Karijini National Park - Dales Gorge

We spent a day exploring Dales Gorge on a beautiful sunny day. The first stop was Fortesque Falls.

Fern Pool. Josh had a great time swimming in the crystal clear water.

Lachy's toe is on the mend and healing well. ( Hope we did not gross out too many people with this shot!)

Alison loved the paper bark trees along the walk to Circular Pool. Unfortunatly our camera batteries ran flat and so we only have memories of Circular Pool.

Port Hedland

You just never know what you are going to come across when you are driving along these roads. We took both of these shots near Port Hedland!

Port Hedland harbour with one of the ships being loaded up with iron ore.

Barn Hill & De Grey River

Barn Hill beach, beautiful white sand with amazing rock cliffs. Fun in the camper!

De Grey River campsite.

Sunset at De Grey river.

Broome - Exmouth

We have just settled ourselves into a cmpsite at Coral Bay after 4 fantastic days & nights at Cape Range National Park just out of Exmouth. We left Cape Leveque and headed back into Broome for supplies and then kept going on to Barn Hill Station for a night. After a long walk along 80 mile beach there in the morning we headed on into Port Hedland for morningtea and then on out towards Karijini National Park. We had to do a free roadside overnight camp at DeGrey River which was actually a lovely spot (thanks Jaimie). Then headed into the incredible Karijini for 3 nights based at Dales Gorge. We loved the walks in here, Dales Gorge was lovely with Fern poll up one end and circular pool down the other and a gorgeous walk through a paperbark grove along the way. Then we drove over to the other side of the park and did the Handrail walk which involved lots of cold water wading and rock climbing ending up down in a stunning water hole. Then the Spider walk which was lots of fun but a bit slippery & challenging in some spots. You could see how some people could really come unstuck. The boys loved the physical challenge and kept each other going by trying to keep up with one another. Again lots of wading through water and hanging on to slippery sides of rock faces, climbing down above a waterfall to what seemed like a neverending waterway that got more and more difficult until we had to stop for lack of rockclimbing equipment.
At Dales Gorge campground we met up with Richard & Roxanne with their son Lucas. The boys enjoyed hanging out at camp and we were all heading toward Ningaloo so swapped mobile numbers. After leaving Karaijini via Tom Price (missed the mine tour) we had another overnight free camp in a lovely dry creek bed before arriving at Exmouth. Pete managed to catch his first WA surf for the trip at the originally named 'surfer's beach'. Then we got up early next morning, packed up quick and zoomed out to the rangers station to line up for a campsite in the National Park. When it's peak season people were lining up at 5:30 am for this. Luckily for us things have quietened down so we arrived at a leisurely 7:30am. Hooked back up with Richard & Rox and we all bagged sites at Mesa campground. We had THE best time out there. It's in a great location and there were 5 other really good fun families out there too. The kids did their usually hook up with everyone under 18 in sight and spent days roaming the sandunes, making shelters, having wars, forging alliances and ambushing everything. Kid heaven. We were next door to Pete & Bron from Kiama and their 4 kids. A really lovely family. Pete & Pete went to Exmouth for a surf together one morning. Aside from all that exploring Ningaloo reef has been incredible. We couldn't believe all the life we saw under water. Between us we all saw turtles, rays, sharks, eels, all sorts of corals, zillions of tropical reef fish, possibly a dugong it was really great. Will put photos up shortly.

Rewind........



Due to technical difficulties Broome was swept of the webpage!!



Take 2!



Before heading to the Dampier Peninsula we spent some time in Broome and enjoyed the sights and sounds of this great town. Everyone recommended the camel ride at Cable Beach so we gave it a go and signed up for the 7am ride!!! It was a beautiful experience first thing in the morning and the guides were quite informative about the life of a camel and where these ones were from. Finn had a ride on Lazy Daisy (an ex race camel who is actually a male) who was very smart and held her (er.. his) nose cord in her/his mouth so that it did not tug on his nose!



Lachy sizing up his camel. They finally came to an understanding and had a great ride.

Kooljaman/Cape Leveque 29/8/10 - 2/9/10

We had a great time up at Kooljaman/Cape Leveque

. We had 4 nights in a beach side shelter next door to Mandy & Liam in theirs.They were literally tucked inbetween 2 sand dunes which was a challenge to haul our camper into. Pete discovered the only way to tackled it was to drop the clutch and hammer it in flat chat with engine smoking. We bumped into my Uni friend Jo Duke's sister Kathryn and her family of 3 boys which was nice. On top of that there was another Red Hill Consolidated family there Jaimie & James who have
a son Hudson in Finn's grade and also another family Jenny & Stefan we'd met earlier on the Gibb. Pete & the boys did a spear making tour with some of the real locals which was meant to be 3 hours and turned into about 5 or 6. They had a ball but Lachy shredded the bottom of his little toe on some oyster rocks which needed some attention at the local Health Centre at One Arm Point up the road. It's all healing up nicely now but looked like a partial amputation when he first did it. While we were there we got chatting to one of the nurses about his 4 mth family trip that was now in its fourth year and all of the adventures they've had. Josh & Pete went fishing after the spear making trip and Josh landed 7 fish!!! He couldn't believe his luck. Pete landed 1 biggie too so that took care of dinner - we tried making sushi.

Middle Lagoon

Dampier Peninsula 26/8/ - 2/9/10

We've just resurfaced again after a fantastic week up on the lovely Dampier Peninsula. What a place! Although we had missed Danny & Simone not being @ Middle Lagoon we went anyway and really loved the laid back feel of this spot. We had a terriffic campsite up on top of a grassy sand dune looking straight out to sea. The view was awesome and the Humpback Whales were almost plague proportions! Well... not plague but there were heaps of them. Most mornings we sat up there over our morning cuppa watching them frolicking around, spouting off and flapping their pec fins around straight out in front of us in the deep. Occasionally they even started breaching. It was a special experience. We were there for the full moon which brought out trillions of hermit crabs in the sand dune. You can imagine the fun the boys had with that. Other highlights there were fishing successfully for dinner (thanks for the gear & tips to Pete, Gavin). We also had some great snorkelling there, saw lots of fish and coral but personally was a little put off when a reef shark came zooming in under Pete, Mandy & I as if he owned the joint - which I guess he does. The other two kept exploring but I decided to make what I hoped looked like a casual retreat, which got faster and faster the more I thought about how far I was from shore!
Middle Lagoon is definitely a favourite for me so far. Having some issues loading pics but will hopefully sort out soon.

Broome

We are now enjoying some lush time in Broome after what feels like weeks in the dust. We have had a huge adventure trekking down the Gibb River Rd - a little more adventure than we'd planned on having but overall it was worth it and we have been to some incredible places to swim and see gorges. Would not recommend doing this road without really preparing for it though - we thought we had and still had problems. Met some great people along the way and re connected with Many & Liam and the boys again at Silent Grove (Bell Gorge). We are still cruising in generally the same direction together, spent a night at Windjana Gorge & Tunnel creek together are all now 'regrouping' here in Broome before heading up to Middle Lagoon and Cape Leveque tomorow. Meant to be sensational up there so looking forward to that. Unfortunately our Gibb River delays meant we missed Danny & Simone Gilligan (from Arthurs Seat) who were at Middle Lagoon for their annual couple of months.
Had moonlit fish & chips on Cable Beach last night to celebrate having 'made it'. The full moon on at the moment means we will get to see the staircase to the moon on Roebuck bay tonight. Car in for a well deserved service today to hopefully survive the rest of our trip.
More photos soon.

Tunnel Creek

Tunnel Creek was an amazing experience with so much to see in the dark. Josh spotted a fresh water lobster, another family had a close encounter with a small fresh water crocodile and there were plenty of fish (Should have taken the fishing rods)

One of the stops along the way to Broom.

Beautiful Bell Gorge

We had a very relaxing time at Bell Gorge after our long drive from Ellenbrae and enjoyed the sun set. For a time we had the place to our self.



Beautiful location, soaking up the sounds of the water fall.

Gibb River Road (The Journey Continues)

Our journey continued on the Gibb River Road as we returned back to Ellenbrae Station. We had travelled back from Kununurra after picking up the new camper springs and had them in the back of the car. It was a long journey to Kununurra and back but we all travelled well.





While we were at Ellenbrae the kids did a spot of fishing with Lachy catching the only fish. It was a beautiful water hole and the kids also enjoyed a swim and mud fight after the fish stopped biting.







Brian and Pete working on replacing the broken springs on the camper. Two and a half hours later we were all set to go again. We could now put the tents and swags away and start sleeping in the camper.

We said our farewells to the Ellenbrae folk who had provided us with wonderful hospitality during our various stays there while we sorted out the camper and headed back down the Gibb River Road on our way to Silent Grove.

more of Kurundjie track: Wyndham to El Questro

Wyndham & drive down some of Kurandjie Track

Still in the Kimberley

Have just spent the last few days tripping down the Gibb River Rd. Didn't quite go exactly as planned but suffice to say that these back tracks are not for the faint hearted! Never a dull moment at least not in our case anyway. The new camper has been great but we can now confidently say we have explored some of its limitations (long story will fill you in another time). We made it on from El Questro and 'stopped in' at Home Valley station and Ellenbrae station. At this point we waved goodbye to our travelling companions Mandy, Liam,Christopher & Luke as they headeed up towards the Mitchell Plateau and we reassessed our options. We had a great time travelling together and hope to find them again further on.
From there we went on to Manning Gorge for a night and a swim and then on to Old Mornington Station for 3 nights. Its an old massive cattle station now owned by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy to preserve habitat. The drive in alone takes 1.5 hrs off the rd. We really enjoyed Old Mornington and met up with a lovely family from Northcote who'd shared the same maternal & child health nurse, swimming teacher and kinder as us when we were in Thornbury. They had 2 boys the same age as Josh & Lachy. Spent a day canoeing down another gorge with them. Also met a nice German family in there too and swapped some English/German vocab for a bit. The drive in & out gave us the opportunity to check out our spare tyre and puncture repair kit. Now back in Kununurra again taking the less conventional route through this area, picking up supplies and a couple of parts before heading back off and (all going well!!) on towards Broome and or Cape Leveque.