Broome to Exmouth
Wow,
What a leaving present… Our parting gift the night before we left Broome
was to see a sensational sunset on Cable Beach and some more compulsory photos
of the camels and then drive around to Roebuck Bay to see the most magnificent
“Stairway to the Moon” that you could imagine. The moon as it rose from the east was a vivid
golden colour and the stairway across the mudflats reflected the same
shimmering golden colour. After having
spent the best part of 6 weeks in the Kimberley
this was just a spectacular way of departing on the next leg of our trip.
Eighty Miles Of Beach…. It was onto Eighty Mile
Beach for four days. You cannot book a site here so you just turn
up and they will accommodate you somewhere.
We had a holding bay powered site for the first night before we moved onto
a shaded, grassed site for the rest of our stay. It is a very popular spot for travellers and
more so since our last visit in 2000.
Our days were filled with the “ultimate max of relaxation”. This consisted of Liz walking along the
pristine beach looking for shells. The
beach goes forever and at low tide it can be one kilometer to the water and
high tide 40 metres to the water. Quite
amazing. It would be then time for
breakfast, a read of a novel and then it would be time for fishing, as the tide
was approaching the high water mark. We
would drive about 3km along the beach and try our luck.
Along the front of the caravan park, there
would be a fisherman or fisherwoman every 100 metres trying to catch their
dinner. The only thing was that not
many were catching fish which was disappointing. One reason being that there were 
people netting the beach, another was that the water
was too cold. This didn’t stop
everyone going down each day and fishing though.
Once the tide started going out, it was time
for another walk along the beach to find more shells to add to your collection
and bring home. Liz hasn’t worked
out yet what she will do with them. It
was like an addiction. You would sort
them, wash them, put them in rows and look at them. Some ladies even left them
on show outside their caravans for everyone to admire. Liz (being more mature!) didn’t do this
– thank goodness. At the end, Liz
became more selective and even returned some back to the beach. Rock collecting could be next on the agenda!
It would then be time for drinks on the
beach watching another beautiful sunset (left), dinner and bedtime –
ready for the next busy day. After four
days we decided it was time to get moving again - the caravan 
was starting to be filled up with shells and there
were no fish being caught.
Off
Road….. Our next stop was De Grey River. This is an off road camp spot right on the
banks of the river with river gums and shady trees all around. The Pilbara region had had 5 inches of rain
three weeks earlier and the river had filled up with lots of water which made
it quite picturesque. Again Rob tried
his luck at fishing, but no fish. We had
a camp fire that night and another two couples joined us for drinks. You do meet some interesting people along the
way especially when you stop overnight at roadside stops.
Conned, There Is No Marble…. Next morning we decided to
visit Marble Bar, 200 kms away. This was
not on our itinerary, but we had heard good reports along our travels. We didn’t know what to expect. The road was bitumen all the way in, so an
easy drive for Rob except for a rather strong easterly headwind.
We were greeted at Marble Bar Caravan Park
by Ingrid and Gerald, a couple of New Zealanders who took over the park three
years ago. It was a small park with
lovely green sites and spotless toilets and showers. Ingrid gave a talk twice a day to all new
arrivals on what there is to do in Marble Bar and surprisingly, there was a lot
to do. She was so helpful and deserves
to get Marble Bar on the tourist “must visit” list.
Marble Bar is the hottest town in Australia
during summer with temperatures of over 38oC for days on end. The record is 160 consecutive days of
temperatures over 38.7oC (100oF) 
back in 1923-24, but last year they nearly beat this
record only falling short by a couple of days.
While we were there in the middle of winter it was a warm 31 degrees
with a low of around 14 degrees at night.
Rob and I had to put on a jumper as we felt cold.
The town is very small, with of course, the
local pub called “The Ironclad” which is clad in corrugated iron,
the general store and service station, the tele-centre, shire offices, civic
centre, school and the Travelers Inn – a motel and licensed restaurant
which, would you believe was booked out for three weeks. We had a counter tea at the pub. We ordered the seafood platter 
which arrived at the table wrapped up in
butcher’s paper. We 
later realized that all meals at the pub were served
take away style. It was a huge meal and
very nice.
There was a lot to do and we started with a
tour of the Comet Gold Mine (left) founded in 1936 by Tommy Star but not
operating now. This was a very
comprehensive 1 ¾ hour tour including a trip underground and a walk through the
gold extraction plant which is now idle.
Marble Bar was named by the pioneers after they discovered rock which
they mistook as marble. This rock is
called Jasper and crosses the Coongan
River. The display of Jasper 
and its colours is quite amazing. The colours in the rock show up when a bucket
of water is poured over the rock (right).
We Couldn’t Achieve Lift Off… Corunna Downs
Air Base was interesting. Approximately
35 kms from Marble Bar there are the remains of one of the best kept secrets of
World War II. The airstrips (left) are
still there and in amazingly good condition proved out by Rob racing down the
runway at 100kph. The Prado however
refused to lift off so we were destined to drive back to Marble Bar. The remains of buildings where once there was
a bustling air base of 2000 people made up of Australians and Americans who
flew out to blast Japanese bases and enemy shipping, and troop movements in 
Indonesia that were threatening Australia in the
north.
Off the Port Hedland Road and 35 kms from Marble
Bar was Coppin’s Gap a waterhole
fed by an underground spring. This was a
peaceful spot and surrounded with cliffs of jasper rock and tiger iron rock
which becomes very colourful when the sun shines on it. Doolena Gorge (left) was another pretty gorge
full of water due to the recent rains and some interesting birdlife as
well. Our last night in Marble Bar took
us back to the Ironclad Hotel for “dinner”. Most of the people were the same lot as 
a couple of nights before, with a few tourists as well
who we joined for dinner.
Not Quite The Melbourne
Cup… We left to continue on to Port Hedland where
we stayed for two nights. The Port
Hedland Cup was on so we couldn’t miss it. It was a beautiful warm day for Cup Day which
the whole town enjoys. The majority of
girls made the effort to dress up, while most of the guys dressed in shorts and
tee shirts, but they knew how to enjoy themselves. Rob had a couple of wins on horses we had
never heard of, one being the Port Hedland Cup, but Liz wasn’t so lucky. We enjoyed ourselves just watching the
different sights around us.
Karijini National Park, The Adventure Park….. We visited
Karijini in 2000 and enjoyed the park so much we decided that another visit was
necessary. The road is bitumen from Port
Hedland right up to the Dales Gorge camp ground so we took the caravan in for a
bit of luxury. More and more people are
visiting this spectacular National Park due to increased promotion, and more
Australians wanting adventure, and adventure is what you get at Karijini.
The mud maps of the gorges are well defined showing
different levels of difficulty. We
visited Dales Gorge first which includes a rim walk looking down into the gorge
– about 70 metres in depth, then it is a climb down into the gorge to
Circular Pool (left) a beautiful spot for a swim and lunch. Click on the photo
to hear the beautiful ambience of the pool.
The walk along the gorge is beautiful with ghost gums, paperbarks and
natives along the water’s edge. At
the end of the walk you come across Fortesque
Falls where the water is
tumbling over the rocks to the pool below.
Another great spot for swimmers but rather popular. From the falls you can walk to Fern Pool and
this would be a favourite spot. There is
a jetty here surrounded by the gorge walls and another waterfall where you can
swim to, and sit under the falling water for a very good massage. A place not to be missed.
You
Feel Like Indiana
Jones In This Place, Non Stop Adventure…. The next day
saw us travel to Knox 
Gorge. From the
lookout it was 120 metres below us. Rob
made his way down to the gorge floor while Liz stayed on the top. The path down consisted of loose gravel and
rocks and quite steep in parts but Rob handled it easily and walked the entire
length of the gorge until the Level 6 sign appeared (left). This Level 6 is for experienced rock climbers and
abseilers. At the other end of the gorge
is the most beautiful fern pool (left).
It was his highlight for the day.
Close by is Joffre Gorge and from the lookout there are a small number
of little waterfalls that combine into one big waterfall that falls down to the
pool below. Again you can reach the
bottom by climbing down into the pool area and looking back behind you into the
narrow gorge.
Handcock Gorge was next. Once you climbed down to a certain level, a
ladder had to be 
descended to the gorge floor and from here you continued
until you either had to wade/swim (left picture) or climb around the rock ledge
to reach the Amphitheatre, a large open area with high cliff walls on each
side. The gorge kept going but we
decided to stop here.
Next was Weano Gorge. Again you climbed down into the gorge and
walked through water and beautiful scenery until you reached a very narrow
opening of cliff face. Care had to be
taken here as it was slippery, but further on there was a handrail (photo right)
that had been put in place for you to move along to a suspended rope that
lowered you to a fairly cool waterhole, again surrounded by steep cliff walls
towering above you. Truly amazing.
It really is a great National Park, and no
doubt, as more people hear about this wonderland, it will be even busier in
years to come. At the moment there are
only a couple of camp grounds and only a couple of local tour buses bringing
tourists in. Let’s hope it remains like this, but times are changing so much,
even since 2000.
Tom
Price For The Day… We spent our last day in Karijini visiting
Tom Price, the iron ore mining town. We
had lunch in the town which is not a bad little town – nice and green and
fairly clean. We drove up Mt Nameless
and reached the highest spot, 1016 metres, accessible by road in Western Australia. It is a steep, strictly 4WD track, but good
fun. It was a great spot to view the
workings of the mine (left) and see the town and surrounding area. Drove to the lookout of Mt Bruce and saw the
mining town of Marandou
and waited at the railway crossing for the 220 carriages of iron ore being
railed for export.
Oh No, Bad News From Home…. After four nights in Karijini
it was time to move on towards Karratha.
We decided to stay at Point Samson a small holiday fishing town just
north of Karratha. We had been off
mobile reception for four days and on arrival in Point Samson, we received a
phone call from our son Andrew. He had
had a skiing accident at Mt Buller that day and was being transported to Cabrini Hospital for surgery. He had broken the main bone in his leg, the
tibia, and was operated on the next day.
He is now recovering at home for two weeks off work with at least 8
weeks on crutches. Unfortunately, their
two week skiing holiday to New
Zealand the following week, has now had to
be cancelled.
Friendly,
Friendly, Friendly…. Point Samson was a very friendly small park
and we ended up being invited for a freshly caught fish dinner that night with
some people staying at the park. The
next day we went fishing with them at the boat harbour. Here Rob managed to catch a few golden
trevally before we moved on. We called
into Cossack, an historical town just out of Karratha. An interesting place full of history but also
full of sand flies as well, but we must be getting close to civilization as
they had Cappuccinos. We then moved
onto Karratha for the next three days, and the Pilbara Holiday
Caravan Park
- a well organized and clean park. Worth
remembering. Karratha gave us time to
tidy up and have a bit of a spring clean to remove some of the red dust that we
had collected along the way. It was also
a stopover for the Landcruiser to be serviced before we made our way to Exmouth
and the Ningaloo Reef.
On the Road Again…. Karratha to Exmouth is a long stretch of
road of 550 kms, so we had an off road stop to break the journey. The wildflowers were now coming out and we
saw our first Sturt
Desert Pea just out of
Karratha. Once seen, they were
everywhere. We also started seeing the
mauve Mulla Mulla, Featherheads, different wattles and masses of little purple
flowers. It definitely made the trip
more interesting, and it must be a spectacular sight further inland on the way
down to Perth. We arrived at Exmouth and settled into Ningaloo Caravan Park
for the next couple of days. Hopefully
we will be able to stay in the Cape
Range National
Park and explore the Ningaloo Reef from
there. We will cover this leg of our
journey in the next episode.