 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| OUR BIG TRIP MARY & OLI GOING AROUND AUSTRALIA |
NORTHWEST COAST - Page 1
7 September 2007, Friday
Was the Gibb River Road the adventure that we expected? Yes and No !!! Yes, because it is still a gravel road without much
infrastructure, however here are the surprises and which make the adventure a little bit less enjoyable. A VN Commodore
was parked next to us the last day - what the hell are they doing here? A Kiosk at the Lennard River Crossing? The Optus
mobile phone actually worked at Windjana Gorge - just realised it the last day when I tried to set-up the alarm for the next
morning and last, but not least, the shear amount of people again which we are coming across is incredible. Today, we have
to say good-bye to the main adventure of our trip before heading down the WA coast towards Perth. We wanted to drive
towards Dampier and see where we would end up. The target was Barn Hill Station - which is about 130 km's from Broome
towards Port Hedland. Before getting onto Barn Hill Station we stopped at Derby to fill in fuel - we drove more than 680 km's
on the tanks we have and still having fuel in - good fuel economy due to slow driving. We had a look at the Jetty and
somebody pulled a small shark out of the water - nice catch. Victorians like shark - up here most of the people would have
thrown it back in because they think it is not good enough. Barra just makes all other fish look bad. We arrived about 3.30 pm
at Barn Hill Station. A beautiful setting at the Indian Ocean just 10 km's off the Hwy. The only drawback again was the amount
of people - the caravan park was absolutely packed and not really what we expected, however the scenery of the cliffs and
ocean just 100 m away from the campsite was compensation for that. We actually debated if we would stay one day longer
and do the drive to Dampier in one day but this would be too much. Pictures from Barn Hill Station and from the way to get
there.
7 September 2007, Friday
Was the Gibb River Road the adventure that we expected? Yes and No !!! Yes, because it is still a gravel road without much
infrastructure, however here are the surprises and which make the adventure a little bit less enjoyable. A VN Commodore
was parked next to us the last day - what the hell are they doing here? A Kiosk at the Lennard River Crossing? The Optus
mobile phone actually worked at Windjana Gorge - just realised it the last day when I tried to set-up the alarm for the next
morning and last, but not least, the shear amount of people again which we are coming across is incredible. Today, we have
to say good-bye to the main adventure of our trip before heading down the WA coast towards Perth. We wanted to drive
towards Dampier and see where we would end up. The target was Barn Hill Station - which is about 130 km's from Broome
towards Port Hedland. Before getting onto Barn Hill Station we stopped at Derby to fill in fuel - we drove more than 680 km's
on the tanks we have and still having fuel in - good fuel economy due to slow driving. We had a look at the Jetty and
somebody pulled a small shark out of the water - nice catch. Victorians like shark - up here most of the people would have
thrown it back in because they think it is not good enough. Barra just makes all other fish look bad. We arrived about 3.30 pm
at Barn Hill Station. A beautiful setting at the Indian Ocean just 10 km's off the Hwy. The only drawback again was the amount
of people - the caravan park was absolutely packed and not really what we expected, however the scenery of the cliffs and
ocean just 100 m away from the campsite was compensation for that. We actually debated if we would stay one day longer
and do the drive to Dampier in one day but this would be too much. Pictures from Barn Hill Station and from the way to get
there.
 |
 |
 |
 |
| The start of the bitumen back to Derby - parking at a huge boab tree. |
| Pumping up the tyres again for the bitumen. The main stretches of gravel road have an end for now. |
| The Derby Jetty and the shark the guy caught - people were asking if this was legal to be caught - but nobody knew the answer and he had already killed it anyway. |
| A boab tree in Derby which stil had leaves and even flowers. |
| On the right - cattle mustering with a heli - we had to stop for about 10 min because they were mustering cattle and driving them across the road. The guy in the heli was very skilled flying it low above the trees to direct the cattle - the story about him is - 39 years old, borrowed $80,000 about 20 years ago for a cattle farm in the area and is now worth $220 Mill owning a lot of cattle stations in the area (110,000 cattle). On the left the long stretches of road between Broome and Port Headland - boring driving. Now you ask why did they take a picture of the cloud? Well, we just haven't seen one in a long time! - he he he. |