Here are some pictures from around Kununurra...
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| Pink diamonds from the Argyle mine |
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| 'Zebra rock' and other varieties at Rockalong Gallery |
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| View from Kelly's Knob lookout |
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| Interesting rock formations at Mirima National Park |
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| Turkey bushes in flower |
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| Boab tree |
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| Our home on the road |
From Kununurra, our original plan had been to drive to the Bungle Bungles and take a 4wd day tour from there. However the campground and tour operator had been unable to open this season because of land rights issues. So we had to shuffle our itinerary, which meant a flight and 4wd tour of the Bungle Bungles from Kununurra - and three more days to fill!
One of those days we opted to do a bus/boat tour out to Lake Argyle and back.
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| Lake Argyle and the Ord River Dam |
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| Looking down on the Ord River from the dam. The jets are from the hydro station bypass |
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| Ord River gorge section |
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| Tour guide Jeff does his best schoolteacher impersonation |
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| Amazing rock strata along the river |
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| Freshwater crocodile - not dangerous unless provoked |
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| Approaching sunset |
From Katherine we drove west, taking two days to get to Kununurra. Here are some pictures along the way...
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| View of the river from the Victoria River escarpment walk |
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| Hiking the Victoria River escarpment |
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| Straight roads... but more hills than we were expecting |
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| NT speed limit sign |
On the way back, we did the entire drive in a single day (due to a change of itinerary)...
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| Joe Creek loop walk |
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| Joe Creek loop walk |
Show day is an Australian institution, especially for rural towns. When we had planned the original trip in 2020, it was only after we had booked everything that we realised the Katherine show was on around that time. So this time around we added in an extra day and planned to attend the show, just for the experience.
I wasn't too sure what to expect, but it had a real family atmosphere and there were lots of things to see. Equestrian competitions, chainsaw sculpting, $50,000 camper trailers for sale, a magic show, motorcycle stunts, needlework, cakes, produce, poultry, carnival rides, rodeo, fireworks...
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| Before... |
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| ...after! |
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| Motorcycle stunts |
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| Campdraft. We couldn't figure out how the scoring worked |
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| A sea of Brahman cattle |
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| Winning pumpkins |
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| Highlight of the day: the lawnmower race |
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| Evening rodeo competition |
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| Fireworks to finish |
Kakadu National Park was first on our itinerary. It's huge, but a lot of it is only accessible by 4wd. Since we didn't have the budget for that (or the knowledge of how to drive one properly, or get ourselves out of trouble if we got stuck) it meant we were a bit limited in where we could go. Not to worry - there was plenty to see. Even if we hadn't quite anticipated just how far apart everything was...
For our first full day in the park, we started with a visit to the rock art site at Ubirr. We had booked a guided tour, but when the guide finally turned up (15 minutes late and speaking and acting like he was under the influence of something) we excused ourselves and explored on our own.
We learned that rock art had various uses. Some of the pictures are warnings to Aboriginal people about spirit forces in that area, or tell stories about how the land and features were created. Others are instructional, depicting the types of animals that are found in the area. I was interested to read that it was bad manners to touch up someone else's painting, but to create another painting over the top was perfectly acceptable. In some places there are multiple layers of painting.
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| Rock art in 'X-ray' styl |
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| View from the Ubirr lookout |
From Ubirr we picked up a few supplies in Jabiru, refuelled, and drove to Nawurlandja and did the lookout walk and the Anbangbang billabong walk.
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| Anbangbang billabong |
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| Ibises at Anbangbang billabong |
We had set aside the whole of the next day to do the 12 km Barrk walk at Nourlangie. The information boards on arrival said it shouldn't be called Nourlangie, because that refers to another place but ignorant white people keep calling it Nourlangie. It's a bit hard to not be another ignorant white person when it's written as Nourlangie on the maps and signs...
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| At the top of the big climb, before it got too hot! |
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| Rocks and trees |
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| Lunch was at the half-way point: Nanguluwurr rock art site |
Back at the car park, we also visited the rock art site.
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| X-ray style painting of a kangaroo (with other layers underneath) |
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| We made up our own story about this one. 'A kangaroo stole a boy's bike, so he killed it with a spear' |
Since our flights had arrived around midnight, we had planned a 'recovery' day for our first day in Darwin. We took our time getting up and then walked to the Casuarina shopping mall, about 20 minutes away. We found somewhere to have brunch and did a bit of shopping - me for some things I can't get in PNG, and supplies from the supermarket for our first few days of campervanning. Then it was a taxi back to the hotel for what was left of the afternoon.
The next morning we packed up and made our way to the campervan hire depot. There we were given some bad news: the campervan that had been assigned to us in the system had been returned the day before with a faulty windscreen wiper and wouldn't be ready until 12:00. We had a jumping crocodile tour booked for 11:00, and when we explained this to the staff they looked into other options. At one stage it sounded like they would give us a complimentary car to go to the jumping crocs and then come back to collect the campervan - which would mean a really long day of driving! (45 mins each way to the crocs, and 3 hrs from there to our overnight stop at Jabiru.) But then they found a campervan of the same model was available from one of their sister companies, so they quickly checked it over and we loaded up.
It wasn't yet 11:00 but we weren't going to make it in time, so I called the tour company to explain the situation and they were able to book us on the 1:00 tour instead. This turned out to be quite good as there were two boats going out, so ours wasn't very full.
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| Jumping croc |
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| BIG jumping croc |
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| Impressive jumping croc |
After the tour we continued the drive to Jabiru. We stopped for a short walk at the Mamukala wetlands, but not being birdwatchers I don't have much to write home about that.
My best friend and I started planning this holiday back in 2019. So it's been quite a long wait - thanks to Covid!
We had planned the trip for July 2020, but everyone ended up in lockdown.
We postponed it to July 2021, but leisure travel wasn't really feasible with mandatory hotel quarantine. Besides, most of the tourist attractions and accommodation didn't open that year.
We didn't even think about doing it in July 2022, because I was at a critical stage of flight training in PNG.
Why July? Because it's the cooler and drier time of the year. In the wet season (Oct-Mar), many roads become impassable and most of the tourist attractions close down.
Once we had decided to go, booking everything was pretty straightforward. We already had an itinerary and had researched where to stay, so it was just a matter of deciding on dates. We chose to avoid the school holidays, and to be in Katherine for show day.
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The day finally arrived and Jess dropped me off at Hagen airport. I checked in for my 10:00 flight and waited. And waited. And we all waited. Finally a staff member made an announcement - the plane would be arriving at 12:00. I started panicking. My flight from Moresby to Brisbane was scheduled to depart at 1:35. It was almost certain that I would miss it. I asked the ground staff what would happen, they said they would let the people in Moresby know. It wasn't much consolation.
Sure enough the plane arrived just after 12:00. I had resigned myself to the fact that God was in control and there was nothing I could do but wait, and then run once I got to Moresby. We took off from Hagen at 1:00 and landed in Moresby at 1:50. I collected my bag and motored over to the international terminal. The departures board confirmed that I had indeed missed the flight to Brisbane.
There was no queue at the service counter and the ladies set about rebooking my ticket for the next day and arranging a hotel room. But then an idea came. Also listed on the departures board was a flight to Cairns, departing at 5:00 that afternoon. I asked if it would be possible for me to get to Darwin via Cairns instead?
"We'll have to get permission to change your routing. I'll send an email."
I kept my thoughts to myself about how stupid it was to rely on email as a form of urgent communication, especially on a Sunday, and found a seat to wait while God did His thing behind the scenes. A few minutes later I saw some familiar faces walk through the door - a MAF couple who had been visiting Hagen and were on their way back to Cairns! I chatted with them for a while, until the service lady called me over to say my changes had been approved and I could check in.
I checked in and was told I would have to collect my bag in Cairns and check it in again. This made me nervous as I only had 1.5 hrs in Cairns, and Jetstar (who I would be flying with for the Cairns-Darwin flight) closes their bag drop 40 minutes before the flight, even if it's late. Again I just had to trust God that He would work things out.
As a precaution, I checked in for the Jetstar flight online. Uh-oh... I needed to print my boarding pass before coming to the airport. What a joke! But once again the service lady was happy to help me out by printing the pass for me.
To my surprise our flight left Moresby right on time. The plane was only half full, so getting through immigration and customs in Cairns was no trouble and I was out of the terminal with about an hour to spare.
Although the flight to Darwin was delayed by half an hour, I was still scheduled arrive before my friend. To top it off, my new Jetstar ticket had a $15 in flight food voucher included!
After arriving in Darwin I saw that the flight I was originally booked on from Brisbane to Darwin was going to be over an hour late, which meant that my friend would have had to hang around for an hour and a half!
As I reflected on the day I could see God's fingerprints all over it:
- arriving earlier than planned, even according to the original flight schedule
- seeing the MAF couple in Moresby
- not having to worry about whether my bag would make the connecting flight, because I had to pick it up at each stop
- meal being included from Cairns to Darwin
- Moresby staff being willing to print the Jetstar boarding pass for me
It was a humbling lesson in how God was, as usual, able to make good things come out of what seemed to be a bad situation.
