Kununurra: 3-Day Ord River Canoe Safari

We awoke early and drove straight to the base for the canoe safari where we were told we had 5 minutes to pack what we needed for the 3-day trip before we went to pick up the rest of the group. We did a quick scramble and got together what we hoped would be enough stuff and said goodbye to the Space Pig which would be staying with Maka for the duration of our trip.

Each pair was provided with an esky for food, a large water-tight barrel with pillows and sheets, a smaller barrel for personal stuff, a tent, two air mattresses and a water-tight bag for our valuables such as camera.

We drove out to the hostel to get a couple of people and then to the airport. All up there were eight of us in four canoes. There was Dave and I, a couple from Taiwan (Anna) and Germany (Dietmar), a couple from Australia (Ben) and Canada (Daniella) with Ben's Dad (John) and another lady from NZ called Joan (72 years of age and still just as fit as the rest of us - an inspiration!!)

We piled in the van and drove to Lake Argyle where we had a quick look around:



Lake Argyle is pretty interesting. It was dammed up in 1971 by a small wall as part of the Ord River Irrigation Scheme and is now a huge water supply. It is Australia's second largest artificial lake.

We had a quick look at the maps showing us our journey and stop-overs. The maps were easy to follow and detailed lots of side trips along the way. The first day there were a few bits of faster water to navigate and we were told that this is the most common place to capsize. We were then sent on our way, starting at the top of the Ord River to complete 22km of the 53km trip.

Packed up and ready to go:


We were told that there were plenty of freshwater crocs in the water (when I asked on the phone about this, Maka said "Yeah, there's plenty of em, you'll be canoeing with 'em, swimming with 'em" - Yikes!) We were a bit apprehensive at first and every twig, log or leaf in the water took on certain croc-like features. However by the end of the trip we had learnt a lot about them and come to realise that the freshwater crocs are a completely different (relatively harmless) species compared to the larger saltwater (estuarine) crocs which would devour you in a second.

The first 5kms was very calm and we used the time to get ourselves settled in the boat and enjoy the great view:

There were a few faster sections but we got through them with no problem at all. We passed a flying fox camp with hundreds of smelly, noisy bats hanging from the trees - we had been told not to go too close to them as you may feel something like rain on your head!

We continued on to Sandy Beach where we stopped for lunch. This was the end of the fast water sections and we all made it in one piece!! Ben, Danielle, John and Joan had done a Nature Cruise in the morning and caught up with us at Sandy Beach. While we were waiting for them, Dave threw in a line and managed to catch a Bream on the first go!

Relaxing on Sandy Beach:

We set off on the second leg for the day. It became a bit wider and not as fast so we had to paddle a little harder.

There was plenty of stunning scenery to take in along the way and it was good to stop paddling and just drift along quietly, listening to all the sounds around us.

We went through Carlton Gorge which was lovely:

We saw a few Freshies on the way to camp and managed to pull up at the little jetty with about an hour of light left. Ther campsites were a great set up with tables and chairs, a great open fire and gas hotplates. We set up our tents on top of individual sleeping platforms. Even the toilet had a great view - up, some steps above the camp, with no walls, just a great view of the stars.

We had dinner and sat around for a while, chatting. The only thing missing was some beer which we'd had no time to purchase in the morning. Dave set up the yabbie trap overnight and then we headed to bed pretty early for a good sleep.

We woke at 5:15am for a beautiful sunrise over the water:

Dave checked the yabbie traps but there was nothing. However he found a different trap and put the bream head into it and waited for a yabbie to walk in before pulling it quickly out of the water. He managed to catch two this way, but not enough for all of us so he threw them back:

After breakfast we went for a walk up to the lookout behind the camp. This entailed a bit of a steep climb but the view at the top was most definately worth it!!!

After this we canoed up Cooliman Creek, a little side creek near the camp. We just drifted along quietly and saw lots of wildlife, managing to catch a great close-up shot of this darter drying its wings:

We threw a line in at different spots but the only managed to catch the dreaded catfish (or "Silver Cobbler" as it was renamed by an enterprising person to make it sell better!)

Ben releasing a small bream from Joan's line:

After this we went back to camp to re-load our canoes for the next leg. We felt like it must have been about midday but it was only about 8:30am!! The benefits of waking early!

We paddled up Pelican Creek and had a swim in one of the waterholes there which was lovely:

Following this we paddled up a very small creek which was fortunately marked with a buoy, otherwise we would probably have missed it. This was the entrance to Herbie's Hideaway which we had been told not to miss.

We parked (or should that be moored?) our canoes at the end of the creek:

Before walking about 20 minutes through the bushes. We arrived at an incredible spot - just stunning. A 100m gorge wall towered above us with a huge plungle pool at the bottom. Unfortunately our camera couldn't fit it all in!

We hung out for a while, enjoying the swim before heading back out to the Ord River.

Along this stretch we came across a "Party BBQ Boat" full of people celebrating something. Actually we heard it before we saw it, with loud bass intruding upon our tranquility. However, we couldn't complain when they beckoned Dave and I over and handed us a couple of beers each - ice cold on a hot day. Two of them were open so we just had to throw them down quickly before they warmed up:

After stopping for lunch at a JJJ picnic spot, we continued on to our second camp - Stonewall Camp. We quickly set up our tents and then jumped back into the canoes to go and visit "Jump Rock" a perfect rock for jumping off into the 26m deep water below.

Of couse, the ninny that I am, I was pretty scared as I don't tend to go thowing myself off rocks on a daily basis but I made myself climb up and have a look. Dave jumped off first with Ben and then I decided "what the heck" and decided to give it a go. Thanks to Daniella who took the best photos ever.

1) Dave and I up the top:

2) One, Two, Three.... Jump!!!

(Click on this for best view of pic - you may even see the expression on our faces - pure joy for Dave and scared shitless for me!)

3) Made it!

4) And still smiling.

It was a funny thing, wanting to go up 8 metres to jump into crocodile infested waters!

After this we paddled up Rawsons Creek to have a look around.

Our tent site. Room with a view!

"This is much easier without all our gear!"

When we got back to camp we were met with Ben who had just caught a decent sized Sooty Grunter:

Dave headed back out to try his luck with Ben while John gutted the fish (Interestingly it changed colour when it was hit over the head - to a pale yellow colour).

Back at camp we saw a Bower Bird nest. These are pretty incredible as the (very boring brown coloured) male bower bird makes the nest and collects stones, bones and coloured things (usually blue or green) to display around the nest to attract the female bird.

Daniella and I went off to have a look at the huge Boab Tree:

Unfortunately Dave and Ben had no luck catching anything else but we cooked up the Grunter for dinner and it was pretty good, stuffed with onion and garlic and cooked on the hotplate over an open fire!

At around 7pm when it was pitch black, we all got back in our canoe and paddled out to the middle of the river where we all racked up together and lay back and gazed at the stars. What a wonderful way to see them (albeit a little eerie!)

After this, we went back to the camp fire and sat around for a bit of a chat. Another great day with great company.

We woke up again at 5:30am - bright and early as we wanted to head back as early as possible to beat the heat. After breakfast and packing up we headed back to the Boab Tree for a group photo:

Joan, Ness, Dave, Anna & Dietmar, John, Daniella, Ben.

Paddling back to Kununurra, we were faced with a big head-wind which made it pretty tough going. After about 2 and a half hours of intense paddling we pulled into a rest area and waited for Anna and Dietmar. When they arrived we decided to get picked up from Zebra Rock Gallery as it was a bit closer.

A monitor at the rest area:

Beware of crocs:

We paddled for another half an hour and arrived at Zebra Rock where we packed up and waited for Maka to pick us up. We were pretty tired but absolutely buzzing.

This is a trip we would recommend to anyone. It is by far one of the highlights of our whole travels. We were lucky enough to be with a great bunch of people who made it such a fun experience.

Go Wild Eco-noeing

$165pp - all gear provided - So worth it!!

Broome to Kununurra

Well, it certainly has been a long time between updates! We have been all over the place in the last month or so, often out of range, making it very difficult to access a computer. So its catch up time - this blog will be about our trip from Broome to Kununurra, then I will write about a 3-day canoe safari we did which deserves a blog all of its own; next, our time from Kununurra to El Questro and finally our time in the Bungle Bungles.

But... first things first.

After leaving Karijini Natrional Park we drove the 360km to Port Hedland which was just a stop-over - not a lot to do here! Although we did meet Renate - a German backpacker who was heading to the Buingle Bungles at a later date and was looking for some company in her 4WD - a person you will hear more about later.

We were planning to buy new tyres in Port Hedland as we've given ours a pretty good thrashing on dirt roads in the last while but there weren't any available. The other thing we needed to fix was the sliding door on the side of the van - the lock was playing up and the door couldn't lock (or else locked permanently). Dave spent a good 3 hours fiddling with it to no avail so it was off to Broome - 600kms away.

We stopped half way at a rest stop for the night and frustratingly had to climb into the van through the front. Our gas lantern decided not to work either. Grrrrr.... However, there were beautiful stars to gaze at and we had to remind ourselves, in the words of Monty Python: "Always look on the bright side of life"...

The next morning we left at 7am and drove the 220km to Broome, passing a sign along the way pointing to 'Didyabanga'. A quick check on the map saw that this was a piss-take on Bidyadanga.

We drove into Broome and straight to the Roebuck Caravan Park as we heard it was very hard to get a spot in Broome. However we were lucky to get a powered site for 3 nights.

Our next stop was to try and get the door fixed. This involved lots of driving around - locksmith, smash repairs etc. After a while we had seen nothing of Broome (but were very familiar with the light industrial area!) but did find out that it was the cable in the lock that had seized. A visit to a Toyota parts place saw that there was no new part in Oz and we would have to wait 4 weeks for it to come in. No thanks! We rang a wreckers in Perth and organised for them to send a 2nd hand cable express post to us. Phew!! After all this we went to about 5 different tyre places and ended up getting booked in for 2 new tyres the following day.

Later that evening we finally managed to do our first bit of sight-seeing when we headed out to Cable Beach to meet up with our friend Jen from the Mad Monk. We hung out for a while and then decided to meet up shortly for a BBQ on the beach. We went back to camp to grab some washing off the line and as we were walking back to the car, chatting away, I felt a movement right by my leg. Instinctively I jumped out of the way and just as well for right there, in the middle of the driveway was a big SNAKE, reared up in the striking position!!! It had tried to have a go at me! Rather freaky but as it slid away a man came over and said it was an Olive Python - harmless to humans apparently. Still, made for an interesting story!

The next day we had a mosy round the shops and drove around to the cape which was rather nice:

We then drove out to Town Beach. It was really nice and we couldn't figure out why no-one was swimming on such a warm day. Found out later a salt water croc had been removed from the water a few days earlier.

We headed to a brewery called Matsos where Jen had just got a job. Sampled the beers which were OK, but nothing compared to Justins at the Monk!!

Drinks with Jen (2 girls, 4 beers, what more could you want?):

That evening we headed to the Moscow Circus with Jen and some others. We had an absolute ball and there were lots of great acts: magicians, jugglers, contortionists, acrobats, clowns, a great ringmaster, a giant slinky and to end it all an amazing motorbike act where they fitted 4 motorbikes in a tiny steel sphere, all travelling at 80km/hr. Good stuff.

Oh so mature:

The next day we bummed around a bit and then drove to Toyota to pick up the car cable. Went back to the caravan park and Dave managed to fix the door. Yippee!!!

The following day we went to the markets and then met Jen at Town Beach where we hung for most of the day and said our goodbyes to Jen.

After dropping Jen off at work we drove to Cable Beach for a sunset camel ride.

This was with the BLUE camels (there are three tour groups that operate) http://www.broomecamelsafaris.com.au/about.html
This one was the best as they are happy to run along beside you and grab your camera to take photos of you and the camels - as opposed to the other operators who charge $10 for a professional photo. This was great fun. We had a camel named Cairo and he was a little bit mischeivous.

The tour was an hour and we saw a great sunset:

We're the ones in the middle waving:

True to the rumours, they are pretty smelly but not a too uncomfortable way to travel (at least for an hour - don't know if I could do the 5 day tours they do in Alice Springs!)

Afterwards they were rewarded with a carrot for their efforts.

We headed to the sunset bar for a quick drink - rather a nice atmosphere and quite a tropical feel about it!

In the morning we headed to Town Beach to cook up some pancakes. This photo is for Sarah and Dan "Darklords" - see Dan, this is what pancakes are supposed to look like...

Unlike this:


We then realised that our power inverter was not working and that it must be the cigarette lighter. As this is our lifeline to charge things on the road, we decided to hang another day (being a Sunday) and wait for tomorrow to see an autoelectrician to get it fixed. So we had a very L-A-Z-Y day at the beach and in the evening we went to the iconic outdoor cinemas and watched an aboriginal movie called "Samson and Delilah" - very sad but a good movie.

It was nice sitting under the stars with our wine, cheese and crackers.

By this stage it was getting very hot and we were struggling to sleep in the van at night - very sweaty and sticky!

The next morning we drove to the Autoelectrician who was lovely and fixed our lighter for $10 as well as testing our battery - all good!

We drove across to Derby and started to see a lot more Boab Trees. Very impressive! We stopped at the Prison Boab Tree which is a huge hollowed out tree that was once used to lock up kidnapped aboriginal prisoners when they stopped over in Derby overnight on their way to Broome to be used to work in the pearling industry.

We drove into Derby. Saw the wharf and had lunch - lots of mozzies! Not a lot else to do so drove to a parking area near a walking track to stay the night. Unfortunately in the morning just before we drove off we were reprimanded by a warden for staying there. Just a warning though which was lucky. Had to happen some time I spose!

The next stop was Windjana Gorge. We drove on the Gibb River Road for a bit and then turned South to Windjana. We had heard so many conflicting stories about the Gibb River Road - from "She'll be right in a 2WD" to "Its a rough as guts". We decided to take our chances and the road so far was pretty good.

Windjana Gorge was amazing - it felt so untouched and ancient. You could easily picture dinosaurs roaming the land. There were so many sounds and smells to take in as well as the sights.

This was our first sighting of crocs in the wild - only freshies but exciting nevertheless!

You could get pretty close:

Spot the croc:

We also saw the "Bushtucker Man" which excited Dave! (Personally I've never heard of him!)

Next stop was Tunnel Creek. This was pretty good too - you need a good torch to get around.

Following this we drove the rest of the road to Fitzroy Crossing. The road got a bit rough at the end but good old piggy made it through no worries.

We called in to Coles Express and caught up with a couple we met in Coober Pedy - had a few drinks and a catch up before heading back to camp at the Fitzroy Crossing Lodge.

The next moring we noticed the back tyre was just a little flat. Pumped it up again and drove out to Geike Gorge to do the boat trip. We went on a short walk before the cruise and when we got back to the car this is what we found:

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Hmmm, maybe the pig didn't cope so well after all!!!

Dave changed the tyre while I went and bought tickets and then we boarded the boat for an hour cruise. This was lovely - not as spectacular as some of the places we've been lately but that's just because we've been spoilt! Saw a few more fresh water crocs and plenty of other animal life.

Jabiru:

Couple of crocs:

We left Fitzroy Crossing after lunch and drove towards Halls Creek. Stopped at a gallery in the Yiylii Community - a nice wee place with a school of 60 kids. Saw some great paintings but nothing we could afford.

We drove on to Halls Creek and East to see the "China Wall" - a limestone formation.

(Photo: Renate)

We drove a few kms further where we stopped for the night at Carolines Pool where we saw a few wild brumbies (horses).

The next morning we drove into Halls Creek to fill up.

(Photo: Rentate)

I went to open the back hatch and...aaaagh..... the back latch broke!!!! Not having much luck with the locks! We decided to drive straight to Kununnurra and went to yet another Toyota Dealer. Dave took off the back panel and found the latch had snapped. Probably just due to general wear and tear as well as all the red dust thats been getting into things. again, same story - nothing available in the area, rang Perth Wreckers again but they had nothing so we had to ring Dave's parents to find one in Sydney and bring it with them to Darwin - a few weeks away. So this meant climbing in through the back every time we needed to open the back hatch!!

We got the other 2 tyres on the car replaced and then went to the visitor centre where we decided to do a canoe safari. We drove to a rest stop for the night and were called by Maka from the canoe place at 7:30pm to say we could go the next day at 6:30am - so no time to buy any supplies. They canoe safari turned out to be a real highlight and we took heaps of photos so I will dedicated a whole blog to that next - stay tuned!