Broome/Derby

1st July we checked into Broome for 1 week.
We were not altogether impressed with Broome, however there were nice points of interest,
.Cable Beach at Sunset and also the Camel rides along the beach.
.Willy Creek pearls.
We went through the blockade against the gas pipe line going via Aborignal land, although approval had been given.

Cable Beach at Sunset

Driving along Cable  Beach

Camel Ride on Cable Beach at Sunset

8th July we arrived at Derby for 3 days. I have updated a photo of the "Prison Boab Tree" thought to be 1500 years old, so named because this was where Police and Prisoners rested during transfer to Derby.

Prison Boab Tree

We went on another flight tour "Horizontal Falls Seaplane and Scenic Tour". The Horizontal Waterfall, Talbot Bay has a massive 11 metre tides which pound through the close walls between 2 islands creating the effect of a horizontal waterfall.
The flight also took us over the Buccaneer Archipelago, also called the Thousand Islands and
Cockatoo Island and Koolan Islands made famous by BHP mining Iron-Ore. They closed operations in 1984 and Cockatoo Island was once again open to the public.
The Chinese bought the mine and re-opened it in 1998.
A flight over Buccaneer Archipelago (thousand islands) is a must, when v isiting Australias North West.

Part of Archipelago (Thousand Islands)

Iron-Ore Mine

Mud flats

Part of the Islands

Horizontal Waterfall (it was a low tide and the water was not pouring out as much as usual)

Fitzroy Crossing W.A.

We are now staying at Fitzroy Crossing, River Lodge.
Fitzroy River has a catchment area over 90 thousand square km. which is larger than Tasmania. The water flowing downstream could fill and empty Sydney Harbour in less than half a day (what a waste).
During nthe wet season the town becomes isolated and is commonly known as Fitzroy Island. Today we did a cruise of Geikie Gorge and tomorrow is rest day.
Due to many requests for  more photos here they come. The reason we limited the photos is we are not in the big smoke connected to a modem, and it is a very slow process, however check out previous blogs I downloaded extra photos.

GEIKIE GORGE:

Timber Creek/Kununurra

Our next stopover  is Timber Creek in Western Australia, the border crossing into W A is very strict to avoid any pests entering W A by fresh produce, as we had fresh fruit tomatoes and potatoes we stopped in a small clearing near quarantine check point to cook the potatoes, tomatoes and eat as much fruit as possible, the border inspectors went through the caravan opening every storage space to check that there wasn't any hidden produce or honey.
Timber Creek was a whistle stop road house with 2 caravan parks, the park we stayed in was good for 1 night and the caretaker was also doubling  up as a tourst quide he suggested we visit the lookout to view the Adelaide River and also to go to scenic drive to watch the sunset.

Timber Creek

Timber creek

                                                                                        Lookout

We arrived in Kununurra and booked into the Ivanhoe caravan park. We booked a full day tour on the Argyle Lake and Ord River also a 3 hour tour in a fixed wing Float Plane to view the Lake together with the Bungle Bungles and Argle Diamond mine.We landed on the Argyle Lake and went ashore to have afternoon tea. The beach where we were to have afternoon tea had to be cleared of crockadiles first, it was exciting to land on water.

Bungle Bungle

 Bungle Bungles

 Bungle Bungles

Argyle Diamond Mine

Wallaby       

Lake Argyle

Female Golden Orbe

Lake Argyle

We cruised on Lake Argyle in the morning and stopped to see various wild life, the lake is currently 44 times bigger than Sydney harbour, there is enough discharge of water at the moment to supply the population of Australia with 300 ltrs per person every hour. After lunch we cruised down the Ord River some 53 km back to Kununurra.

darwin

Staying at Howard Springs, which is about 20 km out of Darwin, however, Palmerston City is only 3 km away with plenty of shops to restock the cupboards, Darwin was bombed in 1942 by the same Japanese force that bombed Pearl Harbour during these bombing attacks which totalled some 64 bombing raids whereby the Japanese dropped over twice as many bombs on Darwin than Pearl Harbour.
Darwin has also been demolished by cyclone Tracey in 1974.
We visited Cullen Bay where we came across Huey doing a cooking demonstration, we tried to get him to cook lunch for us but his schedule wouldn't accommondate it.
Then to Fanny Bay Goal, Aviation museum in which it was amazing to see the B52 which was donated to Darwin by the US Airforce.
We went to the Mindil night markets at Mindil Beach and watched the sunset.
We decided to take a tour instead of driving to Litchfield national park, which included stopping at Florence Falls, Wangi Falls, Tolmer Falls, Magnetic Termite Mounds, which are built in a North/South Direction so that they can benefit by the east/west rising and setting of the sun so the mound stays in a constant temperature.
Aquascene on high tide is a fish sanctuary where numerous species of fish come to shore to be feed by hand.

Mindil Beach

Huey

"Aquascene" feeding fish

     

 Feeding fish

 Feeding Fish

  

B52

Aviation Museum

Fannie Bay Goal

Termite  Mound

Florence Falls

Wangi Falls

Tolmer Falls

Kakadu

Booked into Cooinda Resort Kakadu for 4 nights, so we could see the sights of Kakadu.
The first tour was a 1 hour flight over Kakadu, Twin falls, Jim Jim Falls and across the wetlands to the Alligator River. The scenery was breathtaking well worth the cost.
Second tour Yellow waters cruise, the tour guide was extremely good pointing out the tree snakes, ducks, wild horses, crocodiles and various birds, stopping for photo's, turning the boat so everyone could see. and stopping the boat in time for everyone to see and take photo's  of the fantastic sunset, all in all a very interesting and enjoyable tour.
Third tour was a Guluyambi Cultural Cruise which started near the mouth of the East Alligator River, which is the border between Kakadu and Arnhem Land. The Aboriginal guide provided an insight into their culture-local  mythology, the river's abundant food chain, traditional uses for many plants and animals as well as bush survival skills, which included a demonstration of spear throwing using a womera.
Some photo's have a smoke haze, because at the end of the wet season (which is now) the aboriginal land owners do a control burnoff of the undergrowth, something we could do better, getting rid of the undergrowth in our bush fire prone areas would help.

Today (Saturday) is clean up and washing day, then tomorrow off to Darwin.

Katherine

I was expecting a large town with plenty of shops, driving through town towards the caravan park we discovered the town was small and very few shops. The caravan park we stayed in was Big 4 Low Level,
The size of the park was massive the spare ground could have housed an 18 hole golf course.
Being sunday the open air bistro in the park had Roast as the special of the day, however, it had been cooked in garlic, so Warren & I elected to have Barramundi again which was no comparison to the previous one we had in Daly Waters Pub.
One of the highlights of Katherine is the cruise down the Katherine River passing its many gorges.
The river is over 300 km long and houses numerous crocodiles.

One night for a change we went to the Katherine club and had dinner, Warren ordered Beef Snitzel which when served was over hanging a 30cm plate, far too big could not eat all of it.