Day 32 - 41 Darwin to WA border

We at long last reached our nominal destination, Darwin.  On the outset, we never had a planned for the next step.  30 nights of tent camping so far, bar the first night out of Sydney, it was pouring, no choice there.  Also 30 days of dry weather since, most of the time blue sky.

So the question came up, where to go next.  Without boring through the 31 page justification that I wrote in my mind, the upshot was, go west, then hug the Western Australian coast to Perth for another photo session of the Black Swans.  Not to mention to visit parts of the Kimberleys,  to places where, I was too inexperienced to venture with a 4x4 back in 2005.

First I must settle the mechanical worries.  So I looked up a 4x4 Workshop to have a look at the clicking sound when making extreme turns, unfortunately, a wait of 4 days is necessary for it to be looked at.  So we settled into a local caravan park, and explored Darwin the city a little, but mostly to have a rest, take stock and watch some TV and catch up on readings.  Yes, I do carry a TV receiver in my laptop.

Named after Charles Darwin of Evolution fame, discovered by Europeans  in  1839, Darwin is an vibrant city of over 100,000 people.  A mega metropolis it is not, however, it has its share of bitter sweet history.  It has the distinct misfortune of the first Australian city to be aerially bombed by that same fleet that attacked Pearl Harbour in 1942, only later to become the largest base for the counter offencive efforts of allied forces.

On X'mas day 1974, Darwin had 70% of its buildings destroyed by Cyclone Tracy, the worst natural disaster of Australian history.  A major airlift evacuated 75% of the population until it was cleaned up and rebuilt in the late 1970s.

So we explored present day Darwin, with a small but modern city center with a beautiful waterfront promenade, where we chat with a couple of travelling Aboriginals, from Alice Springs, who are doing their "walkabouts", kitted with nothing more than a guitar and the hope of finding work along their way. Amongst the travellers, is one Taiwanese girl who was doing water colour paintings in the center mall, hopefully to collect enough money to commence her working holidays into the outbacks.  Hope her dream comes true.

Between mulling over the white paper detailing the pros and cons of Northern Territories becoming a State of Australia, and figuring out which day the petrol price will come down, we explored a few of the remote beaches, unfortunately, enticingly beautiful as they are, no one would swim in them for fear of blue bottles and crocs.

Accustomed to the daily routine of moving, it was welcoming to have our car ready for pick up on the end of the 4th day. But it was disappointing to learn that the dreaded clicking sound did not disappear totally despite the assurance that the old parts were replaced and the car is fit to "rock and roll" so to speak. What choice do we have other than to trust these words! Unfortunately, they did not have sufficient time to do the routine maintenance work, which'd have to wait another two days.  No other workshop around town could do any earlier.

So, we left on the morning of the fifth day, calling ahead to other towns along the way to make a workshop booking. They were all booked a week in advance.  Finally we secured an appointment 1000 Km away on the other side of the border with Western . All these were done whilst on the road with little or no mobile phone signal, but landlines do work in remote areas.
Australia

You are invited to view David's photo album: 2011 4x4 Outback Trip ( Darwin to WA) 2011 4x4 Outback Trip ( Darwin to WA) Sep 20, 2011 by David View Album Play slideshow Message from David: After traveling from Sydney to Darwin over 31 days, 8900 Km later, we decided to take a big western circle towards home from Darwin. For the trip up to this point, we only saw rain on the day leaving Sydney, and the only night sleeping in a bed. But for the entire period, a comfortable shower was always to be had everynight, no exception. If you are having problems viewing this email, copy and paste the following into your browser: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=Australia.dt&target=ALBUM&id=5835430097182020113&authkey=Gv1sRgCNvflNLq-5GvSA&feat=email To share your photos or receive notification when your friends share photos, get your own free Picasa Web Albums account.

After leaving Darwin, we bee lined for Litchfield National Park, famous for its magnetic termite mounds and the various swimmable waterholes with their beautiful waterfalls.  Magnetic termite mounds are a good example of evolution.  The hot and wet conditions of the area favoured the survival of those termites which were genetically programmed to build mounts in a north-south directions like a compass needle.  They stood in open grasslands like tombstones, eerie!

The swims in Florence Fall and Wangi Falls in Litchfield more than compensated for the boredom in Darwin, no crocs, beautiful environment, but a little touristy, being so close to Darwin, and easy roads.

There we came across a young Working Holiday traveler,  a Parisian banker who decided to see outback Australia, quit her job a year ago.  She was on her way to a nearby Mango farm to work for another 2 weeks, which will then satisfy a condition of her visa, ie to work in the regional areas for 3 months, to gain another year of extension to the visa, which she highly desired to do so.  As we travelled further afield into the outbacks, the more we realised that there just aren't sufficient manpower for works, we've seen so many Working Holiday travelers doing a lot of casual menial works, some of them are professionals in other fields. Another case in point is, most car mechanic shops are full to their brinks for works, that without a booking a week in advance, it is next to impossible to get car fixed at short notice.





After overnight at Wangi Falls, we continued south to Douglas Springs, through a 4x4 only track.  It was a very scenic part of Litchfield and uneventful. Until, we were descending into a river crossing, we saw this man and his Ford Ranger was sitting in the middle, going nowhere.  He was happy to see our car, for sure, after waiting for an hour or so, he said. It was a case of him taking unnecessary risks, with no recovery gear to speak of, no emergency beacons, and worse of all, no understanding of 4x4 driving, doing his first off road trip alone, despite having this 4x4 as his daily commute.  We managed to snatch the car out with my recovery gears, and have him happily on his way, but only after I aired down his tyres to a suitable pressure for the terrain.

Douglas Hot Springs

Douglas Springs was one of those places that I longed to revisit after my first trip there 10 years ago. A shallow river ( in the dry season anyway) with hot spring water flowing along one side. So it is a case of walking across the river to pick the right temperature for a lying down. And it is big enough with plenty of tree covers and sand banks, affording plenty of privacy.  The misty sunrise is a constant theme every morning due to the rising steam.

We stayed for nearly 3 days, and discovered the source of the hot springs.  The small pond at which the springs surfaced, is quite hot, and can burn, a couple of toads were found cooked in the water.  The best thing is, there are very few visitors until Friday night, when the locals from Darwin coming for their weekend.  But we were ready to move anyway.

After exploring a couple of old WWII airfields and old mining towns along the Stuart Hwy, we reached Katherine again.  After stocking up at the local Coles, filled up our two 20L gerry cans with cheap petrol ( from Shell ), we then turned west onto the unknown Victoria Hwy.  But one thing we had been keenly aware of, is the quarantine requirements when crossing the border into Western Australia, so we only stock enough fruits and vegies for the expected 3 days trip before the border.

The next three days was spent exploring the lands along the Victoria Highway towards Western Australia, learnt its history and marveled at the vast savannah on both sides. We detoured for 300Km into Gregory National Park to visit the Bullita Historical Homestead and Stockyard.  It was a bone shaking rocky 300Km trip into a land that was filled with trial and tribulations for many early settlers.  This also marks the beginning of the territories for the big fat Boab trees.  These trees has a hilarious fat bottle shape, and in silhouette, like a terrified child with all hairs standing up, scary but also very interesting.  We visited a few historical ones, which had date engraved on them, marked by the first white explorers into the territory some 150+ years ago.

The date was carved into the tree upon the arrival of the first white explorers.

Six days after leaving Darwin, and many swimming holes and boab trees later, we finally arrived at the Western Australian Quarantine Station at the border.  Each Australian states have agricultural zones they want to protect, for protectionism or agricultural reasons or both.  In this case, no fresh fruits or vegetables are allowed to cross, and we had to throw away what's left in the fridge. By the way, the fridge had withstood the bone shattering trip so far, and kept working very well, given the very hot weather at this time of the year, 35+ Deg is the norm.

We have now reached the eastern boundary of the famed Kimberley region of Australia and checked into a caravan park in Kununurra and setup tent under a large mango tree in the shade.  Later that night, we learnt our mistake of camping underneath a mango tree.....more about that next!