Ramblings from the road
27th June 2002: Winjana Gorge – Bell Creek
We make our way to the famous Gibb River Road (GRR) travelling around 90kms along its length and passing some great scenery, in particular the King Leopold Ranges. Bell Gorge is 29kms off the GRR with two creek crossing required between the GRR and the gorge.
After packing up we make our way into Fitzroy Crossing for a brief stop for supplies and then drive another 170kms north to Winjana Gorge.
The Winjana Gorge camp is stunning with the gorge walls as a backdrop . Plenty of fresh-water crocodiles – you can practically stand beside them. The gorge walk is around 7km return up the Lenard River, with high, colourful cliffs on both sides. Our our return we find the croc’s are a lot more active with many diving off the rocks, swimming & walking around.
Continue reading “Windjana”Great couple of weeks spent exploring Broome but time to move on. Packing up was a bit of a challenge as its our first time packing with Paul on board.
Just south of Derby we stop at the Boab Prison Tree, a large hollow Boab tree allegedly used in the 1890’s as a holding cell for Aboriginal prisoners on their way to Derby town for sentencing.
I have attended every Melbourne Cup since 1960.
It’s the only horserace in Australia that “Stops the Nation,” with even Parliament stoping for those three and half minutes or so while the race is run and won and another name is etched in the annals of Cup history as the winner of this great race.
Continue reading “Melbourne Cup Tradition”
“Where’s that useless bastard, Norm!!” roared Bruce.
“He’s let me down again. I don’t know why I asked him to run this department. He couldn’t organise a shit fight in a septic tank. Ah, there you are, you poor excuse for a manager.”
Continue reading “Norm”Say goodbye to our fellow campers, pick up supplies & petrol and head toward to Marble Bar almost 200kms away. We set up camp on the Coongan River around 45kms north of Marble Bar. Amazingly we are the only campers here for our two nights stay. We have an easy afternoon relaxing and explore the area the next day visiting Dolena Gorge, Kitty’s Gap and Copping Gap. The drive to Kitty’s Gap is on a pretty rough 4WD track but with good scenery… plenty of red dirt and greenery after the recent rains.
For a couple of years after Marg and I got married we lived in Ascot Vale, a few streets down from where John the Pommie resided. The two of us used to get a lift into work with one of our workmates called Richard. Richard didn’t have a nickname as such but was forever on the receiving end of a lot of “Dick” jokes such as: “Have you got a second, Dick?” or “Have you got a bit of string on ya, Dick?”
He used to pick us up on the corner of our street, where, while waiting from him, I used to have to put up with all the stories about “Munchester United”, the soccer team the Pommie used to follow “buck home” home in England.
Continue reading “John & Richard”3rd June 2002: Weano Gorge (Karijini National Park) – Deep Reach Pool (Millstream/Chichester NP)
Dane & Wayne did their apprenticeship together and were good mates. They arrived at work each day in Dane’s hotted up panel van and the smoke fuming out of their car was not exactly petrol related, if you know what I mean.
Continue reading “Dane & Wayne”
We break camp and travel 40kms north. We pass a number of coastal camps and find a few have been flooded by high tides around the new moon. We decide on Mesa Camp; certainly more people than Yardie Creek (room for 11 other campers).
Continue reading “Gorged Out”