The last bit of WA

Kimberley to the Western Australian/Northern Territory Boarder.

April 23 - St Georges Day, celebrated by the family in the Mirima Valley National Park near Kununurra. Fleur and Ellie's school work for the day was a project on St. George.

Lake Argyle - created by the damming of the Ord River with a 98m high dam wall to create Australia's second largest reservoir. Lake Argyle has a surface area of 1000 square kilometres and a shore line of over 900 km and holds 18 times more water than Sydney Harbour. Built to irrigate a vast area of land for farming.

Lake Argyle Caravan Park's infinity pool on the side of the hill overlooking the lake. Unanimously agreed by all to be by far the best swimming pool so far on the trip.

April 25 - Anzac Day. The Dawn Service on the Dam Wall at lake Argyle. We had to get up at 4:30am to attend the service which was undertaken as the sun came up. Fleur and Ellie were chosen to lay the wreath during the service. A simple but moving service followed by a sausage sizzle served on the dam wall.

Crossing the boarder from Western Australia to Northern Territory. Our 6th boarder crossing on the trip. We have spent 75 days and travelled over 9000km in WA alone as it is by far the largest state in Australia, covering the western third of the continent. It is bigger in size than Western Europe and the second largest state/province/national region in the world.

Our Helicopter Trip

Fleur and Ellie's helicopter adventure. At the Purnululu National Park in Western Australia we went in a helicopter over the Bungle Bungles.

 Our Helicopter as it came in to land to pick us up.

Ellie and I sat in the back with Dad, Mum sat in the front with the pilot to take all the photos. We had to sit where the pilot said to balance the helicopter.   

 There were no doors but we had a seat belt. The pilot said that due to the way the helicopter works we would be pushed down into our seats. He also said that no one had ever fallen out. Even so it was scary at first but after a minute I was no longer scared. 

 Ellie had to sit on my seat because there was only 4 seats including the pilots seat.

 Look no hands!

 Back safetly on land after our fabulous flight.

Love Fleur xx

Kimberley

The Kimberley region was one of the earliest settled parts of Australia with the first arrivals landing about 41,000 years ago, probably from the islands of what is now Indonesia. Nowadays the region is regarded as one of the last remaining wilderness areas on earth.

Derby - The Boab Prison Tree, with a girth of 14m the tree is believed to be about 1500 years old. It was used as a staging point for prisoners being walked to Derby gaol.

Down the Gibb River /Fairfield Leopold Downs Roads to Windjana Gorge National Park on only the second day of its opening after the wet season. Bush was alight and burning as we turned off the track into the park.

Windjana Gorge, part of a 375 million year old Devonian reef system which was once under the sea. We are stood inside the 100m high walls carved by the flowing of the Lennard River. No sign of any crocodiles despite looking for some.

Tunnel Creek National Park - The girls inside the oldest cave system in WA. The creek flows through a water worn 750m long tunnel beneath the limestone of the Napier Range. Wading through knee deep water we didn't go far as we were the only ones there and not one of us knew the way and what might have been in the water.

Purnululu National Park, Bungle Bungle Range. World Heritage listed, the view from our open door helicopter of the 300m high black banded beehive shaped domes which rise above the plains. Made of sandstone and rough conglomerates and moulded by the weather over millions of years.

Bungle Bungle - Cathedral Gorge a huge natural amphitheatre with a pool which fills in the wet season from the now dry waterfall at the top of the picture. The acoustics are amazing especially as we had the place to ourselves. The amount of water and the forces it took to form this place are pretty inspiring.

Striking a pose on top of the rock outcrop know as 'Kelly's Knob' overlooking the town of Kununurra. The lookout at 191m gives great views of the town. Kununurra was used for the majority of the filming of the film Australia and Nicole Kidman claims that the local water helped her get pregnant while filming in this town stating, "Seven babies were conceived out of this film and only one was a boy. There is something up there in the Kununurra water because we all went swimming in the waterfalls, so we can call it the fertility waters now." She provides no insight as to how they managed to make such a boring film though.

Broome

Broome - situated at the southernmost tip of the Dampier Peninsular, 18 degrees south of the equator. Discovered by Europeans in 1689 it was made famous for its pearling industry and only became a established tourist town when English building magnet Sir Alistair McAlpine invested millions of dollars in the 1980's.

Ellie in diving helmet at the Pearl Luggers Museum. Broome was founded by Japanese entrepreneurs in the 1880's. The pearling industry peaked in the early 1900's when the towns 400 luggers provided over 80% of the worlds mother-of-pearl, used mainly for buttons. Only ceasing when the plastic button was invented. Now Broome's pearl farms cultivate and produce pearls which includes the worlds largest pearl.

 The sign below the 'Welcome to Town Beach' sign. Last sighting of a crocodile was yesterday morning. No mention of where he went from there so we gave the swim in the sea a miss for the day and went to the pool.

The ladies on a camel trip along Cable Beach. First camels were imported into Australia from the Canary Islands primarily for transport. Australia is now the only country where there are feral herds of camels, numbering more than 1 million, they are culled and the meat exported to Saudi Arabia where it is consumed.

 The lighthouse at Gantheaume Point. Least impressive lighthouse so far but the rock colours are pretty and they are also home to some of Broome's famous Dinosaur footprints.

Sunday afternoon at Matso Brewery the only full mash hand crafted brewery in Australia's north west. Conveniently it also serves as a pub so Penny sampled the Mango Beer and I enjoyed a Smokey Bishop. Excellent beer and a nice Sunday.

Cable Beach - 22km stretch of sand named after the telegraph cable linking Broome to the rest of the world in 1889. Sitting on top of Larry and watching the sunset over the Indian Ocean. Voted the best beach in Australia, we're not so sure, what with the stingers and crocodiles it doesn't make our top ten list of beaches we have seen so far.

The natural phenomenon known as the Staircase to the Moon. It is caused by the rising of the full moon reflecting off the exposed mudflats at extremely low tide - creating the optical illusion of stairs reaching to the moon. Only occurs 2 - 3 days per month between March and October. 

Whilst in Broome we also went to Sun Pictures the world's oldest and longest running outdoor picture house. Good fun to watch the movie outside under the stars and also directly under the landing approach to Broome Airport. 

Fleur's Blog

 This is my blog page of my favourite

things on our trip so far.

 At Adventure World in Perth, my favourite ride was Abyss, a roller-coaster, it went too fast to be able to get a photo of it. This photo is Rail Rider, you pedal to go along a track over the park.

 At Coral Coast I liked Monkey Mia because there were dolphins and I got to feed one. Every night we went to the Monkey Bar but there were no monkeys, I had lemonade and crisps.

 In the Pilbara the Tom Price Mine Tour was great. We went on a bus Ellie and I expected we would go slowly but we went fast at the speed of 90kph. There were monster dump trucks with tyres that were as tall as the bus. They mine iron ore and then take it up to Port Headland on trains. We went to Port Headland as well. 

At Adelaide we stayed on the best campsite ever. There were two swimming pools and 3 water slides. We went to see the cycling and cheered on the bike riders. We also met up with our friends from Newcastle.

 On Cable Beach at Broome we went on a camel ride. We were on the front camel called Isaac. It was lots of fun. There were 12 camels in a train. This is a picture of us on Isaac.

 This is my bed in the caravan I like it because it is the best bed when its hot. I have got a map of Australia where I plot our route with a red line and some art work that I did last year in school.

Hope you enjoyed reading my blog. Lots of love Fleur

 

Ellie's Blog

This is my blog page with my favourite things so far on our journey.

 At Karijini National Park we went on a short walk to a waterfall where you can swim in a pool. Fleur and Daddy went in first. I didn't want to go because there were lots if fish near the steps. We swam to the water fall and sat under it. It felt very heavy on my head. The water was really warm.

 When we went snorkelling we saw lots of pretty coral and fishes. We saw two sharks when we were snorkelling and they swam right under us. It was the best thing I have done so far.

 At Sovereign Hill we panned for gold but didn't find any. We went to a sweet shop and had a really nice raspberry sweet. We watched a pantomime of Beauty and the Beast. It was really good and funny. This picture is Fleur and me with the actors.

 In Denmark I went to a farm. I fed a baby cow, a baby goat and a baby kangaroo with milk. There were lots of different animals, my favourite were the llamas they had big fluffy ears.

 At Perth we went to the zoo and saw lots of different animals. My favourite animals were the lemurs I liked watching them play in the trees. They were on a little island in the middle of a lake. There were lots of fish and pelicans in the lake.

 In Adelaide we watched the cycling and met our friends Mikayla and Erika from Newcastle. I went in a cycling race and did seven laps in twenty minutes. Our caravan park had three waterslides and two pools it was the best park so far. We went on the slides and pools with Mikayla and Erika.

 Hope you like my blog page. Love from Ellie x

 

Pilbara

The Pilbara, large, dry, thinly populated region in the north of Western Australia. It is known for its ancient landscapes, the red earth, and its vast mineral deposits, in particular iron ore. The Pilbara includes some of Earth's oldest rock formations (over 2 billion years old).

The Rio Tinto Tom Price Iron Ore Mine - Fleur and Ellie discussing the merits of the 300T shovel. It was agreed by all that if you really want to move iron ore there was no point getting out of bed to operate anything less than the 800T shovel which is probably why this 300T'er was parked up in the viewing area.

On top of 'Mount Nameless' over looking Tom Price town and the Mine. At 747m the town is the highest town in WA hence the nickname 'WA's Top Town'. At 1115m the Mountain is the highest point in WA that you can drive to albeit an extremely steep and rough road to the top, low range 4 wheel drive and first gear nearly all of the way. 

Karijini National Park, the second largest National park in WA with stunning views in to the deep gorges and cascading waterfalls. At Fortescue Falls, a waterfall that falls all year round, we all had a swim in Fern Pool. The water was lovely and warm which was refreshing after the climb down into the gorge on a typically hot and humid day. The other great thing is that the flies don't seem to be able to muster the strength to make it down into the gorges so we could swim in peace.  

Port Headland the final Australian stage of the iron ore mining process. Iron ore is loaded on to ships to send to China or Japan at the rate of 6-8 ships per day. Very much like Newcastle in NSW except red iron ore in place of black coal and Port Headland is a bit rougher than Newcastle. 

Torres Strait Islander Memorial Statue. This monument recognises the record breaking Pilbara track layers who laid seven kilometres of track in 11 hours and 40 minutes whilst constructing the line to Newman in the 1960s. Not sure what happened, 50 years later the best we could achieved was 800m in a day.

Eighty Mile Beach at sunset. The beach lies along the north-west coast of WA between Port Headland and Broome and at 220 kilometres (140m) in length, is the longest uninterrupted beach in WA. Can't tell you why its not called 140 Mile Beach. This coastline is where the Great Sandy Desert meets the Indian Ocean.

Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park, surreal in that it is 250km from anywhere yet it has acres of manicured lawns and box hedges and is positioned right behind the sand dunes on the beach. This must be the largest expanse of lawn in the entire outback and is the most grass we have seen since leaving NSW, you could be in England, almost, if it wasn't so hot.