Day 24 - Kununurra to Fitzroy Crossing

Day 24 - Kununurra to Fitzroy Crossing

14-8-13

We leave Kununurra with no regrets, there wasn't much to see. Maybe if we have had a lot more time, we could have used this palce as a portal to the Kimberly, but most roads there are unsealed and we already had bad experiences with the 'bull' dust.

Maybe next trip, I'll bring a dirt bike.

There were more and more baobabs, these trees are so funny.

here Mary was gettign bored and had to find thing to do. that's what happens when you sit on the back of a bike for 12 hours or so a day.

Nice hill, I don't know why I liked it so much. I think it reminds me the ones on the cowboy movies.

More fun from Mary.

Here the trees started changing.

The road trains are everywhere.

That's what I call travelling in style, look at the Harley on the back of this camper.

The Doon Doon, a place the escape the heat, OMG THE HEAT!

NO KIIDDING! IT WAS FUCKING HOT! (Can you say 'fucking' on a blog? ) 56 degrees!

This one is for Sambuco. I am sure he'd appreciate the stupidity of some people. 

The het here burns everything, there are very few plants.

The we saw this, we could not believe our eyes.

His name is Ken and he is travelling from Darwin to Perth on a bike. It took him 3 months to get here from Perth (for us)

Does anyone know what plant this is?

This was the worst, cows everywhere graqzing next to the road,a and crossing it! Can you imagine hitting one of these! Some have, seeing from the dead cows on the side of the road.

We camped next to this river, the 'Mighty' Fitzroy, not so mighty now in the dry season, but beautiful nevertheless

'The beauty and the girl'.sorry I mean 'the beauty and the river'

Day 23 - Katherine to Kununurra

11/8/2013

Today we are leaving Katherine and heading west into uncharted roads, we are going into Western Australia. We have a bit of apprehension  as we know that there is not much on the way and that we will find the hottest temperatures, probably the worst roads and the longest distances without a petrol stop, but we go anyway, that's just the way we are.

The camp kitchen next to our tent in Katherine, some local artist painted a very nice landscape. When I looked at it, I thought to myself that the tree didn't look right, that there was something wrong with the shades, as it looked too white. However, once we started travelling west, we found that that is exactly how they are.

The other side.

And here we are enjoying the landscape of the way out of Katherine

And more of the same, a hill every now and then served to break the spell a bit.

Our fist stop, funny sign

...and a photo on the move

As you can see, we were carrying a lot of weight.

This hill appeared in a few movies

Hi to other 1-wheel drive travelers

The we saw this!

Our first Baobab!

That's it, we are leaving the Northern Territory for who knows how long. Although I do want to come back soon, there was so much we didn't get to see.

The first state crossing where they were serious about fruits and vegies.

Hi to more 1-wheel drivers, these ones turned out to be cops.

We were running out of petrol when we got to Kununurra.

Trying to find a place to camp for the night.

We enede up camping next to this beautiful river. however, didn't realise aboutt he sandflies; they had a feast with us.

Day 23 - Katherine to Kununurra

13/8/2013

Day 22 - Katherine Gorge

Day 22 - Katherine Gorge

12/8/2013

Today we (finally) cruised the Katherine Gorge. It was gorgeous, the tranquility and stunning change in scenery was a welcomed surprise. The whole trip from Katherine to here, all 30kms were pretty much a caked desert. However, as soon as we reached this area, it became green and teeming with animals.

The Gorge is basically a river that over millennia carved a deep channel through erosion. In other words, erosion was what caused the beauty of this place. so when somebody tells you to avoid erosion here or there, just remember this place.

Does this photo need a description?

A reminder that here there could be 'salties' (salt water crocs), too.

Normally the type of crocs in this are are the freshwater ones, they are not dangerous and are protected. The beaches are their nesting areas.

This one is funny, they put a plastic ball hanging from a tree, the crocs bite it and leave teeth in there, then the ranges can get it remove the missing teeth and then determine what age the crocs int he are are. If the ball is missing, they know that there must be a saltie nearby.

A couple having fun together

Finally got the setting for landscape on this very complicated camera.

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Where the boats moor, from here there is a 400m walk to the next gorge, where there is another boat waiting

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A nice chair...ah, the bird is also nice.

This is some type of Kookaburra, but quite different and more colourful than the ones found in Sydney

Day 21 - Kakadu National Park (Yellow Waters) and trip to Katherine

Day 21 - Kakadu National Park (Yellow Waters) and trip to Katherine

11/8/2013

What a wonderful place, every day we were in this camping (Cooinda), we had free buffet breakfast. I am not sure if it was actually included in the price of the camping, but I dared not ask. By the way, do you know the story about the man that wanted to smoke in a cinema?

It goes like this...

A man gets into a cinema and when he was being shown to his seat by the usher, he asked if he could smoke. The usher said a emphatic 'Of course not!'; then the man asked 'How come those 2 over there are smoking then?; and the usher replied 'that's because they didn't ask'.

Something to learn here? Maybe. Just in case I didn't ask. I just followed the crowd. maybe everybody was wrong, if so, I am happy to be wrong to and suffer the consequences of getting a free buffet breakfast.

Anyway, we camped near the water's edge. Have a look at the sign that we had next to the tent. Was it safe to be there? I think so, just don't tell my Mother where I was.

The sign next to the tent. Would have camped in there? We like living on the edge!

Another sign, we like the bottom drawing of the croc eating a person.

The 'free' buffet

The local beauties near the pool waterfall.

After the obligatory breakfast we went to visit Nuralgie, an aborigine historic area nearby.

This is a cave where the aborigines used to live in this not so long ago. I couldn't stop thinking that this way of living is basically pre-historic. There is no evidence of any of the basic techologies that denote progress, like building a shelter, or even modifying a natural one, carving, metalurgy, farming, etc.



The paintings on the walls depict superstition and hunting skills, all their culture was based on hunter/gathering, no attempt was made to farm animals or working the land.

We then visited the Cultural Centre near yellow Waters. We were astonished to learn a few things there. One of the things that amazed us the most was how racist the aborigines were. apparently their tribes had different shades of skin colour, they had rules that certain colours can only marry certain other colours, any other mixing was forbidden.

The other thing that was interesting to learn was that they had different spears for different functions, for example there was a spear for hunting and another one for war. So to know the intention of an aborigine that is approaching you with a spear, all you need to do is look at the tip of the spear he is carrying, if it is the one for war, then start running or shooting; if it is one for hunting, then you have nothing to worry about.



They split the year in 6 seasons, and organised hunting based on that.



The toilets, we found funny how they depict women...

...and men

Here are the different type of spears

here are samples, the tip indicate the function of the spear

This indicates who can marry whom

These wheels (geared) indicate what marriages are acceptable and which ones are not, all based on the skin colour.

We saw this on many trees. The leaves are glued all together forming a type of cocoon. Does anyone know what this is? We didn't dare opening one to have a look.

The road out of Kakadu, nothing special, just the same landscape for hundreds of kilometers on end

And then we reached the Stuart Highway, and the massive Road Trains.

On the road we saw this truck filming for Whereis, we will need toc check, I think we were photographed on the road, too.