Day 77 Tanami Desert and Ti Tree

 We are still adjusting to NT time, and the alarm went off and it was still dark and we were still feeling sleepy and used to WA time. But we got up and and got to enjoy the sunrise, as we packed up and Matt enjoyed breakfast whilst watching it. The colours were sensational, with a little cloud cover for added special effects. It was a cooler morning, but even though it doesn’t look like a desert, we were in one, so we shouldn’t have been surprised it was cooler. We went for a short stroll to try and work out who made what footprints in the sand, and we think there was a gecko, birds of varying sizes and a dingo. We headed back onto the dirt road but fortunately not for long, as this brand new double lane asphalt road appeared sooner than we had expected. Oh the joy to our ears, and body after the previous 2 days of bumps and bounces, shakes and rattles. Matt added air back into the tyres, as he had lowered the pressure to do the dirt road. Being a heavy vehicle with an air clutch and brake system, Matt can easily use that air instead of his own breath, to reinflate the 6 big wheels. Even if I wanted to I can’t blow up tyres with my own breath. I’m talented but not that good.  We were back in motion before long and enjoying the quiet! We stopped at Tilmouth Well for a fuel top up at $2.75/litre for diesel, which was our second most expensive fuel, the most expensive being Mt Barnett on the Gibb at $2.95😱. We noticed some birds coming to a puddle of water for a drink, here. There were little finches, and tiny doves flittering in and out for a drink or splash and then these Guinea Fowls came running over wabbling from side to side as they ran, they didn’t want to miss out on the action. It was very funny to watch.

We headed back onto the Tanami, Matt had been observing and counting all the ex-cars in the bush rusted or upside down, and I was noting lots of ex-cows beside the road too. But neither had seem to have caused the demise of the other.  The lovely two lane road, then became a single lane of asphalt with gravel on either side. We know from roads like these in outback Queensland, that the general rule is that the smaller vehicle gives way or allows the biggest vehicle to stay on the road, and the smaller vehicle pulls over or drives along the edge. Fortunately only smaller vehicles came the other way and they all respected us and ceded so we could stay on the asphalt. Luckily no road trains came along. But we thought it was strange that they had made this lovely two lane road over 300km in the middle of the track, yet the road that led from the Stuart Highway, was still a single lane. We pulled off for Matt to enjoy lunch before we reached the Stuart Highway and made sure we took a photo of Bridget after she had achieved driving on another notorious road.

Ok yes Mum it does say that the stretch from the granites gold mine with its own airport, through to the Wa border is 4WD only. But the sign is at the Alice Springs end of the road. Over a 1000km ago at the Wa end of the road there was not even a sign that said Tanami rd. We looked for one to take a photo. Actually most of the 1600km of dirt roads we have driven on over the past 2 months have been classed as 4WD only. Good thing there are 4 drive wheels on the back hey! It’s mainly cause they couldn’t be bothered to pay someone to drive up to the two graders that are parked in the bush halfway along the Tanami, and get them to do the top bit.  Just to the mines.  That’s all that’s needed.  After doing that road and the Gibb river road I now have complete faith in my welds on the frame repairs, my suspension components that I made by hand, and my cabinet making as only one latch fell apart, but the cupboards are still attached. 

I also now know a lot more about the capability of these Clippers.  River crossings, sandy sections of roads, rough creek exits, this bus just climbs over anything.  It’s the best 4WD I’ve ever owned. 

We stopped at Aileron roadhouse briefly to see the big Anmatjere man sculpture. 

From there we headed north, and stopped at Ti Tree for the night. We did our routine clean up of dirt and dust, Matt got under Bridget for a checkup and cleaned out the dirt filled engine bay. We are ahead of schedule but this will give us more time in future stops.

On another random dull bit of trivia, we have crossed this country from south to north up the middle on the Stuart hwy, and on our way back we are travelling north on the Stuart hwy again. And we haven’t come back via the Nullarbor either… That’s not how normal people do it. (Hint for tomorrow we are travelling to the Barkley hwy and turning right to go to Queensland) we won’t travel south on the Stuart at all between Katherine and port Augusta. Just a weird thought that popped into my head when retracing our steps up the middle again today. 

Day 76 Tanami Desert, Renahans Well

 We set my pump to finish early this morning, not only to help ourselves adjust to the imminent time zone change, but to allow for the loss of 1 1/2hrs driving time too. We headed off at sunrise and got to enjoy the spectacle as we drove along the dirt road. The road had deep and hard corrugations and ruts in sections and decent smoother sections in between. 

We observed that another fundraiser car rally was in action along the Tanami today, the Road Boss Rally. It wasn’t as big as the Shitbox rally fortunately, and was well organised. There was a mixture of newer and older cars and when we had pulled over for a break at a road stop, an old ‘80’s bright green Ford Falcon with Hulk stickers on it pulled over and 3 men stepped out dressed up in stereotypical Arab outfits complete with black and white checkered tea towel headwear. Another guy came and spoke to Matt and said he had seen us on Cable Beach with the 3 Clipper line up.

We continued on and just let the rally cars overtake us, as the road was quite wide and most let us know they were wanting to overtake. We had crossed the border into NT late morning, and there was an improvement in the road, with more decent sections, but when the road was bad, it was worse than the WA bad sections. We didn’t see any wildlife on the road, but at our stops, we were seeing droppings and trails in the sand of various animals. We did see one older gentleman towing a caravan in a Landcruiser driving at maximum 20km/hr, with his driver window down, driving at the very edge of the road. We had seen him a long way off and he took along time to reach us, as we had pulled over. They could be taking a few days if they continue at that speed to do the 1000km road. But his car was clean with only a little dust on the back of the caravan, I guess his priority is to keep the car clean, you can never be too careful about these things.😜

To drown out the rattles and squeaks in Bridget and road noise, Matt wore his ear protection headgear and I had my earphones on with Coldplay music going, which made the trip more pleasant for us both.

 There was an occasional bend in the road and slight hill, but otherwise it was fairly flat, with spinifex grasses, wattle, and the occasional gum tree or holly grevillea in the land around us. We did drive past a mine or two, and a fairly large airstrip for the mine with a good sized plane( think jumbo jet. ✈️)on the tarmac, presumably for the FIFO workers. There was also occasionally  burnt out and rusty car wrecks littering the scenery. A clipper club member who is well versed in desert travel mentioned to me that there are many aboriginal monuments along the Tanami, they were marked on a police road conditions report he once had. He soon learned that the monuments were burnt out cars.. I saw 9 of them today.  

As for the road , I can classify it much the same as the Gibb river road, if it’s a white or tan road it’ll be okay, if it’s orange and sandy it’ll be okay if it’s grey and rocky it’ll be rough and lumpy, and if it’s a deep red then  You’re all going to hell in a hand basket. 

We arrived at our destination for the night by mid afternoon, being Renahan’s Well, but one look at the windmill and they haven’t got water out of the well, for a long time. We enjoyed another beautiful sunset, but due to the increasing population of flies and mozzies, I didn’t stay outside for long. Bridget is going well, despite all the squeaks and needing a good sweep and mop after over 420km of dirt road today.

Day 75 China Wall, Wolfe Creek Crater, Tanami Desert

 We got up early this morning, and again opened the blinds to a great view of the sun rising. An early breakfast and a quick last look and I spotted the lone white Egret sitting on the rock island in the middle of Caroline Pool. We headed back towards Halls Creek and turned off to go and check out ‘the China Wall’, the name implying the rock structure looked a bit like the Great Wall of China. It was a white rocky feature heading up a hill, that looked like it was made of bricks, about 400mm wide, so quite narrow. Worth the look.

After topping up on fuel and water, we headed to Tanami Road, and commenced the 1000km road that takes you through the Tanami Desert. They have surfaced the road for the first 30km, before it turned into a work in progress for another 30km, but the dirt road running beside the roadworks was actually really good. From there it turned into a rough and corrugated dirt road. We took our time. We turned off to go and check out the Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater, the 20km road to it was pretty awful, complete with idiots who overtook with no warning or communication. Once again out of the dust cloud. A short walk up to the rim of the crater made over 300,000 years ago, revealed an over 20m drop to the floor, with water still remaining from the wet season, surrounded by salty soil. You could hear lots of birds chirping, so a fair bit of life living in the crater. The rim was a 3km walk around, but it was too hot for us to do. We spied a small Ringtail Dragon, a small gecko like dragon, sunning itself on the rocks, but well camouflaged with the rock, from being the same colour. We didn’t spy John Jarrett, but he’s probably a nice bloke anyway We returned to Bridget for lunch, before heading back out onto the terrible road, and back onto the Tanami Road. This side road made the Tanami look smooth.

sorry about the stitch effort, i left my phone in the bus, and wasnt going back for it. 

Matt took it easy and only an occasional vehicle heading the other way. We pulled over at a rest stop for Matt to have a break and a cuppa, and we spied a cross and sign and went to check it out. All we can gather from the sign, is that God spoke to someone there. So we took the time to pray and thanked our Lord for all the blessings we have had from being able to do this adventure. The other explanation for the cross and the sign could be that the piles of car parts on the side of the road inspired someone to ask for Devine intervention to get their dead car home. There are cracked alloy wheels, headlight trims,  all manner of destroyed tyres and an air cleaner of a hemi 245 valiant. Don’t know why I know that but I do. Probably from growing up in a valiant. There was a still smoking log burning next to a couple of tyres that had been driven for a very long time after they were flat, and the associated destroyed rim, I can only assume  it was a local aboriginal car given the fire while you change a wheel, and the state of the wheel and tyre. I’m not being racist, it’s just they have no mechanical sympathy. Drive it till it’s dead, then walk away from it. We jumped back into Bridget and Matt was about to drive off, when he saw a road train coming the other way and opted to let them through. Less rocks being thrown at me and the dust these triple road trains throw is like an instant fog . Zero visibility for the next 30 seconds. They pulled over to us and asked if we were ok and to comment on the bus, and then gave us a tip off that there was a camp a few km’s down the road, and then no real option for quite a distance to camp up. That wasn’t exactly how he worded it, it went more like “ you got a camp by sturts creek a couple a k’s down the road, but after that you’re %@$#&@ for somewhere before dark. So we drove to that spot, by Sturt Creek and there was another caravan already parked up, so we opted to end the drive for today there.

The creek had no water but the offshoot overflow pool had water in it. We sat in the dry creek bed in our chairs and relaxed for the afternoon. We spied a feral black cat, not quite the elusive Penrith Panther 😜! Again the birds were flying around, flies were buzzing and because of the water, mozzies were about.  We heard a baby black Cockatoo and watched the parents busy coming and going trying to feed it. We enjoyed being outside and watched the sunset, before I headed back to Bridget to cook Matt a beef Stroganoff. Pretty sure the only stroganoff on the Tanami. Was good too. After dinner, I did take the time to look up and watch the stars twinkling in the night sky. I am trying to make sure I make the most of being in the middle of nowhere, and enjoy the best views of the night sky.

Day 74 Mary Pool, Halls Creek, Palm Springs, Sawpit Gorge, Caroline Pool

 We have finally adjusted to the WA time zone and were able to sleep in, and soon we will have to readjust to eastern states time. We opened the blinds and lay in bed looking out on an amazing view, where we had enjoyed the sunset the night before. But we had to get up and get moving and back onto the road towards Halls Creek. We stopped over at Mary pool briefly. This was another well equipped free campground by the water. The pool is an offshoot from the Mary River and it was teeming with birdlife. There were several Pelicans, Cormorants and Corella’s squawked in the trees above, to name a few. 

mary river camp ground

the previously mentioned anthills / diprotodon do-do 

 We continued on to Halls Creek and topped up with fuel before heading back onto the dirt. of course i start filling up then a tour bus unloads at the pump next to me with a load of 70 yer old clipper experts. trapped again. We headed down the Duncan Highway, which was quite narrow and winding in places, with dry creek crossings and flood ways. This is a main road, with warning signs about road trains, yet we felt it wasn’t really up for the task, and would be a slow drive back to Kununurra. It was really very scenic however, with ever changing views and outlooks to enjoy. We drove past the original town site for Halls Creek, which was later relocated after the gold rush. we drove past cause its a bit of a dump.  theyve put a pile of bricks at the site of each old building, then put a sign up, and someone painted the sign completely white. all of them. with nothing on it. no idea what the pile of bricks is supposed to represent. its no wonder they moved halls creek. creek wasnt great there either.  We drove out to Palm Springs, which lived up to its name and was a pool of water with palms around it. Matt enjoyed lunch here. From there we headed down to Sawpit Gorge. The surrounding hills beside the road were covered in spinifex domes, that from a distance looked as though they were soft and fluffy, but the reality is they are sharp and prickly. and itchy. The road was even worse than before, with short creek crossings, that had steep entry and exit angles, which meant Matt and to expertly steer Bridget through. The gorge itself was quite small, and we had to walk through above ankle water to reach it. We observed a sign that said a croc had been sighted at Palm Springs, we thought it was a misplaced sign, as there was no warning at Palm Springs itself. 🤔There was a young family enjoying the gorge and attempting to fish the green waters. The gorge had red rocky cliffs on either side, that weren’t huge. A nice spot nonetheless. We returned to Bridget and headed back out. Matt had spied a couple of old  rusty wrecks and took photos of them, one was an upside down ‘70’s Holden, and the other was a 1950’s FC Holden sedan. 

We returned back past Palm Springs and down the winding road and turned off to Caroline Pool. This was another small gorge with a pool of water.  We decided it was a good place to stop for free for the night. Matt carefully drove Bridget down a steep road to the dry creek bed, and we parked here with great views to wake up to tomorrow. Matt placed our chairs near the water and we sat for the afternoon enjoying watching the birdlife here. There was a family of Cormorants diving for fish. But there was one bird that hadn’t quite mastered the silent dive for fish manoeuvre and would flap its wings and squawk and then dive into the water beneath the surface. I wonder how hungry this bird is, and how successful its ‘scare the fish’ technique might be. The birds after fishing for a bit, would sit on the rocks and dry their wings. There was a lone white Egret with them, but it seemed a bit precious and wouldn’t get wet, probably didn’t want to get dirty. There was an azure winged Kookaburra sitting on a branch quite high up in a tree quietly, just observing. Just as the sun was setting, it flew down and swooped so quickly at the surface of the water, the beautiful blue wings in full flight. It had succeeded in catching the fish and returned to the branch to eat it after giving it a few knocks on the branch. The black Cormorant heard the splash and came flying over to see what had made the splash and who was eating its fish, down that end of the pool. As the Kookaburra was safely up in the tree enjoying its dinner, the Cormorant returned to the other end of the pool, before getting out to dry its wings. It amazing what you can see when you stop long enough. This maybe the last gorge we visit in WA, and maybe even on this adventure. 

 

Day 73 Geikie Gorge

 This morning we packed up and said farewell to Ian, Meredith, Brenda and David. Feeling grateful and blessed for the fun, laughs, team work and memories we have created and shared in doing the Gibb River Road in Clippers together. We moved on from Broome and back down the road towards Derby, but turned off onto the Great Northern Highway. A fairly straight road, we stopped for lunch by a giant boab tree, and continued on until we reached Fitzroy Crossing. 

Every now and then you’ll go through an area where there are thousands of anthills, the colour of which obviously changes depending upon the soil in the area . I haven’t taken a photo of the ones around where we are tonight yet , but they look like, well diprotodon do do. It looks like the dinosaurs have just dumped stuff everywhere.  There you go. Yet another glimpse into my brain. 

We drove through town and out to Geikie Gorge. At Geikie Gorge, there was an easy and very short walk that passed some dark grey layered rocks and escarpments on one side, and we walked out to where the water was. We sat down and took the time to observe the gorge. On the other side of the waters, was another rocky escarpment, with a very obvious high tide mark where the rock changed from grey to white. The high tide mark was from the 2022 cyclone Ellie and the floods associated from the storm. Within the waters, we spied some floating crocodilian logs, and watched some cormorants diving for fish and re-emerging many times, before it then sat on a rock with the wings being held out to dry. We could hear all sorts of other birds and see some flit and fly around the trees. Not the most spectacular of gorges, but beautiful none the less. I was a little disappointed as there were no geeks at all in geeky gorge.  No IT department, no pictures from Star Wars, in fact it looked more like a rock formation. Poorly named.  But the cormorant had a long neck and looked somewhat eccentric…

From there we returned to the main road and kept going towards the east. We pulled over to check on a car that had the bonnet up with people inspecting the engine. But they were ok. We also drove past this a very swollen cow lying on its side with legs sticking straight out, a full blown 4 poster …and on the other side of the road, a smashed up Rav 4 car in a ditch. We were able to workout what happened there, cow versus car - nil all. That’s the third car vs cow we’ve seen on this trip. None of the cars survived. Or the cows.  Some spectacular red rocky escarpments and hills appeared out of nowhere and as it was approaching sunset, the colours were pretty awesome. We found a free camp site, the best we have found so far, called Ngumban Cliffs. Not only is it on a cliff top with spectacular views, it has an EV charging station, a dump point for RV’s, a dumpster bin for rubbish, toilets, picnic tables under awnings, and to top it off, not one person came over with a million questions, opinions, or photo requests! We arrived just in time for sunset and got to enjoy another great one, and after dinner we got another great golden moon rising. A lovely day.