and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space
First night was at Fitzroy Crossing. It has a nice new bridge, speedily built after its predecessor was destroyed by flood in the big wet of 2022/23. It also has a bad reputation for hostile natives, stones thrown at vehicles and theft from vans and cars. The Fitzroy River Lodge is a very lovely caravan park on the banks of the river. We enjoyed our stay, experienced no hostility whatsoever and wouldn’t hesitate to stay there again.
Dawn down by the river was magnificent …
Safely home in Broome after an anticlockwise circuit of the beautiful Kimberley. We caught up with good friends and our little caravan survived the notorious Gibb River Road but not entirely unscathed.
With additional running around we traveled 2400km, saw 116 species of birds and took a few thousand photographs.
The Kimberley Craton is one of the oldest chunks of Australia. It collided (very slowly) with the Northern Australia Craton during the Paleoproterozoic era, 2.5–1.6 billion years ago. Sedimentary basin formation and time then conspired to produce the sandstone gorges and rocky ranges that make this area one of the most visually splendid in all of Oz.
And Boabs. There may be photos of Boabs (when I catch up with the editing).
I know, I know. I said goodbye and I’m still here. Don’t you hate that. This post was in the works. I didn’t think I’d have it ready but I’ve worked deep into the night. So here it is. Goodbye. I’m off to the KImberley.
The story begins in July 1999 when some 4WD’ers found a bicycle and some camping gear on a lonely sandy track in the Great Sandy Desert.
Once the first mystery was solved a search began for one Robert Bugucki, a fire fighter from Alaska who had set out to cycle across the Great Sandy from the Sandfire Roadhouse to the small town of Fitzroy Crossing. There is a bitumen road from one to the other. It takes a gentle curve around the desert. Google suggests 35 hours of peddling time should do the trick. However our Robert had chosen the short cut. 500 km as the crow flies, nothing but desert in between. What could possibly go wrong?
Broome police began a search. The initial finds were made about 50 km east of the highway. With the aid of Aboriginal trackers they covered another 150 km before their 4WD vehicles could go no further. The search continued from helicopter. And was then abandoned. Mr Bogucki’s girlfriend was said to have told the police that he may have been hiding from them in order to extend his time in the wilderness for spiritual reasons. He was a very religious man.
At that point Mr Bogucki’s future depended on accurate navigation, stamina and his ability to find water.
Mr B’s parents thought more should be done and commissioned the 1st Special Response Group founded and headed by Vietnam and Gulf War veteran Garrison “Gunslinger” St. Clair. They flew in from the USA and talked up a brand new Desert Storm. Don’t misunderstand me, some of my best friends are American but …
The circus had come to town. The chain smoking (cigars, of course) fast talking St. Clair and his team plus bloodhounds (with little boots to protect their feet from the spinifex) got to work … and saved the day. Without ever finding anything. “We are from America and have come to show you how it’s done” didn’t go down all that well. Channel 9 News sent a crew to cover the search. I suspect largely to document the debacle and make sure that St. Clair’s failure occurred in the glare of a good Aussie spotlight. As the Aussies said in WWll “Over paid, over sexed and over here”. Friendly rivalry.
This seems like the right moment to insert the fact that in reality St. Clair had no military record whatsoever but had done time in the States for fraud. When that news broke Gunslinger countered that when you were involved in black ops the records were concealed. He was happy with who he was. But perhaps unhappy that his criminal record hadn’t been sufficiently concealed.
The Nine Network crew chartered a helicopter and headed to the 1st Special Response Group’s camp in the desert. On the way there the pilot spotted a blue bed roll in the scrub, landed and found with it a bible and some hand written notes. This news was radioed to the searchers who headed across country to the helo and confirmed that it all belonged to the missing man.
The News crew prepared to head back to Broome to get the news of their discovery out to the world. St. Clair readied his bloodhounds. On the flight back to Broome, however, the pilot saw Mr Bogucki himself in the scrub, landed and after the filming and interview was finished – a scoop is a scoop – flew him back to civilisation.
Robert Bogucki had spent 43 days and 42 nights in the wilderness, had found water – he was clutching some muddy liquid when discovered – had lost a lot of weight and was lucid. He was at least 200km from his destination. Indeed he was at least 200km from the bitumen in any direction he might choose. He would surely have died a very lonely death had he not been found. Instead he made a complete recovery. All thanks to a sharp-eyed helicopter pilot named Andrew Beaumont flying a routine charter.
I haven’t been able to find exactly where Robert Bogucki was located but it was, I know, close to the gorge that I recently visited. Very tough country to walk in.
When I write about interesting places and I’m diligent in getting the posts up regularly my readership grows. If you’re new to these pages welcome, to my regulars welcome back. In either case thank you for coming.
I live in Broome. Top left hand side of the map of Oz. Many non Australians think that Australia is permanently hot and sunny. Broome is exactly that. Except when it’s pouring with rain. That happens in our summer … Occasionally.
About 15,000 people live here and we get plenty of visitors in winter because the truth is that Australia’s climate in more southerly regions is not warm and sunny all year round. Our tourists have barely thawed out by the time they get off the plane. We are about 10 days past the winter solstice. Today’s forecast maximum is 31°C (88°F) tonight’s minimum 16°C (60°F). It’s not going to rain.
There is just one road from Broome to the rest of Australia. About 35 km out it branches. Turn right for Perth, straight on for Darwin. Turn right and you’re heading south, the next town is Port Hedland, similar population, 610 km! Two road houses in between, negligible population. If you go straight on i.e. north-east you won’t get to a town as large as little old Broome until you get to Darwin, 1,871 km away. In between there are a few little towns that would struggle to qualify as hamlets elsewhere.
Why so few people? Because the country up here is permanently hot and sunny. Except when it’s pouring with rain. That happens in our summer … Occasionally. It’s a desert. Annual rainfall less than 250mm. Annual evaporation would be 3 to 4 meters if there were 3 to 4 meters available!
There are apparently ten deserts in Australia although I am unsure how they decide where one ends and another starts. The local desert is the Great Sandy Desert, a testament to the imagination of our forefathers (and yes, there is a Little Sandy Desert, you’ll recognise it when you see it. It’s only half the size. Also a Stony Desert). The Great Sandy (267,250sq.km) is our second largest (to the Great Victoria at 348,750sq.km).
About 200 km from home via a very lonely sandy track there is a gorge that I have been meaning to visit. I went out there for a couple of nights last week, camped alone, in the spinifex, under the stars on the lip of the canyon. Very biblical, only 38 more nights to go. Can they be served cumulatively or do they have to be accrued in one go?
Broome is the administrative capital of the Kimberley region (which is northeast of here before you get to Darwin). In my view it ain’t really the Kimberly until you get among the Boab trees (not just street plantings, real Boabs). Anyway, that’s where I’m going. If I get the chance to post along the way I might drop in a teaser otherwise I’ll subject you all to the photos when I get back in a couple of weeks. Ciao for now.
I’m not trying to get a good finish. I’m talking about the weather. Broome’s average rainfall in December, January and February is 441mm (a little over 17 inches). We’ve had just under 29mm so far. January was the third lowest rainfall total on record. It’s the slowest start to the Wet season in living memeory (Yes, Dr John, several years at least.)
A cyclone or a decent tropical low can deliver sufficient rain in a single event to put us back on track – we may yet be cut off by flood – it’s just that no such event has hit us yet. My garden plants have their tongues hanging out.
I know a place where an air conditioner serves fresh water straight into the mangroves. I was there this morning. The birds were queuing up.
Instant Birds, just add water …
Next stop after the coast was Northam home of the sublime Mute Swan …
and also the decision point. Two roads lead from Perth to Broome, an inland route 1970km or a coastal route 2368km.
The inland route has the advantage of being 400km shorter and in the event of a cyclone there would be a greater chance of the caravan staying on the ground. We’d have chosen the shorter route but it was closed by flood.
In particular, the Fortescue River near Newman was close to setting new records. The coastal route was open but what falls inland then sets off towards the sea. We decided to put in a couple of very long days in order to get north of the Fortescue and the De Grey.
There is a roadhouse overlooking the Fortescue River and we stopped for a yarn. A young lady working there had been looking for the water coming down for a couple of days but not a trickle so far. A local elder was of the view that the desert would swallow it all on the way and there’d be little or none to see. It just hadn’t rained for long enough. A trucky taking a break had caught the arrival of a flood in 2021 and recalled how impressive it was on that occasion. When we crossed the bridge there were just a few puddles to be seen.
On the second long day we crossed the De Grey. It too was underwhelming. That night we stopped at the Sandfire Roadhouse. Home of the ridiculous Peafowl.
Last night we slept in our own bed. It was a bit on the warm side!
Because we made good time across the Nullarbor we have had four nights in the Great Southern region of WA. The first was on the edge of the Sterling Range National Park and then three on the Kalgan River just outside Albany. The birding has been excellent, Two Peoples Bay and Lake Seppings especially. My target species was Western Whipbird and, once again, I managed not to see it. Regional endemics such as Red-capped Parrot and Red-eared Firetail have been easier to find but not prepared to pose for me. Here are some of the photographic highlights …
Our decision not to travel north via the Stuart Highway then west through Fitzroy Crossing was a good one. Flooding has closed roads in a number of places and it will be a while before they reopen. Not that we are completely out of the woods. Our intended route was closed by fire a day or so ago near Newman. That problem is solved – the road is now closed by flood. Hopefully that will soon reopen. No cyclone brewing off the west coast presently. We head north tomorrow, only 2000km to go.
We made good progress on the Eyre Highway. Kimba is very much a wheat growing area. The next sizable town is Ceduna on the coast. It has a more mixed economy. Going west from there you encounter a few more small wheat growing towns until at Penong you find a store that declares that it’s the last shop for a thousand kilometers.
The mallee woodland slowly peters out until you’re on the treeless plain that is the Nullarbor. There is practically no surface water out there partly because not a lot of rain falls but also because the limestone lets it all run straight through. In the summer of 1841 Edward John Eyre set out to walk from Fowlers Bay to King George Sound – the modern day Albany which is just down the road from where we are camped on the bank of the Kalgan River. He covered the 1368 km trip in about 5 months, five men set out, two arrived.
Eyre found water at Eucla. The modern day traveler finds a quarantine inspection site. The rules are complicated but basically fruit, vegetables, honey and soil can’t go with you into Western Australia.
From there west the landscape changes back into patchy woodland, then the trees become taller and more continuous and, once you’re off the Eyre Highway you enter wheat country again.
… is often the day on our travels when tempers tend to fray. This time it has passed without incident bringing us to Kimba in South Australia’s wheat belt. Established in 1915, population 1,300 it took its name from the local aboriginal word for bushfire. It’s now the home of the big Galah, some silo art and the Kimba Tigers footie team.
Our first day out took us to the Victorian Goldfields for a farewell dinner with some of our good friends there. Gayle and I have an association with the district that stretches back more than three decades. We have never seen it so green in January in all that time …
The next day we crossed the border into South Australia and spent the night at Tailem Bend. The day had reached 38°C but overnight rain cooled the world down considerably.
We made an early start this morning and drove through Adelaide (founded 1836, population about 1.4m about 1.2m of whom have hyphenated surnames.) 77% of South Australians live in Adelaide because most of the rest of the state is covered by salt lakes.
Tomorrow we will be on the Nullarbor proper.
Google tells me that I have 5,978 km ahead of me, 64hours of driving and warns me that my destination is in a different time zone. It’s not the most direct route, that would be via Alice Springs and the Tanami, shorter but not quicker because an enormous chunk of that is not on sealed road. We decided against going up the middle and across the top because that would expose us to the inland heat for much longer and increase the risk of being stranded by flood. Of course we don’t have to go via Albany – there just happens to be a bird there I want to see. From there it’s pretty much due north finishing with a dash up cyclone alley.
Our comfort will depend very much on the weather and the only certainty there is that the Bureau of Meteorology will get it totally wrong.
bobmcgee 