated (right) side of the axle gets no grease, which can chew up your axle seal. (I think that might be whats happening anyway, that or we're getting too much pressure build up in the diff, but I can't find a release vlave on the old 1972 diff)
 So now to prevent the seal getting chewed up I drive on the opposite side of the road from time to time to get some grease to the other end of the axle.
 We also keep 2 spare seals now just in case...

  SO ANYWAY, Kakadu.
 We got in and decided we'd do everything, we had time to burn, so the first dirt road off the Kakadu highway went to a few billabongs which we thought we'd check out. We took the bike in as it was rough dirt road (the roughest road we encountered at kakadu actually).
 It was a pretty long trip in (about 36 Kms) when we hit a river crossing before Alligator billabong (not on the map). Being at Alligator billabong neither of us wanted to wade through to check how deep the water was, so we decided to wing it. We went through on the bike and it went well at first, but then just kept getting deeper until the water was almost at the handlebars. ...Which was when the bike died.
 We jumped off and pushed it across and then after a bit of coaxing got the bike started again (XR's are great bikes). We headed out to alligator billabong, which was really shit... more of a muddy lake, and then we had to try and get across the river again.
 I've been watching a bit of motocross on tv where they hit the water really fast and then skim across the top and the bike doesn't go in so I thought I'd give that a go. Rachael got off and I hit the water at about 60-70K's.
 It didn't work at all...
 After about 2 metres the front wheel dug in and I went flying off the bike. It got totally flooded, we waded it across, but it wouldn't start cost there was water all through the carburetor.
 It took at least an hour of kick starting it with the throttle open and a lot of bruises on my leg to get it started again.
 I was so glad it started though, it was getting late in the day, and it would have been a long 6 hour walk back in the dark..

The river crossing. Notice the air filter drying on the log...

Rachael at Red Lily Billabong - a really nice place to camp if you have a 4wd.

Everything else at Kakadu was pretty cool. My favourite spot was probably Maguk, it had some amazing fish in it in a deep rock pool (a good 15m deep). Unfortunately though I didn't think to bring my camera housing so no shots of the fish.

Instead, here's a bunch of other shots from Kakadu and elsewhere:

Rocky ranges at east Kakadu. The western side is all pretty flat with a few wetlands, the eastern side is where it gets most interesting with giant rock cliffs

 The bus

 Rock Art. I don't think anyone really knows what this paining is about, the sign was a bit vague and said the traditional owners weren't too forthcoming about it. The dude at the top right is the lightning man. We got to see the cliffs where he lives on our tour. I think the top middle guy is narbulwarlwarl who eats women after he hits them with a yam.

Us posing somewhere randomly

 A bunch of bush bees (or flies?) settling down at a waterfall near gunlom

 Butterfly

 Gunlom Falls. A really nice spot, but full of tourists...

 Maguk waterhole, my favourite place in our trip to Kakadu. This pool was teaming with all kinds of fish. I wish I'd brought my camera housing. Did get a good snorkel though

 Maningrida snapping turtle - We house sitted one of these guys in Darwin for a while and he was a nut case, I've never seen such an energetic turtle. I really like these turtles. They will snap your finger though given half a chance

 Little Saltwater crocodile at Yellow River

 Me at the edge of Gunlom Falls

 

 Unidentified fresh water fish. I've never seen a fish like this in fresh water, it looks like a seargent baker a little bit... It was a pretty big fish

 Catfish (Taken at Berry Springs)

 Freshwater Garfish - I didn't even know fresh water garfish existed. It seems like all of these fresh water fish have a salt water counterpart

 After Kakadu we headed back up to catch up with our friends, we had a great time. It wasn't easy on our aging livers though...

 Push Bike Jousting between Toby and K.C

 After our friends left we headed down to Douglas Daly hot springs. These were really nice, with a campground right next to the springs.
 These were real hot springs too, no one had made a rock dam to pool the hot water, it just came out of the ground in geysers, and it was scalding hot where it came out, but if you found where it pooled for a while, or where it came into contact with the river it was pretty bearable. It was a really nice place (except for all the elderly people).
 The best part though was butterfly gorge. We weren't sure whether we'd bother to head out there, the road that way was pretty rough, but after talking to a D.J nearby who was living in another coaster we headed out, and it was AMAZING. It is easily the best place I've been to in my limited time in the N.T. The moment we started walking in the temperature dropped about 5 degrees and there were big trees all around us.
 There was no-one there the entire time we were there, this is probably because you have to climb over a bit of a rock cliff to get there and none of the grey nomads could do that (losers).
 When we got there we weren't sure we were at the right pool, and so were a bit worried about swimming in the water (with potential crocs) but the D.J had told us to swim past the first pool and check out the gorge, we gave it a go and it was so good. I'll let the photo's do the talking, but they never do it justice. I think I might get a better camera.

 Douglas Daly hot springs

Water monitor at one of the heated pools. This lizard was so drunk on heat he wouldn't move even when we sat right next to him.

Extreme cliff free climbing

 Coming down off the rocks into the start of butterfly gorge

 Lame photo in front of some cool rocks

 The start of the gorge

 A worried Rachael as we swim up into the gorge

 The first part of butterfly gorge

 Hanging in a rock pool

 Algae sliding

 Thats about everything interesting so far. From there we've headed over to Kununurra, which is a real nice town. It's a bit of a desert oasis with a huge lake in the middle with some beautiful water birds (including my favourite bird up here the Jacana, which can walk on water. I think the lake next to the caravan park we've stopped in has better birdlife than we saw throughout Kakadu actually.

 Kununurra has had some fun things to do as well, we've headed out to a few landmarks and fed the fish. It's been good. The main reason we have stopped in a caravan park though is because the bus is playing up again.

 It is because of all the dirt roads we've been going through, we've picked up a poltergeist in the wiring somehow.
 For a bit the dash lights wouldn't work, then the dash lights worked but we had no headlights, then when you put the headlights on the windscreen washer pump would go on, then the indicators stopped working, then miraculously started working again but nothing else did.

 I spent a good 12 hours in the dash trying to figure out what the hell is going on, without being able to exorcise this demon from the dash board. Got the windscreen wipers fixed (bad earth) and then I took the cover off a solenoid under the dash, then saw it was fine, put the cover back on, and now everythings fixed...

 Should it have been that easy? ... My prediction is no.

 So, with the next blog update expect to hear a lot of facts about indicator circuits.


Here's some pictures of Kununurra;

 Catfish feeding at the zebra rock gallery goes on all day, you just have to bring some bread to the jetty. It was pretty cool feeding the local fish. If you stuck your finger in they'd try and eat that too. The archer fish were cool, they'd jump heaps high out of the water to try and get some bread before the catfish could get in.

 Infuriating rock cairns. I don't know who feels the need to make these things

 The Kununurra landscape

Rachael at some national park in Kununurra

 Fish caught spearfishing in Darwin Harbour. The Barracuda almost snapped the spear off (which would have made 3 spears lost to monster fish in Darwin). The fish were delicious. Hyso is in the background

So that's all, next we're heading to the bungle bungles. It's about 120K's of the roughest dirt road imaginable apparently. But no problem for the XR (as long as there are no river crossings), that bike just laughs at every dirt road we put in front of it, we are always overtaking four wheel drives. It's a good feeling screaming past a $30000 landcruiser on your shitbox motorbike.

 If we make the trip expect another update in a week or two