Heading South to the Pilbara

We had spent a few days in El Questro and thought we could spend a fair while longer - but we had about 3,200km to drive to get back to Perth and a week to do it in as we had a firm committment in Perth (wedding of Keyla's friend).  So rather than stay at El Questro, we decided to head off and break the trip up at either Purnululu or Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater (been wanting to go there for a while) and Karajini Nat Pk in the Pilbara.
We set off from El Questro and within a few hours found ourselves at the turn-off to Purnululu.  The weather was warm (but not really hot) and we ended up pulling over to the side of the road and agonising for about 10 minutes as to whether it was a good idea to go in or not.  We finally decided we'd pass on going into Purnululu this time since we planned to be in the area next July (for a crack at the Canning Stock Route) and it was fairly warm now and we could use an extra day at Karajini to really break the trip up. The same was said about Wolfe Creek as we plan to be driving right past it next year.

Fast forwarding about 3 or 4  hours later and I was still (internally) churning over the decision to bypass Purnululu.  I was having difficulty with it as I really wanted to see the place.  I guess it's a common thing with a head-over-heart decision.  Then out of the blue Keyla said "oh f@&* (gosh) the band-aid on my blister is sticking to my shoe again".  She then said that she needed a couple of days rest from walking as her feet needed to heal.  All of a sudden, and in that instant, my internal churning about bypassing Purnululu stopped.

We stopped for lunch in Hall's Creek and sat on the grass in the shade of a tree and watched the world go by - not unlike what must have been a fair proportion of Hall's Creek's residents were doing at the same time.

We pushed on for Fitzroy crossing - realising that we hadn't seen a Boab tree for about half an hour.  It was then that the game (affliction?) of Boab spotting was borne.  A $100 bounty was placed on the spotting of the first "genuine" (not transplanted) Boab.  It proved to be fairly unproductive afternoon as we didn't see a single Boab tree all the way to Fitzroy Crossing. 

We pulled into a farily swish caravan park (replete with swish resaurant) in Fitzroy Crossing to spend the night.

The next morning we decided to go and see Geike Gorge as a side-trip on our way to Broome.  On the way to the gorge Keyla suddenly and vociferously claimed the $100 prize for spotting the first Boab tree.  Then, in an instant (and quite sportingly) withdrew the claim as "there were a few of them all evenly spaced in a line".  To her they were transplanted trees and not the real McCoy.

We arrived at the Geike Gorge Nat Pk to be presented with a Rotunda.  Yep.  That's right.  A Rotunda.  It had lots of informative posters about the Devonian coral reefs etc - but there was no gorge to be seen.  We saw that it was some hours before the next tour to the gorge was scheduled , so we decided to leave.  This is where the education started.

Keyla had asked about the Devonian Reefs before (weeks earlier) and had seen them standing majestically out of the countryside.  I think in that moment she made a connection that the rocks of the reefs were made up of ancient fossils and corals and that they were once under the sea.  After we talked a bit, she realised that we may be able to find old fossils in the rock.  Within a couple of minutes we passed a spot where the devonian reef came down to the road side.  We stopped, hopped out and went fossil hunting.  Within 5 or 10 minutes we found a strata of rock in the reefs that was chock-full of fossils.  Above and below they were indistingushable in the rock.  Once I explained about the tilting beds of rock and relative ages, we started finding fossils in a narrow band all over the place.

The Fossil Hunter zeros in on a prospective bed

Yep - Here they are!!

Can you see them? Click on pic for a closer look..

Click on pic for a closer look.

We had no hope (or franlkly the inclination) of identifying the fossils in the rock, but we decided to leave that to our nephew who was going to be a softcock softrock guessologist (geologist) at one stage before he saw the true and righteous path.

We continued on our way to Broome.  It wasn't too far out of Fitzroy Crossing that Keyla (not as vociferously this time) re-claimed the $100 prize for spotting the first Boab tree. We kept driving and stopped and had lunch at a very large and beautiful Boab tree.  Keyla was instantly upset to see that people had carved their names and other dross deep into the bark of this magnificent tree.  The carvings and other mutilations have only occurred in the last decade or two, whereas this tree has been standing there for a very long time.  Boab trees are very difficult to date - there are no "growth rings" to go by.  Radiocarbon dating is about it.  From other trees that we had seen on this trip - with ages published next to them - we estimated the age of this tree to be at least 4 or 5 thousand years old.  We also admitted to ourselves that we could be out by a factor of 2 or so in that estimate.  It is a seriously big tree that isn't in "prime" boab country.  It was certainly quite old when Jesus Christ was playing full-forward for Jerusalem.

Seriously big tree - check the size of our Beast in background for scale

Keyla hugging a Boab tree - again

Keyla comforting the tree and apologising for the many carvings (not shown)

After leaving the Boab, we pushed onto Broome in time to check into a carvan park and go and drink white wine at sunset on Cable Beach out of plastic cups that have been rolling around in the back of the Beast for 3 years.  Yes there was a spectacular sunset and camels....

Drinking wine out of old plastic cups on Cable Beach..

...at sunset with camels (one of many many photos).

One of Keyla's birthday presents was "a trip to a pearl shop".  So early next morning we knocked down and packed up camp and went pearl shopping.  We only had one place in mind really - the same place Keyla bought a pearl pendant in July.  She decided on a set of pearl earrings.  As she didn't have the July pendant  with her, she had to recall its size/colour/lustre etc to fnd a matching set of earrings.  In the end she did pretty well and we set off off for Port Hedland with the newly acquired bounty.

Now Kelya doubted the wisdom for purchasing the HF radio.  It's "the Radio to God" as she calls it.  "If it cost so much - it'd better have a direct line to god in it" - is a common jibe.  Well today all of that was forgiven/forgotten.  We were travelling between Broome and Port Hedland in an area that is less than flushed with radio signal (AM or FM).  We were travelling between Broome and Port Hedland on Grand Final Day.  After losing the radio station in Broome in a sea of static an hour before the game started - and no other radio stations could be picked up - the god radio was called into service.  It was a bit scratchy at first.  For the first quarter we could tell when there had been a goal - but not which team had scored it.  But from then on we could make out most of the words - and by half time we were listening with ease and without straining, to the neck and neck tussle between the Cats and the Saints.

Port Hedland was a flying stopover for us.  We did however, as luck would have it, set up next to the couple we met at Lennard Gorge a couple of weeks earlier.  They were on their way to Karajini as well.  We resolved to find each other there and have a drink of wine.

Early next morning we were up and away (after fuelling up and stocking up on consumables).  We made good time and we marvelled at the spectacular countryside between Port Hedland and Karajini.  We arrived mid afternoon and set up camp on the red red red Pilbara ground.

Next post - Groovy Gorges in Karajini