After packing all our camping
gear back into the car this morning, we made the decision to continue north
into the very remote area of Kalumburu, an aboriginal community on the very
north coast of Western Australia. We’d
heard there was a little shop here where we could get some supplies and weren’t
too sure how long it would be before there would be somewhere else to pick up a
few items. Instead of heading straight
out towards Kalumburu Road, we travelled about 25kms in the opposite direction
to a lookout from the Mitchell River ranger had told us about, it was only
10kms from Surveyors Pool (which unfortunately we didn’t go to). From the lookout you could see a number of
islands off the mainland and it didn’t look like we had to travel too far to
get to the coast. We turned back and
headed for Kalumburu Road but again it was a long bumpy road. Just before hitting this point we crossed
paths with the Harris family who had stopped at some Aboriginal rock art,
whereas we continued onto Munurru (Kind Edward River) for another cool swim
before the further 103km long drive north.
We pulled into Kalumburu and picked up our $50 visitor entry pass and a
couple of items like fruit that we’d been craving and then went to find
somewhere to camp for the night. We
called into McGowans Bay to see if we could buy some fuel but they would only
sell it to us in 200 litre drums, too big for us. We went on around to the next bay called
Honeymoon Bay, a beautiful little spot on the north coast of Australia. There were islands in the distance and
crystal clear water right in front of us but once again, no swimming due to the
crocodile infested waters. We set up our
tents on the sand far enough back that the crocs wouldn’t find us overnight and
found some firewood for the campfire.
Soon after there were another two couples that joined us under the same
boab tree and after dinner we all met around the campfire. Our kids and the new five children all bonded
as did the adults, learning stories about each other. We had another lovely sunset (although they
just happen too quickly) and a great night with more new friends.
Saturday morning we woke not long
after the sun, and began to pack up. We
would have liked to have gone to the Kalumburu Mission Museum today but being
the weekend it was shut along with almost everything else here. We ended up leaving the camp area just after
8pm and going back 20kms and into Kalumburu in search of fuel so that we could
head back “home” to the comforts of our caravan and continue along the Gibb
River Road. Upon arriving in Kalumburu,
the mission had already closed their sale of petrol for the day but the man
leaving the store was accommodating and let us grab one hundred dollars of
fuel. At $3.02 per litre that wasn’t a
lot but we did manage to make it back to our van at Drysdale Station without
any hassles. It was many hours of bumpy
driving and thankfully the kids were tired enough from our tent sleeping that
they fell asleep for quite a while in the back of the car. We drove on for 4 hours and got back to
Drysdale by 1pm, the only downfall was that we snapped a fishing rod on our
journey back. About 15 minutes later Shaun
and Liz arrived back too. We decided to
have a quick bite for lunch, hook up the vans and continue driving for the day,
aiming to reach Mt Barnett Station. It
was nearly 2.30pm by the time we left and we couldn’t wait any longer. It was around 180kms of driving which on
these roads meant quite a few hours to get in before sunset. We had hoped that the Harris’s were packed up
and on the road not far behind us so off we took. Along this leg of our drive we passed many
water small water crossings as well as horses, cattle and wild dogs on the
road. Just after 5pm the sun was setting
and we still had about 40kms to drive.
As there are a lot of unfenced cattle stations along this road our eyes
were fixed keeping an eye out for any dangers.
Thankfully we pulled in safely to Mt Barnett Station (Manning Gorge) at
6pm. The roadhouse was shut but we
worked out to drive the additional 7kms further in to where the camping area
was and found a site to put the van.
Again, no power or water was available at this station so we just had to
make do with what we had. Shaun and Liz
still hadn’t arrived and by 8pm we’d given up on trying to radio them. We had hoped that they’d pulled over
somewhere safe for the night due to the dark and fingers crossed they would
turn up in the morning to meet back up.
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