We set off super early in the morning as we were intending to cover 1200km in a day. It was the start of some serious long slog driving. Just after leaving Alice Springs we were pulled over to the side of the road by some aborigines who had broken down. We didn't have a jump lead though so they decided they would wait for someone else. Cannelle and Varun were doing 300km each in relays and the first half was uneventful. My God what a boring road. We would drive some long and super boring stretches of road but this was one of the most painful. Thank God we only had to do it once. About halfway we came to the famous Devils Marbles. I had assumed they would be a few boulders on the side of the road and they actually have much more than that. It takes a while to walk around them all and they are better than the photos. Not saying they are anything special, but they definitely make for a pleasant break of journey on the way North. We stopped for lunch in Tennant Creek which was another depressing shithole and I was surprised to find a French girl working there. What possessed these foreigners to live in the middle of nowhere I will never know. Rather her than me. We detoured for Newcastle Waters ghost town but there is nothing much there now. Waste of time. We eventually limped into Mataranka quite late and decided to stay the night there.
In the morning we went to the famous hot springs and while they are not really hot (maybe 30 C or so) they are warm enough to have a pleasant swim in. A wallaby came down to the water edge while we were in them as well. We finished up there in the morning and headed on to Katherine Gorge. By this point we were in no mood to see yet another gorge. The boat ride is expensive so we opted to just walk for a view of the first gorge. Its funny how your targets on a trip are constantly shifting depending on what you have seen before. The massive amount of gorges had meant that we were reluctant to see any more. We saw another whip snake here though, which a park ranger identified for us. We spent a couple of hours here and then decided to push for Kununurra. At this point we were making good time and we realised that our ambitious plan could work although we were going to inevitably going to spend a lot of money on petrol. With petrol at on or around $2 a litre it was significantly more expensive here. The road across to Western Australia is much more windy and more fun to drive apparently. It also involves some changes of scenery. We had come from the desert of the middle into the jungle of the north and then back into the boab decked landscape of the west. The boab trees are super cool. I think the fact that they don't have forests but just pop up randomly all over the place makes them that little bit more special. At the camp site the woman told us the bungle bungles were cool but that with the creek crossings we were going to need a high clearance 4WD to make it through. I wasn't happy risking the car there. She also told us they had the mini bungle bungles in town so we decided to visit them in the morning. A 4WD tour to the bungle bungles is $300 for a day. Sick money. I think they list a lot of the 4WD tracks as 4WD when they aren't really, because they want people to take their expensive tours and not to risk their vehicles. I found out from the passport office that there were delays with the applications as well so I will try and call them again tonight to see if anything can be done.
In the morning we visited the mini bungle bungles which made for a pleasant hour or two. We then had a drive past the lake. I would say that Kununrra is a pleasant little town and its probably the only nice town that we saw from Melbourne to Darwin. We had to move fast and got to Halls Creek around lunchtime. There we grabbed some food and also went to visit China Wall which is a ice quartzite rock sticking out of the ground. Worth the diversion. We then did some mental relay driving to get all the way to Broome for the night. That's 1000km in a day including visiting some places. Again the Kimberley was much of a muchness but its probably the least boring of all of the drives. We decided to take a day off and just chill in Broome.
I am not sure Broome was the best place to take a day off the road. Its a bit ugly, there is fuck all to do there and I have no idea how it became a resort town. I pity the West Australians if that is the best they have. We wandered around 'china town' and then went to the famous cable beach, but couldn't be bothered to hang around until sunset. We went out in the evening and had a stroll around, but this town had the largest group of drunken aborigines and it was just becoming far too depressing now. Sometimes we saw some younger people who seemed integrated and you hope that's the future for them and not the drunken sitting around. I am not sure the money they are given by the government is really that beneficial to them. Anyway we were all underwhelmed by Broome but appreciated having the day off the road.
The next day we grabbed breakfast and set off for Karijini NP. We saw on the map that the entrance road was unsealed so we did not make it into the park as we didn't want to drive an unsealed road in the dark. Only the next morning did we find out that it is in fact sealed. The road between Broome and Port Hedland makes the fucking Stuart Highway look fantastic. Maybe Australians would be the only people to find the dull route 66 exciting.
We drove into Karijini and were super pumped because we had heard such great things about the park. It did not disappoint. First we went to Dales Gorge and did a little hike down to some waterfalls. It wasn't what we had seen online but it was very scenic. We spent the morning over there and then headed to the west of the park. We had a look out over jofre falls (which made me laugh as a game of thrones fan) and then we went for a walk down into knox gorge. This is why this place is so fantastic. Australians usually take safety way too seriously but here you are allowed to hang off rocks, scale little precipices and hike in somewhat unsafe terrain. Maybe the fact someone died by falling from the cliff in Kings Canyon today may change all that though. Here we had to balance over water while we traversed the rock place and followed the gorge to the end of the markers. You can take the easy option and swim or you can try to stay high and dry. We grabbed lunch and the best was now to come. We headed over to oxer lookout where you can see 4 gorges coming together. Then we went down into hancock gorge where you have to wade in ice cold water. Its so cold I thought I had frost bite after 2 minutes in it. Fuck it was cold. Reminded me of how fun it is to hike in Zion National Park. You have to do some hanging to make it round the rock walls and then some spider walking down to kermits pool. This is a lot of fun. Not sure you will gain too much from the $300 tour but if I had a crazy budget I would have been tempted. The gorge on the other side is even tougher where you have to wade almost up to your crotch in ice water and then lower yourself down slippery rocks on an iron bar. As there was no way I was going in that ice water I thought the last part was too much risk for the reward but this was a lot of fun. It was probably one of the highlights for all of us. Its a really beautiful place and a definite highlight of Australia. Get down there to see it. So much fun. We got out of the park and again drove through the dark to get to Nananurra roadhouse.
The next day we got to Exmouth by 10am to get to the furthest point of our mad drive. I forgot to mention that on the way to Karijini a road train let fly with a huge rock that cracked a chunk in the windscreen. Thank fuck we took insurance. We were now even more reluctant to take it on an unsealed road because we were uninsured there and if something happened we would be liable for a $2000 windscreen. When we got to Exmouth we found an awesome little bakery with great apple turnovers. We were also told that because of the huge wind all the boats had been cancelled. No diving, no snorkelling and no chance of taking the glass bottom boat out to see. This was disappointing as it had looked good and Varun was a little nervous about snorkelling in the sea as he hadn't been before. We took some snorkels from the visitor centre and headed to turquoise bay to go snorkelling on our own. How disappointing. Like a lot of things in Australia, the hype far exceeds the reality. The beach was beautiful and the water was only a little cold, but the snorkelling was shit and my mask was total bollocks. When you have dived in great places, you can't put up with this kind of bullshit snorkelling. I think I have to give up on snorkelling altogether as I am beginning to hate it as a useless sport. Maybe if we had seen the whale sharks ($400 when we paid $10 in the Philippines) or dived Navy Pier (too expensive for us this time) then it would have been good, but as it stands it was a waste of time going there to be honest. Nevertheless we had a lot of fun pissing around and decided that we would begin our 3 day sprint back to Katherine the next morning. 3000km in 3 days. It was just going to be a relay of slog driving through places we had basically already seen.
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