It was time to leave and head further west.
Now before anyone gets upset at the next thing I'm going to say, let me first set the scene. We've looked at more gorges, more rocks, more dirt and more watering holes than probably 21 million, of the 22 million, people currently living in Australia. I'm probably being generous with the million that have seen more than us too.
We left Kununarra and headed towards the Bungle Bungles. Unfortunately the caravan park there was full. Yep, full. Don't ask me how, maybe a local was having a wedding, or a cow and bull were mating, or maybe full means more than ten people stopped in and they only have enough dried out sausage rolls for six people a day?
Either way we kept driving, BUT with a plan of staying at Halls Creek and driving back.
We finally got to Halls Creek and stopped in at the Visitor Centre to ask about the Bungles. Apparently the Bungles are a two hour drive in from the turn off at the highway, which was a little over an hour from Halls Creek. So, a round trip would be six hours.
Sorry guys, I just couldn't face another six hour drive to have a look at some more rocks.
We decided to keep driving and aim for Fitzroy Crossing before nightfall. That meant we had to get some fast lunch at Halls Creek. The fast lunch is now referred to as the roadhouse roast, otherwise known as a sausage roll and a flavoured milk.
After hours and hours of driving, seeing massive amounts of open, desolate and isolated space we finally arrived at Fitzroy Crossing.
Now, I can't tell you a lot about 'the crossing', as the Halls Creek Roadhouse Roast made its way through my system faster than a toothpaste tube squeezed by the Hulk, however, the caravan parks ablutions were nice. They were that good I decided to visit them a few more times that night. Thankfully the roast vacated fully by the morning and I was good to go.
Fitzroy River, when flowing, is massive, but the wet season wasn't very wet. It seemed like every river bridge we crossed was desert dry. Fitzroy River was no different, except for it's enormous size, it was like an eight lane dusty highway, taking people to the end of the earth and never to be seen again.
Next stop was the highly anticipated town of Broome. We had a fellow traveller describe it as the Gold Coast of the West Coast but without the high-rise buildings.
What kind of back burning bush were they smoking! Maybe it could have been the Byron Bay of the west coast....maybe?
We arrived Saturday afternoon and decided to unpack and have dinner in Broome. Oddly, we found everything was closed, well except for a takeaway BBQ Chicken place (sort of like KFC's poor cousin). We ordered the best we could get and then asked the girl at the counter "where is everyone?". With a puzzled look on her face she replied, "what do you mean?". In a painfully obvious way, I said "are we missing an attraction here or something, there doesn't seem to be anyone around. Is this normal?". She laughed in a dumb-tourist-kind-of-way and said "yeah, this is normal".
So let's scrap the similarities between Broome and Byron Bay too.
But Cable Beach is amazing right?
Yep, it had heaps of sand and if you walked west... I know you won't believe me with this next part.... some sea water and waves! Weird as right! Only a crazy person would have guessed it would be... um... like a beach! Like a picture of a Big Mac on a poster, the real thing just doesn't have the same sizzle. I guess all the raving reviews are by star-struck pommies escaping their cloudy, rocky, cold seaside shore at home. I bet they thought my chicken shop was a quaint little boutique takeaway not to be missed also.
The saying goes, when in Rome, do what the Romans do. That meant, at around 5:30pm the entire hippy population, and some of the sun-burnt pommies, of Broome rushed to the coast for the obligatory sunset photo.
So here is the money shot
If you want to secure your own part of the 2manyjaunts adventure, I'm taking pre-orders for copies of this photo now.
But it's now time to leave the Kimberley's and head into the Pilbara. So, if the Kimberley is the true heart of Australia, the Pilbara is the beefed up biceps doing all the heavy lifting.
At the steroid injection point of the Pilbara Body Builder is Port Hedland. This working town is a hustle and bustle of dual-cab work utes buzzing the dusty tarmac from one area to another. I can't help think I've been taken back in time to the industrial revolution and dumped right on to an 1850's job site (did they have dual cab utes back then?).
This is far from a holiday destination. The caravan parks are full of zombie looking dudes in fluro shirts on their mobile phones; no doubt calling their respective missus back on the oblivious east coast just before they turn in for the night. You see, there are no tours, no tourist magnet structures and no magic looking beaches; just the smell of sweat and the clattering of cheap diesel utes that have been flogged to an inch of their life.
Stocked with supplies, we headed south, essentially inland, into the core of the Pilbara, the place where it all originates (sort of).
Welcome to Tom Price.
If you ever wondered what Man can do to the earth, wonder no more. This was once a mountain, but now nothing more than a hole in the ground.
What was once there has been shipped to China by the millions. A two kilometre train carries 3 million dollars of "Australia" to China every week.
No doubt the keyboard I'm typing this blog on has a little Tom Price in it. I'm also sure the rusty steel of my camper was due to some kind of reaction with miners sweat before it left Oz.
Oddly, while Tom Price is a town of workers, you could be mistaken for it being just a normal outback town. It has a similar feel to our little coastal towns back home, just that the coast is a mere six hour drive away.
This is where things got weird. You see, I was talking to my cuz, who lives in Tom Price, and mentioned one of the stickers at the roadhouse just up the road. He was a little puzzled that there was a roadhouse "just up the road". I said yeah, it's called Auski. He laughed and said "that's almost 160k's away, hardly just up the road".
I suppose after 16,000'ish kilometres, and given that 160 kilometres is a paltry 1% of my travels, I guess to me 160k's is a short trip. You see, if you can go there and back on a tank of fuel, and without a food stop, it's a "hey dear, just ducking down the road, be back shortly" kind of drive, isn't it???
After a few beers and some good laughs over a couple of days, we headed for Exmouth and Coral Bay.
Stay tuned..
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