Wyndham- wetlands, shooting birds and taking a few drives

Our last visit to Wyndham three years ago was fairly fleeting, just a quick day trip from Kununurra. This time we decided to stay a while and explore the area, especially its wetlands.

Many people bypass Wyndham, thinking it has little to offer. I spoke to one bloke in Kununurra who urged me not to bother with Wyndham, “mate, there’s nothing there” he said, “and as for the five rivers lookout, all you can see are mudflats”. He obviously has a limited view of what’s worth looking at!

Wyndham is a little sad at 150 years old, gone are its glory days as the top town of the west.  Wyndham was famous for its meatworks, constructed in 1913, that provided a large amount of employment for the town and support for graziers in the surrounding areas. The meatworks closed in 1985 and I guess that started the slow spiral into near oblivion. Live cattle exports helped to keep the town going for a while but that too has finished.

Wyndham was bombed by the Japanese during WW2 and the remains of the State Ship ‘Koolama” lie submerged just off the main wharf. It is said that you can see eddies caused by the wreck adjacent to the wharf, but I couldn’t see them.

For a while the area was used to send zinc to Korea, but there is no evidence of that now.

A new venture has begun in the town, shipping iron ore, sourced from a mine at Doon Doon some 100 + Km km away. The ore is crushed at Doon Doon and trucked in 4 trailer road trains to a depot at Wyndham where it is unloaded and sent by conveyor to a barge that is then towed out to deep water and loaded onto a bulk ship. There must be money in iron ore to go to so much trouble.

Wyndham is also famous for its Five Rivers Lookout, situated on The Bastion, a 330 metre vantage point with a spectacular view of parts of Cambridge Gulf. From this lookout you can see, in the distance, five rivers emptying into the gulf, being the King, Ord, Durack, Forrest and Pentecost rivers.

 

This trip we stayed at Parry Creek Farm, a 100 Ha (or so) in-holding surrounded by the Ramsar-listed wetlands of Parry Lagoons. We spent a very relaxing week chasing many of the local birds and shooting quite a few. I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I enjoyed shooting them.

There was plenty of opportunity to trip around as well, and we took a trip down the Gibb River Road to El Questro – quite a nice place but they do take themselves a little seriously !!

 Another day trip was along part of the the Old Halls Creek Road, a rough, dry weather road that was originally pushed through in the late 1800s. In places you can still see the paving that was put in place by the convict workmen, probably to ease the way for the stage coaches that used the area. We spent quite a bit of time chasing three brolgas, trying to get close enough for a photo.

We succeeded, but two days later we came upon three more brolgas up close at Marglu Billabong and were able to snap a couple of good pictures.

The final day trip was along the unsealed and quite rough Parry Creek road to meet parts of the Ord River and then ultimately to end up back at Kununurra. That part of the Ord River is a haven for barramundi fishermen (or barramundi fishers to be completely politically correct) and we explored the banks, keeping a wary eye for the many salt water crocodiles that inhabit the area.

If you don’t particularly like bird pictures, stop reading and wait for the next blog… but I can’t absolutely guarantee that the next one will be devoid of all bird pics, I’m getting in the groove!!

Next stop Halls Creek for a couple of days and a confession regarding our indigenous brothers and sisters.

Darwin to Victoria River and Timber Creek NT  then Kununurra WA

We left Darwin to enjoy its coldest mornings for thirty years or so and headed back to Katherine for an overnight stop before heading south west and on to Western Australia.

This visit we decided to overnight at Springvale Homestead in  Katherine and found a peaceful spot under a large spreading tree. Having levelled the van and got things ship shape I had a closer look at the tree.  Glad I did, many of the branches were less than solid, and in fact some were rotten. A quick move out from under the tree and we were set. Conversations with nearby caravanners  revealed that a branch had, in fact, fallen from the tree the previous night. I think it’s time they called an arborist !

Springvale Homestead itself has historical significance, but the caravan park section’s historical significance related to the extreme age of their amenities. Now we have stayed at many places with old amenities, but they were old and clean. Springvale Homestead’s were both very old and very dirty…yuk!  Won’t be back there.

On the road at a reasonable hour (for us) next morning for the 200 odd Km trip to Victoria River and quite a pleasant drive it was. It’s refreshing to have some hills and the pushed up volcanic – tortured outcrops added some variety after so much flat and fairly featureless country. 

On our last trip we had driven straight through the Victoria River area apart from a brief stop for a cup of tea at the Victoria River Roadhouse. This time we had done some research and decided to stay a night and explore the Victoria River and part of Gregory National Park – I’m glad we did.

The views of the escarpment and the views along the river were spectacular. The area around the river is a known habitat of the Purple Crowned Fairy Wren, but we didn’t see one during our afternoon exploring along the river. Parts of the Victoria River are good for barramundi and there was some evidence of some good catches in the areas we looked at.

After a peaceful night at the roadhouse caravan park we headed off towards Timber Creek and views of some more spectacular countryside. From Timber Creek it’s another 171 Km through to the WA border and then about another 35 Km to Kununurra, and it’s an easy drive.

From Timber Creek onwards we began to see more and more Boabs and it’s hard to keep driving when there are so many photogenic specimens along the road. I did stop six or seven times to capture some of the more exotic trees, maybe I’ll have to put together a Special Boab Edition! 

We submitted to the mandatory vehicle search at the WA border and passed with ease –  we’ve done it all before. You can’t bring any fruit or vegetables into WA (but we did get to keep some frozen peas, they were OK) and they won’t even allow you to bring in empty fruit or vegetable   boxes.

The female officer conducting the search was very pleasant and extremely thorough, looking in the caravan fridge and freezer as well as the car fridge / freezer and the drawers in the back of the Patrol. She also looked at the caravan boot and most cupboards. All in all it was a very thorough search, conducted in a non-threatening and courteous manner.  It’s all about attitude and courtesy and this member of staff at this border checkpoint has got it nailed – well done WA it’s great to be here.

And so to Kununurra. Our indigenous brothers and sisters are still very much in evidence throughout the town and surrounds but there seems to be a very much calmer atmosphere than we experienced three years ago. There doesn’t seem to be the problems with alcohol and generally noisy and riotous behaviour that we saw last time.

Nobody can buy wine, spirits or full strength beer until 5pm each day, and the sight of 40 or 50 people standing in line at Coles liquor waiting for 5 o’clock was quite strange. Incidentally, none of those queuing for alcohol at that time were indigenous, they were all white fellers and females. We needed to stock up on red wine and selected six bottles, only to be told by the Coles people that we could only buy two bottles each. It was a bit of a pest , but if it helps to keep a lid on bad behaviour, I’m all for it.

We took a trip along to the diversion dam and the evidence of a good wet season was still apparent with good volumes of water being released. It was the same at the main dam on the Ord, with water racing along the spillway. I forget how many Sydney Harbours (Syd Arbs) this dam holds, but it’s a lot, maybe 70 Syd Arbs!

It does appear to me as a layman that there could be much more land under cultivation to match the incredible amount of water available, (think Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area) but I guess there are people much smarter about these matters that I on the job, and it may be a staged development.

The famous Ivanhoe Crossing was closed, again by the volume of water coming down.

Kununurra is quite a nice place to stay with friendly people and a pleasant setting and we spent a very peaceful three days, seeing the sights and just relaxing.

Next stop Wyndham, more boabs and a bit of birdwatching.  

Heat, Cold, Family, Markets, Sundowners and Square Dancers.

DARWIN

Heat, Cold, Family, Markets, Sundowners and Square Dancers.

I was surprised at the amount of (seemingly) uncontrolled burning going on in the area between Mataranka and Darwin. It seems that a very high percentage is wildfire that the locals have no ability or will to bring under control and the fires continue until they eventually go out. In some instances this means that the fires burn for weeks at a time and consume many, many miles of vegetation.

Darwin is nice and getting to be a very nice city, particularly the public spaces, especially the parks and gardens. The downside of Darwin in June is that it’s still quite hot for southerners once the overnight / early morning chill passes. Darwinians were complaining of the cold, though, especially the mornings where the temps were around 12 or 14. Darwin was expecting to break a 30 year record for the coldest temp.

The principal reason for this short visit was to visit family but we also took the opportunity to parts of Darwin we have not seen before. We spent some time at Nightcliff, a very quiet, very pleasant waterfront area with some very swish homes and a quiet pub with a view.

We naturally visited both shopping centres of note, Casuarina and Palmerston. Rob has never been known to bypass a shopping centre or a market and we spent some time at a couple of small markets as well as an obligatory trip to the famous Mindil Night Markets – very interesting people!! A couple of square dancers in Darwin for some sort of square dancing extravaganza added a little extra colour (I’m sorry I missed the dancing……..NOT!!!)

Darwinians and southerners have a fascination for seeing the sun go down into the water and at Mindil Markets many hundreds gather, cameras, mobile phones, drinks and food in hand to wander the beach and watch. I have to admit that the sight is quite spectacular and we joined in.

Around Darwin brigades were very busy in the last few days burning out large tracts of scrub and grass to protect homes and other assets. Many were backing fires , but the most spectacular were those that I suppose had good natural or man-made containment lines and they were lit, let go and were all over in no time, some good skills here.

Next stop, back to Katherine for a quick overnight and then on to Victoria River then WA.

    

KATHERINE (BRIEFLY) THEN  ADELAIDE RIVER

The elusive Ghan, Bats, Flowers and WW2 History

Katherine was just an overnight stop on the way north. Katherine does not have a lot to recommend it, the principal attraction is Katherine Gorge.  Robyne and I have been there and done that so there was no real reason to revisit there.

Restocking the fridge and freezers was one priority and Woollies got a fair workout.

One other attraction in Katherine is Springvale Farm that was settled back to 1879 when it was stocked with cattle walked through from SA, quite a feat in those days. After falling into disrepair, the buildings have been sympathetically restored and are now run by the NT Trust.

The Ghan Part 1  Some excitement is generated in Katherine by the transit of The Ghan, it stops for about three or four hours on each trip either up or down so passengers can tour Katherine Gorge, so during the stop there are coaches zooming backward and forward with detrained passengers. I’m a bit of a train spotter and so we decided to visit the station and get a couple of photos of The Ghan…. It didn’t happen. As we arrived and walked across towards the platform it departed, but I did get a shot of one of the carriages.

Having mentioned what we call “star flowers” Robyne suggested that we show you, so you will find a photo in this blog…very pretty and quite prolific in difficult conditions.

Next stop Adelaide River. It’s a place we have stopped before and a place we like to stay. There are a lot of WW2 historical sites in the area, including an airstrip, a large rail siding where a hospital train was located and the remains of quite a large complex at Snake Creek.

There’s also a war cemetery that was begun in March 1943. The cemetery is operated by Australian War Graves and is kept in immaculate conditions.  It contains the graves of Australian, British and a lone Canadian service members as well as some civilian victims of the bombing of Darwin. The Dutch Government asked to repatriate eleven of its airmen to their home country and the Americans also repatriated their war dead for reburial.

The Snake Creek area contains the remains of a large weapons research and storage area although all that remains of most of the buildings are the concrete foundations. There are some structures listed as “shelters” built into the side of the hill that remain in fairly good condition. We have explored here before and were surprised to learn that the area is now considered out of bounds for a variety of reasons depending on who you are talking to. One person said it was because of the large amount of blue asbestos on site (ho hum!) while another said it was because the area was now aboriginal land, unlikely in my view seeing the area has had a massive amount of disturbance

The Ghan Part 2.  At the local market, a bloke told me that The Ghan was due, now. Now was my chance to get a really good photo so I went straight over to a good position right next to the line. I was really well set up for a good angle. Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. I spent some of the wait taking shots of random road trains and another colony of red headed flying foxes, but after an hour gave up. Sure enough just after I left, the train came, so the photo I got was fairly ordinary. Foiled again.

Next stop Darwin

MATARANKA, the never never, hot springs, crocs and birds.

Early morning in Daly Waters was a particularly busy time.  It’s amazing just how quickly many caravan parks empty out just about every morning. To those like us that have a leisurely start to the day it’s common to be some of the very few left in the park by 9am.

Once on the road, the trip through to Mataranka was uneventful and at only about 160Km, a very short journey for once.

Mataranka is well known as the site of Elsey Station of “We of the Never Never” fame, the book written by ‘Mrs Aeneas Gunn’ – Jeannie Gunn who joined her husband on Elsey station in the early 1900s - a time when there were very few white women in the remote areas of the Territory. We visited the site of Elsey Station and the graves of Aeneas Gunn and many of the characters from the book. Bett Bett, “the little black princess” has quite a large memorial there – she lived to be 95 and died in Darwin in 1988.

Mataranka is best known these days as the site of the hot springs and there are now two established sites to enjoy the experience, the first on the southern side and the second at Bitter Springs on the north side of the town. Both have appropriate infrastructure to make it easy, paved paths for access and steps to get in and out. The southern site also has a covered path to protect visitors from droppings from the bats that sometimes invade the general area – it’s in a National Park so they probably don’t want to inconvenience the poor bats too much!!!

The hot springs drain into the Waterhous (correct spelling according to my atlas) River, home of quite a lot of freshwater crocodiles as you will see from the photograph. There is a set of steps down into the river adjacent where I photographed the crocs and it is evidently OK to swim there provided you don’t interfere with them – I don’t think so, not for me anyway.

Warloch Ponds is an area about 20 Km south of Mataranka. It was once part of Elsey Station. This year the area has retained a lot of water and it has become home to a huge number of water birds. In the time we were there we saw jabiru, brolga, white necked heron, hundreds of egrets and many, many others. Taking the photo on the Warloch Ponds road bridge was a bit of a challenge, it’s not designed for pedestrians. Each time a road train came (generally with cattle) I had to move to the other side of the bridge – just as well two didn’t cross, there was really nowhere for me to have gone and I would have to do the bolt quickly and get off the bridge. The kite in the other photograph was an interested spectator and was happy to sit on the road bridge quite close to me.

Next stop Katherine, another short hop.

 

Daly Waters Pub

We actually left Tennant Creek at a reasonable hour, having done most of the preparation work the night before. All that good work was instantly undone with a snap decision to have breakfast at the Three Ways Roadhouse where the Barkly Highway meets the Stuart.

Back on the road for the 300 odd Km stretch to Daly Waters, passing some iconic stations on our way – Banka Banka (now also a caravan park), Muckaty and Newcastle Waters, it’s a fairly easy stretch.

 Our plans were fairly fluid, I had toyed with the idea of stopping at the free camp at Newcastle Waters until we got there – it was absolutely packed solid with vans and campers all parked very close together. Quite strange really, those people would probably complain if caravan park operators put them that close together, but they will cop it just because it is free. Not for me thanks.

The country is quite interesting in many ways, I suppose it could be described as undulating on a fairly big scale. The holly leafed grevillia is still quite common as is the star flower and, for the first time, a new variety of grevillia.

At the summit of one rise is a great view east, just mile upon mile of scrub and bush to the distant horizon, my thought was this should be described as “the great Australian loneliness” – I know that’s not original ( I can’t remember where it comes from), but it describes the scene perfectly.

We rolled in to Daly Waters late in the afternoon and headed straight to the pub, home of the famous beef and barra dinners and quirkily (is that a word??) decorated bar areas.

Last time we stopped here is was fairly busy, but we were not prepared for the enormous crowd of caravans, tents, campers and motorhomes that filled the caravan park area. We ended up in an overflow area across the road. There was now power available but that’s not a problem for us thanks to our solar panels and extra batteries. We can still watch TV (well the news was all we had time for) and charge the laptop and phones thanks to a couple of inverters, and the car freezer is on 12 volt and the main fridge is on gas so happy days. It’s great when all the planning comes together.

The show that followed the beef and barra dinner was excellent. A knockabout bloke who sang well, played the guitar very well and had some good, really funny stories and jokes. Chilli (the entertainer) had been a horse breaker, buffalo shooter, rouseabout, drover and any number of other interesting things around the top end for many years. A good night was had by all.

Next Stop Mataranka for two or three days.

  

Tennant Creek

Our last visit here in 2008 was a fairly quick one, we arrived late in the afternoon, booked into a caravan park in the town and then left early the next morning.

On that trip I was spooked a little by the number of aboriginal people walking the streets in the evening and night yelling and swearing and generally carrying on. It was not a matter of feeling intimidated because they rarely make eye contact, but the experience did make for a degree of uneasiness. Whilst walking the dog later in the evening I noticed that they appeared to travel in groups and alcohol seemed to be a major issue for both  men and women.

This trip we arrived mid-afternoon and found  thing to be very different. We checked in to a caravan park a little out of town.

We noticed that there were fewer aborigines around the streets and those that were seemed to be more family groups than before.

The next morning we decided to visit the Nyinkka Nyunyu aboriginal cultural centre and found an excellent presentation on the Warumungu  peoples.

The dioramas are first class  and the audio visual presentations are excellent as they and tell the story of the fight for land rights and explain just what life was like in the recent past. The staff are knowledgeable and friendly and the walk around the grounds provides first hand information on some of the bush tucker and medicinal plants used in the area. There’s also the sacred site of the Nyinkka (the spiky tailed goanna) in the grounds. All in all this is an an excellent presentation. If you’re travelling through this way, don’t miss it.

Another highlight, we had lunch in the café / restaurant in the cultural centre and had the best cup of coffee since we left home and nice food, well presented.

I’m really regretting the decision to leave my De Longhi  coffee machine at home, most place in the Territory have lousy coffee.

After quite some time in the cultural centre a tour of the areas just outside Tennant Creek was in order.I'll leave it to the photographs to show what we saw.

You may wonder at my obsession with Furphy water carts, It’s just that they are so interesting !! 


Let’s start at the beginning. Furphy water carts were made in Shepparton Victoria. Originally made for farm use and often pulled around by a horse, they were also extensively used in the army in the first and second world war to carry drinking water. 
The reason for their longevity is that the ends of the tank are made of cast material and the cast in the base / tap end was used to show the maker’s name, so it was quite clear who made the tank. 
Mr Furphy also took the opportunity to advertise some of his other products there and also to include some words to the wise, sometimes in shorthand. And the date is also always shown.

You will recall that in our language, a “furphy” is a rumour or an incorrect or unsubstantiated story, that often turns out to be false. This word has its origins when it was used to describe scuttlebutt picked up when troops gathered at the Furphy water cart for a drink of water.

There are still the remains of the cast ends of Furphy water carts scattered right across the country and I have come across many on this trip.

In Tennant Creek at the Battery Hill Mining Centre a 1942 model  is displayed that I believe is the original tank. This is unusual, but I suppose the very dry climate and maybe the fact that it has spent some time under cover throughout its life may have contributed to that.

Next Stop, The Daly Waters Pub.