triplog

We finally caught up with Matt and Bec at Bell Creek, off the Gibb River Road. They’d managed to score one of the secluded creek-side campsites, so we had a sweet little camp setup with access to a little swimming/wading hole. The two rangers managing the area, René (Ernie Dingo’s nephew!) and Jarred (spelling?) were awesome blokes, and would drop by for a yarn every day - we learnt heaps from them.

Bell Gorge itself is magic - a series of three waterfalls and swimming holes. The water is crystal clear and icy cold, perfect for swimming. The first two waterfalls are pretty accessible, but to get to the third one you had to hike out and around the gorge, dropping back in from the other side - we did this on the third day there. It’s the biggest and deepest of the swimming holes, and also the coldest.

We also managed to bump into Jane’s friend and workmate Kay, who was traveling the Gibb River Road in the other direction (from Kununurra to Broome) with her husband Dave and kids. That night we went to their camp at Stone Creek for dinner (roast vegies on an open fire) and drinks. Actually, it’s worth noting that the whole stay at Bell Creek was characterised by gourmet dining - Bec made an incredible curry on the first night, and Matt did a sushi feast another night; leftover sushi rolls also make an excellent hiking lunch, especially when their packed into an esky-bag with some ice-cold beers.

Wildlife including birds and water monitors were everywhere and on our hike to the third waterfall, Jane startled a snake - he stuck his head up from between some rocks, watched us for a while, then high-tailed it for the water; whatever species he was, he was an ace swimmer.

As an aside, it’s here I learnt that a ‘killer’ is the name given to unbranded (and hence not owned by anyone) cattle - geddit?

After leaving Broome, we headed out on the Great Northern Highway to get to the Gibb River Road via Tunnel Creek and the Windjana National Park, rather than do the standard Gibb RIver Road via Derby route.

Tunnel Creek is an incredible little oasis - a creek that flows through a cave system in a rock outcrop, in the middle of some very dry country (at least, until the wet season hits). Famously, it was used as a hideout for 3 years by the Aboriginal tracker/guerilla/freedom fighter Jandamarra and his followers; in the end, another Aboriginal tracker in the employ of the police shot and killed him in a gun battle at the cave entrance. There’s a whole lot of the early history of the colony that my generation never really learned - all I remember from primary school Australian history is an endless procession of ill-fated white explorers, and the woes of the convicts.

Anyway, the creek is amazing, you have to take a torch and wade through it to explore it - and there’s freshwater crocs, as we discovered when Jane nearly stepped on one!

From Tunnel Creek, we headed on to Windjana National Park, where we saw what is meant to be the highest concentration of freshwater crocs in Australia - they were everwhere. We spent the night camped in the national park and saw the most incredible moonrise.

So we’re about to head off into the Kimberley. Fuel is expensive, troopy load weight is an issue and we really shouldn’t be lugging around beer in glass, as we may need to carry the bottles out to the other side of the Gibb River Road. Solution? Beer in cans. Unfortunately, choice is limited and quality sadly lacking. So we had a tasting evening, to figure out what we’d actually be prepared to drink. Result? A block each of Tooheys New and Emu Bitter (plus some casks of De Bortelli’s).

If you’re ever in Broome, I’d highly recommend heading for beers and dinner at Matsos Brewery. Incredible beers - and this will sound kitsch, but they do a mango beer that is really, really nice - and even better, try it half/half with the chilli beer (called a ‘Chango’). I can’t believe we’re about to go from this to cans of EB.

We also met up with Nugget and Chloe, a couple in a 4WD van that had been pretty much on the same route as us since Kalbarri (I had a chat with him in the surf at Jakes), the Bluff (again, caught up in the surf) and now they were spending some time working in Broome to build up the funds before heading across the top into the NT.

Here’s a little visitor to our campsite one night in Broome:

We left Broome on the 17th June 2008, off to meet up with Matt T and Bec R on the Gibb River Road to travel the Kimberley and head across the top of WA and the NT with them.

Ok, here’s some of the choice shots from our time at the Bluff (all photos taken by Jane, just to give credit where it’s due). First up the surf…

The first shot above is an unknown charger on a big day of swell, the second one is Gray doing the kneelo boogaloo out at Turtles and the last one is yours truly either about to get slotted or hurt at the Bluff (small wave on the big Thursday of swell - triple overhead on the bigger sets). My last wave of that session (I was out for over 4 hours) was easily the biggest (unmade) barrel of my life. Unfortunately, not caught on camera. It went something like this:
(set looms, starts paddling) “… wow, this is gonna be big”
(takes drop) “woah, get the nose down, get the nose down”
(bottom turns) “easy does it, easy does it, keep the rail gripping”
(looks at wave lining up) “wow, that’s a massive expanse of vertical water ahead of me - get high, get up high, remember to take the high line”
(sets line, wave barrels) [SILENCE] “ohmygod this is huge. there’s room for 2 of me in here. how quiet is it all of a sudden, look at that massive tunnel of water. ohmygod.”
(pumps for speed) “wow. there’s the exit. it’s huge. i could drive a car through that. i can’t believe i’m gonna make this. i’m actually gonna mak…”
[ANNIHILATION]

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The people - we had some incredible company up here. First Gray came up, then Wes and Jess. Awesome spending time with you guys.

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And the natural environment is just awe-inspiring.

So here’s me sh*tting myself as I realise there’s something big and dark on the same wave as me…

… nice one, dropped in on by dolphins .

Anyways, believe it or not that was my first wave at Jakes. For the last 2 days it’s been pretty big and messy, but today was perfect - offshore all day. It wasn’t really lining up like I’ve seen in the magazines, I think the direction was a bit wrong and the tide a bit full - but insane fun anyway.