Woolybutt

After driving back to Kununurra, we still had some daylight left, and decided to spend the rest of the afternoon at Mirima National Park, which is right on the edge of town.




Mirima has some of the funny striped, beehive like sandstone structures similar to the Bungle Bungles further south.








This is the bower of a Great Bowerbird that we found near (where else?) the restrooms. The males create and maintain these (including the collection of glass and white stones in front) to attract the ladies.




And how can you not love a country that gives their trees charming monikers like Woolybutt?

Head Lice Dreaming

Keep River had some nice rock art. The two large figures on the right are giant ancestral beings called Gangi Nganang.




We saw a number of these circular forms.




Spacemen!




And, just to show there is a dreamtime story for everything, here is a sign referencing 'head lice dreaming'. Unfortunately, the maker of the sign chose not to elaborate on the story, which surely has to be a good one.




The inspirational rock formation itself.

Boab

This is the trunk of a Boab, or Bottle Tree, the only one of the family of Baobab trees found in Australia. (The other species occur in Madagascar and Africa). These trees were my primary reason for heading all the way out to the border of Western Australia, so you will have to excuse the number of pictures I've posted of them. At this moment I was admiring the surface of the trunk... it felt like skin. These were seriously huggable trees.




They were such little characters; each one was unique.




The trees are deciduous, but they each seemed to be on their own schedule, as we saw trees that were completely bare, like this one, and fully leafed out, like the next.






Often two smaller trees would grow up side by side and eventually merge into one big gnarly one.




The fruits are large (orange sized) and fuzzy on the outside. The inside is filled with a chalky powder that the Aborigines use for food.

Keep River

Keep River National Park was beautiful in the morning light.




Here I am demonstrating the vast size of the spinifex clumps along the trail. There are many species of spinifex (a perennial clumping grass) that dominate the arid portions of Australia, but we'd never seen them get this large. By the way, those grass blades might look sort of soft, but they are seriously pokey.




The color and texture of the sandstone was pretty nifty.




This is an Elephant Ear Wattle. What look like large curving leaves here are actually weirdly flattened stems that function as leaves.




Cane Toads are one of the most spectacular failures of biological pest control and a serious environmental problem in Australia, poisoning many of the native predators and spreading across the country like crazy. They were also the bane of our night spotlighting trips, since they make quite a bit of racket and we often found ourselves chasing down what we hoped would be an elusive little marsupial or rodent, only to find a clumsy cane toad. In Katherine Gorge one night they were so thick on the trail I stepped on a couple. (though not to the point of squishing, thank goodness.)
They are marching their way across the Northern Territory, and Keep River National Park, on the border between the NT and Western Australia, had this Cane Toad trap and information about eradication programs, and the fight to keep WA toad free.




One of the many, many Agile Wallabies seen throughout the trip.

Day 8 Miscellany

We stopped for lunch at the Timber Creek Wayside Inn, before making the long drive to Kununurra. That vehicle is pretty representative of what we saw on the road in the Northern Territory. The vast majority of vehicles were either campervans, road trains, or tricked out SUV's with snorkels and jerry cans and sometimes trailers. A tiny fraction of the traffic on the road were actual passenger vehicles like our Hyundai, presumably because during the wet season little Hyundais would be useless, as even the major highways flood regularly.




And in case you are wondering what I mean by a snorkel, here is a nice police vehicle sporting one, allowing it to cross incredibly deep water without drowning.




Australians have interesting notions about time zones. The Northern Territory was 1/2 hour off of Sydney time, which is weird enough, but Western Australia was 1 1/2 hours behind the Northern Territory, so although it was nearly 6 pm "our time" after crossing the border and checking into the hotel in Kununurra, it was still only 4:30 or so "their time". So, it was getting dark, and as far as we were concerned, time for dinner, but the restaurant wasn't going to open until 8pm "our time". This confusion continued the entire time we were there, and was compounded a bit by the fact that we crossed over the border 4 times in those two days.





Kununurra has a population of 6000 (a metropolis!) and there were a number of hotels to choose from, but the first five we tried were full, and we began to worry we'd be sleeping in the Hyundai. We found the Kununurra Lakeside Resort finally, and the extremely kind people there, with some juggling, were able to find us a cabin we could use for both nights. The lake was beautiful in the sunset, and, as it turned out, absolutely full of freshwater crocs. We went back after dark with a spotlight and you could see dozens of red eyes glowing on the surface.



Some pictures of our cabin. You'll notice the family resemblance between the bedspread here and the one in the Victoria River Roadhouse. In fact, all of Australia seems plagued by these kitschy patterned polyester bedspreads, but, no matter, we had a room and it was clean and comfy.






Because of the craziness with the timezones, and the convenient kitchenette, we bought breakfast and picnic lunch supplies at the Tuckerbox, a grocery store (and a nice piece of Aussie slang.) Note the lovely matching curtains.




Dinner at last. What Darrin has there in the bowl are "Traditional Nachos", according to the menu. After decades of living in the West and eating all manner of Mexican food on a more-than-weekly basis, we were suffering withdrawal, so this was really tempting. It turned out to be chips, with a sauce more marinara than salsa, tons of "tasty" cheese, and a huge dollop of sour cream, nuked heavily. The overall effect was, while not exactly Mexican food, reasonably good. I had my 10th (though always delicious) Greek Salad of the trip.

Joe's Creek

The second hike we took in Gregory National Park was in an area called Joe's creek.. another nice walk up to and along an escarpment.




There were beautiful gray-green Livingstonia Palms tucked in along the base of the entire escarpment; remnants of the days when this area was more tropical. They looked amazing against the colorful sandstone, but the sun was not conducive to photography.





There was some simple rock art along the trail, and since it was unsigned and sometimes hard to find, it felt more like a personal discovery.

Nibble Nobby's Nuts!

Nobbys appears to be the most popular brand of nuts in Australia, and you could find these handy packets at any gas station or grocery store in the country. I like their extremely silly slogan.




We decided to spend the morning exploring Gregory National Park, a large and little visited area of escarpments and gorges sitting in the transitional zone between tropical and semi-arid climates. We hit only the easily accessible stops (right off the highway) but saw absolutely no one. Imagine the seclusion you would enjoy if you had a 4WD and camping gear.




This is a Short-eared Rock Wallaby; one of a pair that we felt pretty lucky to have seen. It was fairly late in the morning, but they weren't too shy and let us have a good luck. This was the only place we saw this species.




Some fossilized ripples, from the time when this area was under water. The piece on the left, if you were to flip it over, would fit neatly into the piece on the right.




Here we are at the top of the escarpment. The highway and a little piece of the Victoria River is visible in the background.

Now Open Under New Wife

We had planned to spend the night in Katherine and go canoeing up Katherine Gorge, but when we arrived at the hotel in Katherine, we found out they hadn't opened the gorge to canoeing yet, after the recent floods. So, we thought we'd take a 3 day detour to the border of Western Australia to visit a park there, and hopefully go canoeing when we got back. The drive to WA is more than 500 km and there are only two stops along the way. One is the township of Timber Creek (described as the region's main center with a population of... 70) and the other is the Victoria River Roadhouse... which is the typical rural Australian roadside oasis, with a pub, restaurant, store, hotel, campground, and gas station all together in one place. Since the roadhouse was closest, and it was already after 5pm, we decided to head there, though it was a race to get there safely before they stopped serving dinner at 8pm. We were venturing out into some of the most remote territory we've ever driven through, so we drove slowly once it got dark. Good thing we did... we came around a bend to find two enormous Brahman bulls in the middle of the road, who merely stared at us, unmoving, until we drove around them.

Anyway, this picture was taken the next morning, where we found their sign most amusing.



There is our wee little rental car parked in front of our room. It had this annoying habit of losing power when the tank was full... we'd be driving down the highway at full speed and it would start to chug, like it was choking. This was a little nerve-wracking at first, but once we recognized the pattern, we just chalked it up to "character".




Our room was a little sad. Actually, it doesn't look so bad in the picture, and it was clean, but what you can't see is all the water damage in the corner, the peeling linoleum, the scary disintegrating shower caddy, and the shower head coming straight out of the wall, with no shower pan, and a drain in the middle of the bathroom floor, effectively turning the entire bathroom into your shower and ensuring that every inch of the floor will get wet. This arrangement of shower is not uncommon, but at least in Australia (as opposed to Europe), there is usually a curtain to contain the spray somewhat.

Sickness Country

On this morning we drove south out of the park, with a stop at the Yurmikmik area to do the Boulder Creek walk. The hills in this part of the park contain a fair bit of uranium, and the Aborigines named the area "sickness country", (long before anyone thought of mining the stuff) which indicates they had some notion of the potential dangers here.

This fun swingy bridge was at the beginning of the trial.




We stopped at this beautiful area to take a break and eat our picnic lunch. I think the scale of the rocks is hard to read in this image, but the fact that there is a guy sitting in the deep shade on the left should help.





We didn't jump in for a swim; it was pretty cold, but sticking our feet in was nice and refreshing. Try not to be blinded by our glowing white nerd-flesh.




We saw this awesome snake on the highway outside of the park. Its coloring strongly suggests Black-Headed Python, though it seems too slender.