Beating About the Bush, 60 Days in Northern Australia (Part 18 – Windjana)

Windjana is our last proper stop on our Gibb River trip. Once we turn off for the gorge we will not be heading further down the Gibb but will press on through to Fitzroy Crossing and Geikie Gorge.

The drive from Bell Gorge to Windjana takes about three hours. As you approach the turn-off to Windjana the landscape takes on a different dimension comprising massive sandstone escarpments, limestone reefs and what appear to be volcanic plugs. It is spectacular country laced and riven by massive rivers.

Just to ensure that we are not lulled into a false sense of security by the absence of anything having fallen off the vehicle for several days we get our second puncture of the trip. This time we have a tear in the sidewall, as a result of Roger using that tyre to move the fire pit, while we were at Bell Gorge. So it is farewell to that tyre.

We stop for lunch at a free camping spot just metres from the Windjana turn-off where the Lennard River crosses the main highway. Like many of the free camping sites it is nicer than the paid camping spots and they are often less crowded as well.

One just has to deal with the morons who are too lazy to dig a toilet hole and think that wads or streams of toilet paper decorated white and brown are a good adornment of any campsite. Kaylee takes the time to find some ochre rocks and gets into a bit of local rock art. The next civilisation that comes along, once ours has disappeared, will be confused.

We arrive at Windjana in late afternoon. Kaylee is suffering from a sore neck from having nightmares the previous night. Kaylee has been psychologically disturbed by a dream about being unable to finish her shopping in the IGA, among other things. In order to hide from guests who were to be fed by the food she was supposed to buy, but are now starving, she was forced to hide her legs between her head and this has given her a cricked neck. It’s unclear how the position taken in the dream bears any relationship to an actual sore neck.

Fortuitously she has managed to arrange it so that we are camped directly next to Jerome, a masseur from Victoria, who is travelling with his partner in a blue Kombi and who is able to restore the neck to something approaching operational status. I had already tried to fix Kaylee’s neck in the morning but after Jerome’s massage my status as masseur is significantly downgraded. Were I a film, it would be “I give it one star, David”.

34-IMG_1818 — Sunset reflecting off the exterior walls at Windjana

Like many of the other campgrounds the facilities are good but it is hot and dusty and we put off going to the gorge until tomorrow. In lieu of being completely lazy we all take some short walks around the bush adjacent to the gorge.

38-IMG_1822 — Windjana approaching nightfall

Windjana gorge is created by the Lennard river cutting through the Napier Range which is a part of a massive and ancient coral reef that was shipwrecked here by the retreating oceans as the planet cooled 450 million years ago.

The Napier range is part of a Devonian reef complex that extends for some 350 km along the northern margin of the Canning Basin. It skirts all around the Kimberley to join with similar reefs in the Ningbing Range, near Kununurra and also includes Tunnel Greek and Geikie Gorge.

We follow the outer walls of the reef which stands 100 metres high and is red but stained black by oxidation and/or minerals. The sun is setting behind us and, away from the wall, the temperature is dropping but, as one closes in on the wall, the black rock acts like a giant radiator giving off masses of heat.

As the sun drops the walls light up in a gold red glow punctuated by the silhouettes of boabs. It is one of those moments of light and colour that come rarely in a lifetime.

We retire to camp to cook dinner and relax. The big news of the night is that Jill is happy with the toilets and showers. We are required to receive a Jill-dunny report at each campground we visit. This urge to dunny analysis has been created by her trauma at having to live for 20 odd years without an en suite at her house.

Consequently we get a star rating analysis of the dunny as part of the normal travel arrangements. The state of the dunny is in fact more important than whether the car has oil and only marginally less important that a non-stop supply of tea.

The camp manager comes around to check on fees and Jill questions her about the lights in the distance. She tells us it is a diamond mine and has a communications contract with Optus. Consequently Windjana is the only place in the Kimberley one can get Optus reception. Optus advertises that it covers 95% of Australians but doesn’t tell you that they all live in about 5% of Australia (the coast and major regional centres) and that it has no reception anywhere else.

The news on the mine is received with some relief by Roger who up until this point has refused to stand up for the last hour. He feeds us some story about his childhood when he was, apparently, traumatised by the possibility of being kidnapped by aliens and the presence of unknown lights reminds him of this trauma.

Worse still this trauma is compounded by the fact that, according to Roger, in all the alien films he has seen, the aliens all torture/carry out the equivalent of scientific whaling by penetrating their human captives with anal probes. Roger’s fear of being anally probed by the nearby aliens that he has remained seated for hours and now has constipation, so over the next days the toilet stops are extended. Perhaps alien probes would be the solution for that constipation.

Aside from freedom from concerns about alien captivity, the other result of the Optus information there is a mad scramble to re-fit Optus sim cards to phones. We have lost Roger since he is now marooned on top of the vehicle for the entire night trying to get the one bar of Optus reception.

Periodically, when he is not actually talking on the phone, he sticks his head over the side of the roof and we feed him a spoon of dinner. Roger’s sacrifice is not in vain and every five minutes we get updates via Roger, from son Arlen, on the Super 15 rugby union final and the ultimate one point victory of the Waratahs. Roger is so happy he almost falls off the vehicle roof.

Our other near neighbours are a father and daughter combination who have driven out in the daughter’s old commodore station wagon. Emily has retired early to a luxurious sleep in the back of the station wagon leaving her Dad stuck alone in the campground and destined to pass a long uncomfortable night in the front seat.

We invite him over for drinks and it turns out that he works for the WA Water authority. Among their concerns is keeping Coal Seam Gas drilling and extraction out of their catchments. But all that interests the WA Government, in common with most Australian state governments, is the almighty dollar. Hence they are losing the battle to protect water catchments in the face of massive pressure from the mining industry.

In the morning we head off early to the gorge. Aside from being physically impressive it is mightily. interesting geologically. The limestone abounds with fossilised marine creatures of all shapes and sizes, such as fossilised giant crocodile some thirty metres above the current river level in a cave.

There are also more freshwater crocs, in the gorge, than one can poke a stick at and we count 40 altogether on our walk.

The track abounds with bird life and we add to our twitcher score with some more varieties of fig bird and honeyeaters. The track is only 2.5 kilometres long but by the time we have scoured every corner of the gorge and stopped to look at about 50 birds it is already lunch-time. The gorge walls are already pumping out heat from their blacks surfaces. It’s something of a relief to exit and return to camp.

Freshies. Mostly not dangerous, just don’t make them feel threatened

Roger and Jill set off before Kaylee and I and are already back. They have retreated to the sanctuary of their tent which, in an effort to keep it cool, is covered by sarongs pegged on by our entire supply of pegs. As a result every time we do the washing another item of our clothing makes a getaway never to be seen again. The landscape is littered with clean jocks and socks everywhere from Mornington onwards.

As a result of the construction it is alternatively referred to as the sarong sanctuary or the senile sanctuary depending on the recent memory performance of the occupants.

Despite the wear and tear of packing and unpacking we are frequently rescued from difficult situations by the ubiquitous Australia Post box of aforementioned fame. This box has now traveled across the entire continent and continues to be pressed into service for multifarious uses such as yoga mat, pot stand etc. As a result we have now rewarded it with its own chair on which it watches sunrise and sunset with the rest of us.

The famous Australia Post carton which travelled with us for the entire trip

We start pulling the tent down for our departure for Tunnel Gorge and then on to Fitzroy Crossing. The packing up has taken on a new dimension since, effectively, Roger and Jill must now pack up two tents. The process involves opening up their tent on the roof, removing the mattress and other contents, then putting up their own ground based tent, inserting the contents from the roof tent and then finally folding up the roof tent again. To leave the reverse process must be followed.

057-IMG_1380 — Jill and Roger perform their daily packing routine

Once this is done the final stage is packing the magic pudding as Jill’s and Roger’s case is known. This involves completely opening the case and stuffing as much into the bottom half of the case as possible. Once done, there is a pile of clothing in the case roughly three times its height of the case when it is empty and closed.

To address this either Roger or Jill closes the lid over the bulging pile, then kneels on the lid of the case while attempting to stuff errant items down the side. Meanwhile the other party attempts to close the clips holding the lid to the bottom. Usually this struggle takes multiple minutes accompanied by much swearing and cursing.

056-IMG_1379 — The Magic Pudding. The next stage is to kneel on the lid

Despite the obstacles to departure we are out of the camp ground by around 11 am. We head off for Tunnel Gorge via a quick stop at the ruins of the police station which was used during the war against local Bunaba people. The most famous of the resistance leaders was Jandamarra who started as a police tracker and later led the resistance against the local police and settlers.

(see: http://www.jandamarra.com.au/jandamarratheman.html).

Tunnel Creek was one of his main hideouts and we arrive for a walk through the gorge that has cuts through the ancient reef. We arrive to be greeted by three giant Brahmin bulls that are clearly Buddhist as they are entirely docile. We are fortunate to have the place to ourselves other than two of the resident freshwater crocs which put in an appearance as we are wading through.

The absence of other people in the gorge allows one to sense how it might have been when Jandamarra and his resistance fighters were using the tunnel.

The cave system, of which the tunnel comprises a part, are massive and we walk under enormous ceilings of stalagmites and other limestone formations. The tunnel is pitted with other caves that go off far beyond the walls of the tunnel and the creek is fed by a spring that emerges from the walls part way down. It is an impressive end to our gorge walking.

We leave Tunnel Creek and take the road south to Fitzroy Crossing but night starts falling before we arrive. So we pull up at an old quarry site which is mentioned in the bush camping guide which Kaylee has purchased. It’s a beautiful site with views over the entire surrounding areas of bush but the swimming hole, sadly, is not inviting.

88-IMG_1887 — Police Station ruins near Tunnel Creek

See the Flickr archive from which these images were taken:

Bell Gorge to Windjana
Windjana
Tunnel Creek

Other posts in this series:

14 August 2014 0

Beating About the Bush, 60 Days in Northern Australia (Part 6 Jasper Gorge)

We decide on our route beyond Katherine as we are leaving Katherine. As a group, advance planning is clearly not our forte. We all have jobs that require detailed planning and so we are avoiding it like the plague. But we are at least managing to buy diesel before leaving town.

We plan to stay at Jasper Gorge tonight. As I am the only one that has travelled this way before, the others ask me numerous questions about the route, the history, the camping area. Sadly, my memory is not up to the task so I just give them random lies.

As we leave town, Kaylee is on the phone to Telstra….again. Her second call to Optus reveals that, in fact, despite their previous assurances, her phone was locked to Optus. In order to unlock it we have had to back it up, restore the factory settings and then restore the backed up files.

It is good that Australia’s unrivalled communications industry makes things so easy. But the phone still does not work. So it is back to Telstra. Kaylee has had to take four blood pressure tablets just to deal with them.

By the time we lose reception, the problem is still not resolved.

We travel on. A quick stop at the Victoria River roadhouse for ice creams are in order. The country we are travelling through, around the Victoria River and Gregory National Park, has changed to magnificent sandstone escarpment and woodland.

Beyond Victoria River we turn left for the Jasper River Gorge. I worked throughout this area in the 1980s, with the local traditional owners (TOs), when Gregory National Park was being established.

Under the Commonwealth Land Rights Act, any land which remained in public ownership and had not been alienated for grazing, mining or national parks, was open for a land claim by the Traditional Owners. The NT Government had deliberately attempted to prevent a land claim by alienating the land as a national park. But to finalise the process, legally, it needed to immediately gazette the park at exactly the same moment that they resumed the former grazing lease.

One of the land council lawyers had spotted this and, in the few hours before the NT Government could redress its oversight, had lodged a land claim. As a result the Government had been forced to involve the traditional owners in joint park planning and management in a way they never intended.

The road to Jasper Gorge is where I committed one of my most fundamental crimes against the local Aboriginal people. We were traveling down the road when one of the TOs spotted a large goanna crossing the road. Cries of “Run ‘im down” echoed around the vehicle but I instinctively swerved to avoid it and the goanna shot away into the bush.

This was met with a stream of insults “Ah bloody stupid whitefella…stop, stop..” I braked as hard as I dared and the mob jumped out pursuing the goanna through the bush with a couple of rifles. It had run up a tree and was a goner Goanna. Goanna for dinner. But I was in disgrace for my shameful driving and hunting skills.

At 4 pm we arrive at Jasper Gorge. It is a beautiful deep water hole fringed by Pandanus and bordered by rocky gorges and spinifex hills as far as the eye can see. But you cannot swim due to the risk of crocodiles. The only other negative is that previous visitors apparently thought that there was no requirement to bury toilet paper. The level of laziness and lack of care never ceases to amaze.

There are two other vehicles and it is nearly full moon. We sit around our first camp fire of the trip. Roger and I plan our first album. The fact that neither of us can sing does not deter us. Roger maybe can manage backing vocals but I am not convinced that I can even meet that standard.

Jill finds a cane toad but is not convinced that it is a cane toad. Roger cannot decide whether it is a cane toad or frog despite the fact that it is the size of a large feral cat. He fails to kill it and has no excuses. He is an environmental failure.

In the morning we walk up the ridge. The country is beautiful and we all enjoy the walk except for Kaylee who had decided to walk in sandals and has been brutally attacked by the resident spinifex.

At 10 am we leave for Halls Creek via Top Springs and Kalkarinji. The country flattens out. It is about 700 kms to Halls Creek, mostly on dirt roads, so there is a long drive ahead. The sky is filled with whistling kites which are ubiquitous in the Territory but we also come across two magnificent wedge tails (eagles) feasting on a dead wallaby.

We pass Victoria River Downs Station, once the world’s largest cattle station. It is still immense and there are seven helicopters parked next to the road ready to do the mustering. We finally arrive at Top Springs in time for lunch. Roger asks about vegetables but is told: “Too far to bring ’em, you can’t keep ’em and nobody buys them”. But we do succeed in buying the world’s worst and most expensive apples. The cost of diesel is up to $2.30 a litre.

We are making good time but will not make Halls Creek today. At 3 pm we arrive at Kalkarinji. This is where Vincent Lingiari led the walk off from Wave Hill station and started the land rights movement. It is immortalised in the song by Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’.

We consider staying at the camp ground but Kaylee reports back that it does not look enticing. She states that the camp ground resembles a cross between the local footie oval and ground zero after a nuclear attack, except that the toilets would undoubtedly have been in better condition at ground zero. After fuelling up we press on.

At four we start looking for camp sites but as we are in rocky spinifex country; there are few camp sites that do not require a grader to make them usable.

We explore a few side tracks and apart from trespassing on a couple of stations have found nothing useful. Finally at 4.30 we stumble on a road workers old clearing. It is a gem, nicely cleared. The road workers, as is there wont, have found a beautiful spot with views and nicely cleared an excessively large area. The one downside is that it is only one hundred metres from the main road and at 3 am the night’s convoy of road trains rolls through.

If you have never heard empty road trains passing over corrugations, imagine Deep Purple in their 1972 concert. At that concert the urban myth is that three members of the audience were rendered unconscious by the volume. Once you have imagined that level of noise, you need to amplify it somewhat to comprehend the disturbance.

Kaylee reported she could not hear me snoring, less than a foot away, for the sound of road trains. Given that she normally complains that she can hear me snoring when she is sleeping with her head beneath four doonas and I am at a distance of a kilometre this is something of a record.

We find we have mobile reception. Kaylee is excited because she has so been looking forward to talking to Telstra….As we watch we know that the stress levels are rising….arms are starting to flap around and attempts to assist her are met with impromptu shooing motions.

Two calls later, two rounds explanations and of switching phone on and off there is still no solution to the lack of data. The climax is postponed until Halls Creek which is where we will next have reception. We settle down for dinner which is roast chicken and pasta with warm water laced with a slight nose of dust and a delicate flavour of saline extract.

Sunrise at the Kalkarinji road workers clearing is equally beautiful. The sun is rising as the moon is setting. Jill and Kaylee both remain in a semi-comatose state until intravenously fed their first tea. Kaylee calls it her transitional tea and, generally, nothing of world significance happens until it is consumed.

Roger, on the other hand, is engaged in hand to hand combat with Mother Earth. Out here there is no easy way to dig a 15 cm hole for the morning toilet stop. The ideal solution would be either a jackhammer or a small amount of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil (ANFO) plus a detonator. Absent those tools it is a long laborious struggle through rock-hard dirt with a shovel. Just make sure you eat your muesli afterwards.

After tea and muesli disputes (each person eats different muesli and considers the others muesli a disgrace to humankind) we press on.

The landscape changes. We have been passing through a magnificent landscape of red and green after one of the biggest wets of recent years all interspersed with giant termite mounds.

Now we are passing through a vast expanse of grasslands. All is going well. We crest the rise of a hill and pull off to admire the view. There is a hissing sound and it is not Jill’s normal expression of disapproval in the face of any comments that I might offer to the assembled group.

Sadly we regard our rear passenger tyre. It is now an ex-tyre due to an unfortunate incident with a nail. But no problems..the bush mechanics are on to it.

We pull out the air jack in which we have been extensively trained. For those who have never used one this involves placing a rubber hose over the end of the exhaust and starting the engine. The exhaust gases then fill the jack raising the vehicle. Rumour has it that it is easy to use and much safer than a standard jack but we are determined to prove otherwise.

If you happen to be on a trip with someone you don’t like, get them to hold the hose on the exhaust. Apart from the burn marks on their hands they are likely to be numbed into semi-consciousness for several hours by the exhaust fumes. I am unsure why I was allocated this particular job. But in any case I am a singular failure.

After several attempts during which the jack becomes part inflated and the slumps sideways repeatedly like some badly designed dildo, we give up and get out the bog standard scissor jack. With this antiquated machine we change the tyre in minutes. We are elated.

See the collections from which these images were selected on Flickr:
Jasper Gorge
Top Springs
Kalkarinji/Dagaragu

Other posts in this series:

18 July 2014 3

Beating About the Bush – 60 Days in Northern Australia (Part 5 – Katherine)

Beyonce has returned!! Our vehicle which suffered a cracked brake line has been returned to us but with no guarantees. The mechanic believes the repair will last for our trip, at least, but someone, somewhere in the future, will suffer the same fate, he predicts.

It appears that the original modifications to the vehicle were not carried out to spec and this has led to the brake problem.

Roger wants to see Katherine Gorge so we decide on a two night stay in town. We book into the Katherine River Lodge. It is clean but based on room size, cat-swinging is prohibited. The motel has a large resident population some of whom appear not to like each other much. Our neighbour has pasted a large sign on the pole outside his door “Don’t touch my laundry you bitch”.

Good relations among the motel residents

The next room to our neighbour’s is occupied by a young Chinese woman. We approve of her ability to adopt Australian ‘tea leaf’ practice but we wonder if she is into cross-dressing, since she is, allegedly, stealing male underwear, .

The first night brings another major decision. Will we stay at the motel and partake of the $15 pasta night or get takeaways. Kaylee vetoes the pasta night. She has seen a picture of one dish which she describes as looking like excreted tape-worms covered by a dollop of pasta sauce. We want Thai but the nearest Thai restaurant is at the Border Store in Kakadu some 200 kilometres away. So Chinese takeaway it is.

We use Katherine to finish numerous jobs. Roger has a job application to write. Among other jobs I have my tax return to complete so that I have something to live on for the next few weeks. Kaylee has to change her phone over from Optus to Telstra Pre-paid so that she can get reception. For Kaylee, dealing with Telstra is as desirable as an Abbott Government or walking on hot coals. Katherine is the start of her Telstra saga, a saga that will last a week or two.

With numerous jobs to do that require internet we become permanent members of the Coffee Club which provides free internet, half-decent coffee and air-conditioning. By the time we leave town we are on first name terms with most of the staff. Jill and Roger are unaware that I have invited all of them to stay with Roger and Jill at Bundagen. Surprises are good things in life.

A key task for Kaylee is to get her Telstra sim card working so that she can occasionally have phone and internet access on this trip but, more particularly, on her subsequent 1000 km bushwalk along the Bibulman track through south-west Western Australia. Currently she can get phone calls but she cannot get data.

There are no Telstra shops in Katherine, so Kaylee is on the phone to Telstra. Telstra advises Kaylee that it is not their problem but that of Optus because the phone must be locked to Optus.

Kaylee calls Optus who advise that it is not their problem as it is not locked to Optus. By this time there are a long stream of expletives emitting from the vicinity of Kaylee. She abandons the issue, for now, as it is time for her, Roger and Jill to decamp to Nitmiluk, where Roger and Jill will go kayaking up the gorge. I am left to the pleasures of tax returns and similar tasks.

Later Kaylee calls Telstra again. After an hour on phone to Telstra most fragile objects within metres of Kaylee are at risk of imminent destruction. But apparently the problem has been resolved. Or so she believes. I think pigs might fly.

Roger, Jill and Kaylee return from Nitmiluk. Kaylee has multi-tasked by responding to a call from Energy Australia which she received while at the lookout at Nitmiluk. This is another of her favourite tasks. Two months after installation, Energy Australia advises her that they have been unable to activate her solar panels because Adam Cartwright, her electrician, failed to tick box six on the form which he submitted two months ago.

In keeping with the extraordinary level of customer service in Australia, rather than ringing and advising Kaylee of the issue, they decided the customer should use their omniscience to automatically know that there was a problem.

Kaylee has suggested that one of the helpful Energy Australia staff could perhaps ring the electrician and directed them not to call her for two months since she wouldn’t be answering her phone.

While Kaylee struggles with Telstra and Energy Australia, I am dealing with Australia Post. My parcel which I had hoped to receive in Darwin and which I had asked to be forwarded to Katherine is still lost.

Abandoning all hope of receipt I have concentrated on other tasks. A tour of Katherine’s op shops has delivered me a long sleeve shirt and a mossie-proof pair of long trousers. With my exceptional packing skills I had ended up with 6 pairs of jocks, 6 cords to charge my phone, 8 pens, a tube of punctured rectal cream which leaks through everything and enough warm clothes for Antarctica (very useful in the tropics) but no long trousers or long-sleeved shirt or coffee maker.

My walking boots which gave me blisters walking 200 metres down Ann St in Brisbane have, however been replaced. My consumer blitz also delivers me a new espresso maker and a head torch (another useful omission during my packing frenzy).

Post Katherine Gorge kayaking we meet back at the Coffee Club. We are now life members. Jill and Roger report that they covered the Katherine Gorge sprint of 3.2 kms in the unparalled time of 30 minutes. Since the Olympic record for the K1 2000 metres is about 30 seconds, some Olympic training is still required, but I don’t mention this.

During their absence I have discovered the joy of the Katherine library which has also set a world record for a public library internet access charge of $6 per hour. A good book burning is deserved as retaliation for the library’s unrivalled exploitation of the public.

We have some final tasks before we leave. Woolworths is calling, as is shopping for a few car spares. We head for Repco to buy hoses and belts among other things but leave empty handed. Katherine’s biggest car spares shop has no spares for Australia’s second most popular four-wheel drive.

Our time in Katherine is almost at an end. Time for a barbie at the hot springs and a moonlight swim. We head out to the springs for dinner. It’s the last supper in Katherine.

See all collection from which these images were selected on Flickr:
Katherine: https://flic.kr/s/aHskx3dtCG
Katherine Gorge: https://flic.kr/s/aHsiYhi6DU

Other posts in this series:

18 July 2014 4

Beating About the Bush, 60 Days in Northern Australia (Part 3) – Kakadu, Pt 2 – Nourlangie and Ubirr

After departing Twin Falls, we head for Nourlangie Rock. As we approach the Kakadu Highway, the main road between Pine Creek and Jabiru, Kaylee complains about the brakes. They are spongy and it takes a while to stop. But we think maybe it is just dust or water in the brakes. But, hey, there isn’t much to hit out here so who cares.

The car park is packed. It is a chaos of buses, cars and a parade of 4WDs in all shapes and sizes. Two rangers are checking park entry tickets. They are being harangued by a French man in his 50s who appears not to understand that it is not the rangers’ fault that he is apparently functionality illiterate (at least in English) and cannot understand signs with the simple words “park entry permit required”. I wish I had a baguette and I would stuff it somewhere he deserved to receive it.

It is the antipodean version of my experience in France where ignorant English speakers would behave like ill-mannered louts if someone couldn’t speak English. First ask your question. If you don’t get the answer you want repeat the question, just louder until you are shouting. I Always felt like I should hand them the quotation that says “the definition of stupidity is repeating the same action and expecting a different outcome”.

We do a lazy tour of Nourlangie, admiring some of the world’s finest indigenous rock art, and then climb to the lookout. We wonder why the parks service still insists on retaining signs calling it Nourlangie when the interpretive signs clearly say that the traditional owners want it renamed with its traditional name. Renaming would have the additional advantage that a large proportion of visitors would no longer be able to find it and would make the visit of the remainder much more pleasant.

Most of the visitors are blissfully ignorant that if our Governments, of both political persuasions, had got their way, Nourlangie Rock would have been blessed with the sound and dust of a proposed uranium mine only a couple of kilometres distant.

The proposed Koongarra mine lease was excised from the park back when it was established in the 1970s and was only added to the park this year (2014) due to the persistent opposition of the Aboriginal traditional owners to mining at the location.

Lunch brings us to Jabiru, the mining town created for the Ranger uranium mine. It is a little oasis of neo-colonial white development on Aboriginal land. The Ranger mining lease existed before the park was created and prior to land rights, so traditional owners had no right to veto it, even had they wanted to.

Tidy quarter acre blocks bake in the sun, each with their ugly brick veneer home. In common with most communities in the NT, Jabiru has a major drinking and domestic violence problem.

For white people those social problems are hidden behind the neat facades of modern Australia, whereas for the black community the issues with alcohol and violence are played out on the streets. This means that society can look down on Aboriginal people as being hopeless drunks while pretending their own issues don’t exist.

Ranger has been operating for about 35 years. It is a model of mismanagement, regularly enduring accidents, leaks of contaminated water and similar malfunctions. But neither Federal nor NT Governments really care since both are client states of the mining industry. So Ranger, which should have been closed years ago, goes blithely on.

Our party of four continue on our un-planned way. Even though we plan nothing we still operate more smoothly than the Ranger mine.

We have forgotten that it is Saturday, so our planned shopping expedition suffers credit card interruptus because the supermarket closes at 3 pm. As a result we are forced to decamp sans the espresso maker I planned to buy. Mawson was forced to eat huskies and I shall be forced to drink earl grey. In fact I shall apparently be forced to drink it very often.

So far we are two days behind schedule, solely and only because Jill insists on stopping for tea about every 17 minutes. Few first world problems could be more daunting than earl grey tea every 17 minutes and no coffee.

Next stop is Ubirr. The road, which was a windy dirt road of many creek crossings, often closed in wet season, is now sealed. The crossing of Magela Creek, once an expendition in its own right, is now a routine exercise. Many of the side roads down which one could venture to the flood plain have been closed and locked with gates. The camp ground which used to border the East Alligator is now set back 3 kilometres from it and the Border store which was once an archetypal remote store now has a Thai restaurant.

Ubirr is not only a major rock art site but also one of the best places in the park to experience the interaction of flood plain and stone country. I have visited it more than 20 times over the years to experience the sublime sunsets from the top of the rock and the unequalled sense of the spiritual.

Some of that remains although the numbers watching the sunset have increased more than 10 fold and there are more than 200 people enjoying the Kakadu equivalent of Uluru’s sunset strip when we arrive.

Jill is so seduced by the elixir of sunset and flood that, despite her alleged fear of heights, she thinks she can fly. She moves ever closer the the rock edge much to Kaylee’s consternation, who, as a result, has her experience of the tranquility of Ubirr severely undermined.

Dinner time brings us to the Border Store, which is arguably Australia’s most remote Thai restaurant. We eat duck curry surrounded by $1000 art works all of which lean crazily on bits of wire. The food and coffee are good. But there is no dessert…Kaylee is devastated and she suffers dessert withdrawal symptoms.

This lack of dessert and its associated sugar hit appears to lead to some sort of memory loss over coming days…such as thinking she has lost her phone which she plugged into the charger only 30 seconds ago. She also manages to go for a shower with no soap, towel, shampoo, or change of clothes, but takes her phone as a substitute for those items, meaning she has to do another 100 metre return trip to the showers.

Before leaving the Ubirr area we embark on a short walk around the rock country near the East Alligator River. As with almost of Kakadu there is rock art on most of the rock outcrops. Crane your head and some figure or creature appears; the entire landscape is peopled by the spirits of 40,000 years of occupation.

Finally we head down to Cahills Crossing where one crosses the East Alligator from Kakadu into Arnhem Land. The crossing is a sort of mythical divide between Aboriginal Arnhem Land and the rest of Australia and is impassable in the wet.

The occasional person has become crocodile bait here. In 1987, when I was working in the park, a local miner imbued with alcohol immunity waded into the downstream side of the crossing to fish one evening, despite warnings of sightings of a large black crocodile. He was reported to have said that he had been fishing there for 15 years and had never had a problem. Minutes later he was dead. So it goes.

Most years people get caught out by a sudden onset of the wet and get trapped on one side or the other; in 1988 a sudden wet caught dozens of vehicles on the Arnhem Land side and the Gagadju Association did a nice business towing vehicles across using its grader. Cost $200 a pop.

See all collection from which these images were selected on Flickr: https://flic.kr/s/aHskwuKZAM

Beating About the Bush – 60 Days in Northern Australia (Part 1 – Darwin)

Chaos overtakes one very quickly on long trips. The butterfly wings start beating as soon as the aeroplane engines stop, and disorder instantly overtakes order. I am arriving in Darwin to prepare for a two month trip travelling Northern Australia through the NT and the Kimberley .

After a single overnight in Brisbane, the disappearing fairy has already been in action. Missing are one camera lens, at least one pair of the ten pairs of reading glasses that will be lost en route, the camera manual and miscellaneous other items. But I am redeemed since, in compensation for my sins, I have lent my house to my friend, Jane Lyons, who is able to find the things I left behind and mails the items to me in Darwin.

Stepping off the plane in Darwin, one descends into the maelstrom of Darwin airport. It’s a model of Australian transport planning where Government guesses approximately how many people it thinks will use the airport in five years time, then having redeveloped the airport to accomodate the planned numbers.

But these numbers did not include an entirely new oil industry and some new mines, nor did it allow for the fact that the redevelopment took twice as long to as planned. Hence it is already too small before it is even finished. Perfect; it can join Sydney’s roads and railways as an example of political foresight.

Darwin, more than 26 years after I “permanently” departed, and years after my last long visit, is bizarrely familiar.

The airport is full, literally, with Darwin’s mixture of human hundreds and thousands; the terminal is teeming with black, brown and brindle from every corner of the world, every profession and every attitude. Tourists, rednecks, hippies, professionals, public service, oil industry.

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Darwin Sunset 2014

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Darwin - Sunset from Nightcliff rocks

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I head for David Cooper’s flat in Nightcliff. David and I shared a house together in Darwin in 1986 and have remained firm friends through Simpson Desert trips, a multitude of partners, jobs and changes of residence. On some foolish night over beer and pesto, long ago, I was created his daughter’s Godless Father, with the responsibility of making her irresponsible, corrupt and Godless. Sadly only the last succeeded and she remains a model citizen unlike all my erstwhile contemporaries who are all Godless communists, fornicators, and conservationists.

David, like Darwin, changes little. At 56 he owns two plastic spoons, a broken boom box, 3 CDs, five milk crates, a saucepan for boiling water and three sets of sheets. Not one shred of wifi microwaves has ever passed his door and to communicate with the world he uses semaphore. The ultimate conservationist, he puts us latte and chardonnay sipping neo-conservationists to shame. But, crucially, his house is full of beer, coffee and other essentials

We can understand the importance of good coffee by referring back to a 1990 trip across the Simpson when on arriving in Broken Hill we circled the town looking for good coffee like vultures looking for carrion. On spotting a cappuccino sign we descend like ravenous timber wolves and order four coffees. The machine is on, the proprietor removes the handle. We are slavering. Then he reaches for the tin of Pablo (definitely the worst instant coffee ever made) and a collective psychic groan is emitted that can be heard in Newtown and Fitzroy. We leave without coffee.

There are more than 60 nationalities living in Darwin. It’s very multicultural communities with a highly visible Aboriginal presence but it’s also home to one of the most redneck, racist Governments in Australia, both historically and currently; something hard to believe given the profile of the Queensland, WA and Federal Governments.

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Catherine and Elena Christmas Day 1990

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Former times - Campbell in Darwin, 1985

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1985 Fancy Dress Darwin

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Living in Darwin - former times 1987

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The most visible changes to Darwin are Mitchell St where hordes of backpackers check each other out and estimate, from beneath the effects of eight Coronas, their chances of a one night stand. Failing that they can compete in projectile vomiting the dollars they have just earned.

Darwin’s population, including Palmerston has grown 50% in 25 years from 80,000 to 120,000, but it’s still hard to get a decent meal out in most parts of Darwin. However, in keeping with Australian culture, one no longer has to rely on one cafe, the Roma Bar, for decent coffee. In recognition of the coffee drought that will surely descend once we leave Darwin, we coffee up.

Darwin’s city buildings are outstandingly some of the ugliest to have ever graced a capital city but it does have one of the best small city museums in Australia and elsewhere, in which still ‘lives’ Sweetheart a six metre crocodile which was drowned in the Daly river when he was being re-located.

I am in Darwin for four days patiently waiting for my parcel and the rest of the road-trip crew. On the morning I am due to pick them up at the airport I call our 4WD hire company to arrange collection of our vehicle. Nathan, the owner tells me the vehicle has disappeared. It is overdue.

My package, courtesy of Australia Post, is also lost in action. The butterfly wings are beating rapidly. I borrow David’s car to pick up my fellow travellers from the airport, warning them that it is highly possible, given the disappearances of cars and parcels, that those losses will are be balanced by the karmic re-appearance of a piece of MH370 that has hitherto been lost in the stratosphere.

We are consigned to another night in Darwin due to the missing vehicle. That night turns out to be the night of NT’s celebration of partial self-government. Only in the NT could they celebrate ‘partial’ self-government (or, in other words the failure to get full self-government).

The night is an excuse for a massive fireworks display. But unlike the rest of Australia where Governments take the nanny state approach to protecting citizens from fireworks injuries, in the NT they take the Darwinian approach of the survival of the fittest. Anyone can buy fireworks and release them pretty well anywhere.

Living in Darwin in former times 1985-88

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Lyn Allen’s farewell Darwin 1988

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The House at 21 Martin Crescent Coconut Grove Darwin NT 1987

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Under the old Admiralty Bldg Darwin, L to R, Matthew Jamieson, Sue Jackson, Catherine Paul' Self, Elena Paul-Cooper

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Former times - Living in Darwin, On top of Jim Jim Falls, 1988

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Mine host, David, and partner, Karen, elope from the flat to a hotel in deepest downtown Darwin which is a largely fireworks free zone. They fail to warn us of the coming mayhem. As a result Kaylee and I remain in his flat and are subjected to the biggest bombardment since the RAF murdered thousands in destroying Dresden during World War 2.

We awake in the morning to news of one blinding, a farmer who burned his entire hay store, 70 random bushfires, two house fires and numerous minor burns. It is Darwin hospital’s busiest day of the year. Another glorious celebration of partial self-government.

Our four-wheel drive is still lost. Finally at 2 pm the errant vehicle emerges. The party which was hiring the vehicle lost track of time and distances. Nothing has changed up here since Burke and Wills. And my package is still somewhere between Byron and Darwin. Australia Post can’t even track it since it appears the Byron PO forgot to scan the barcode properly. Byron being Byron, we understand how that happened. And of course it is likely that our friends in the Darwin PO have the same handicap.

Nathan puts us up in a Darwin Hotel while the Nissan is cleaned and serviced ready for our departure. Roger and Jill, our erstwhile travelling companions, demonstrate their long experience of boutique hotels by declaring our neo-3 star hotel as “luxurious”. Gina Rinehart eat your heart out.

Finally next day Nathan arrives at 8 am with the vehicle. We have a quick one-hour demonstration of how everything on the vehicle works which, it subsequently emerges, we all heard quite differently. As a result none of us know what does what. Consequently Roger tries to cook dinner the first night with the fridge. In recognition of my immense ability to lose anything smaller than a truck tyre I am prohibited from looking after the keys or the emergency beacon.

At 10 am we finally depart Darwin.

See the complete set of photos on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29402953@N02/sets/72157665012654616

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