Some of the road out to Windjana Gorge was not suitable for our van and our plan was to leave it in Derby and tent it for a few days. We had some preparations to make for this short expedition to Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek, so we headed back to the caravan park to get organised.
The following morning, July 22nd, was an early start. After collecting our refilled gas bottle and Josh’s misplaced credit card from the local servo we were on the Gibb River Rd to Windjana Gorge. Actually the road wasn’t too bad, the first 70 km were paved and the next 50 or so were intermittently gravel then paved. And the gravel was reasonably well graded. Once we’d turned off to Windjana the road became dustier and slightly less smooth.
We pitched tent under the partial shade of trees. We had decided not to take our generator with us and so we camped in the generator-free area, which was somewhat quieter. The kids were pretty excited about sleeping in the tent and there was plenty of talk about our previous tent experience way back at Menindee Lakes when we were hailed out and took refuge in a demountable cabin at the lakeside caravan park. One thing was certain, there wouldn’t be a skerrick of wet weather, let alone hale, on this Kimberley outing.
A short walk into the Gorge in the mid-afternoon heat was in order, perhaps even a swim. The weather was gradually warming up with our movement northward and eastward. We had read that Windjana Gorge was one of the best places to view freshwater crocodiles in all of the Australia. All the kids were scouting early on for a glimpse of their first wild crocs.
Thoughts of a cool afternoon dip were soon abandoned when after a few hundred metres within the Gorge we encountered our first freshwater crocs. Deemed essentially harmless to humans unless threatened or cornered, these “freshies” can reach up to a mere 4m in length. They feed on fish, birds, frogs and, believe it or not, mostly insects. There have been reported attacks on people, none of which have been fatal. However, seeing them relaxing on the banks in substantial numbers made us surrender our thoughts of getting our feet wet. Signs say not to get closer than 5m to the freshies and not to get between them and the water’s edge - no chance of that happening. We did get plenty of opportunity to observe these prehistoric reptiles and take some of shots. The gorge itself wasn’t too shabby either.
Windjana and several other gorges in the region we would eventually visit, including Tunnel Creek and Gieke Gorge are all part of a Devonian reef system formed several hundred million years ago. The remains of this ancient reef span over 100km across the western Kimberley, a land which long was submerged under a vast ocean and today holds the fossilized remains of sea creatures which once inhabited those waters.
Back at our campsite, Jem made a little friend from a group who had also travelled to the Kimberley from NSW. The campsite fortunately had running water and solar showers which we weren’t expecting at all. We had purchased a little solar shower some time back which was simply made up of a black plastic bladder with a shower nozzle and, once filled and water heated by the sun, Jem insisted on an outdoor shower, rather than a visit to the shower block.
Once the sun was down, the temperature dropped and the tent which we figured didn’t require a fly became pretty cold overnight. The sky was amazing and after our astronomy tour in Broome, we tried our hand at some star gazing and rudimentary identification - we should have bought that star chart.
The plan was to travel to Tunnel Creek early the next morning and see if we could gate crash on an Aboriginal cultural tour that the Visitor Centre in Derby had told us was booked out. We were glad we did, as the tour had less than half a dozen people on it and we were happily welcomed along without the booking fees charged by the VC in Derby.
Tunnel Creek NP runs through the Napier Range and the main attraction is a 750m long cave which we discovered as part of the tour. Our guide pointed out rock art, talked about how Aborigines had survived on this land for thousands of years and more recently of some of his peoples recent history with European settlement. Sharing his knowledge and experience of the Country with us was an experience that even the kids enjoyed. We were told the story of Jandamarra, a Bunuba tribesman and Aboriginal outlaw who had hidden out in a nearby cave in the 1890s and had a significant impact on early West Kimberley history.
The tour ended with a few songs written by our guide’s father and handed down to him. Sitting within a cave under sacred rock art listening to the songs and clap sticks should have been a moving, spiritual experience, however, Jem found something very amusing about the songs and could not contain his laughter. The rest of us, sitting across from him, used every power within to repress our giggles at his complete lack of any cultural sensitivity and our feeble reproaches only made matters worse.
Some bird life about our campsite, including the greater bowerbird....
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