It’s true that you won’t really encounter the ‘real’ Australia until you’ve gone outback. And that the best way to get to know the outback, is through its people.
So a road trip with Kimberley Wild Expeditions (KWE) presents the perfect opportunity to meet the people of the far north-west. For many visitors the Kimberley is all about the landscape, with vast skies, deep canyons and endless sunset vistas. It’s vast, for sure, but it’s the human dimension that captures our hearts; the chance to get up close and personal with the people of the Kimberley – the indigenous people, the settlers and their descendants, the drifters, the singers, the poets and the merchants. Time and again we ask these people of the Kimberley, “what’s your story?”. And we are reminded that, although we often think we travel to see, more often it’s what we hear and who we meet that touches us the most.
Our starting point is Broome where we are privileged to experience Shinju Matsu – or Taste of Broome – and a concert by the Pigram brothers who share a moving visual and musical history of the people of Broome.
Early next morning we’re collected from our hotel by Leisa our petite Melbourne driver whose size belies her strength – a point she proves over the next five days as she wrestles the bus over corduroy roads, even changing one of the massive tyres along the way. We’re introduced to the other seven passengers and then it’s off on the open road.
She also nags us like a mother. Have you got your water bottles? They need to carry a minimum of 750 ml of water – are you drinking enough? Have you used sunscreen? Where is your hat? She’s annoyingly right, of course, as we fry in the relentless September heat.
Leisa’s also a mine of stories about Broome, the Kimberley and the people who live there. We learn about the late 19th century, when the pearling industry was at its peak and the big personalities ran the township of Broome. One massive ego was attached to Frederick Napier Broome the Governor General of Western Australia who wrote back to England saying he didn’t want his name used as an appellation for a town of shanties. Sorry Fred, it seems to have stuck!
Bordered to the west by the Indian Ocean, the north by the Timor Sea, the east by the Northern Territory and the south by the Great Sandy Desert, the Kimberley stretches endlessly out over wide open plains, punctuated by termite nests and spinifex grass. The area was named after the First Earl of Kimberley, John Wodehouse, who saw this rugged outback area as a last frontier for exploration and European settlement.
Another explorer, Alexander Forrest, the first white man to see the Bungle Bungles, described well-watered land suitable for pasture and the possibility of discovering gold at Halls Creek. And then there’s adventurer, naturalist, and ‘possible’ pirate, William Dampier who sailed into Roebuck Bay in 1699 and who is widely rumoured to have left buried treasure under Buccaneer’s Rock in Roebuck Bay.
Halls Creek is redolent with stories of pioneers for a variety of reasons. Outside the visitor centre there’s a statue commemorating Russian Jack portraying his tenacity and generosity in pushing a fellow prospector miles across sunscorched earth in his wheelbarrow. And local tales of Postmaster Tuckett and Doctor Holland who were the catalyst for the establishment of the Royal Flying Doctor Service after Doc Holland had to guide F.W. Tuckett, by telephone, in an operation using a pocketknife, on Jimmy Darcy, a stockman. Sadly Jimmy died – not from the operation, but an unrelated bout of malaria. Halls Creek is also where we visit home to the Yarliyil Art Centre where we encounter the work of extraordinary local artists including Bonnie Deegan, Biddy Timbinah and Dianne Rivers.
Our trip includes a visit to Purnululu National Park, a world heritage site of 600,000 square acres accessed by Spring Creek Track from the Great Northern Highway. If you haven’t rattled your bones in the back of a bus heading down Spring Creek track over dry creek beds to Purnululu, then you haven’t lived. Purnululu is home to the Bungle Bungle Range, an extraordinary configuration of beehive shaped sandstone cones, with bands of orange caused by oxidisation and grey, from blue/green algae.
We stay in Kimberley Wild’s purpose built camp at Purnululu for two nights, soaking up the natural history and enjoying the extraordinary privilege of watching the Bungle Bungles bathed in a sunset glow, slowly melting into a black, but starry sky.
The next day we head to the Mimby Caves in Gooniyandi country, where we are hosted by Ronnie – lead singer of Fitzroy Express. Ronnie leads trips into the caves, sharing their 350-million year history and tales of desert and river people and their attachment to the blue-tongued lizard. He also whips out his guitar to entertain us with his music while cooking afternoon tea on a bushfire. Before we leave, he reminds us, whether locals or visitors, we are only ever ‘just passing through’ this sacred country.
Kimberley Wild Expeditions
The five-day Broome to Bungles tour offers a perfect taste of the Kimberley. But be warned, this means long days, with long distances to cover and super early starts in the heat. Kimberley Wild Expeditions also offers a nine-day round trip that ensures you don’t travel on the same roads twice, and you will get to visit Lake Argyll.
Need to know before you go:
Fitness – KWE’s website suggests a ‘moderate’ fitness level is required, but in the scorching September heat you really do need to be physically fit to enjoy all this tour has to offer. Unless you pay extra for a cabin, you will also need to pitch a tent and break camp afterwards. Activities can be quite strenuous, so if you prefer to veg out and laze around a pool being waited on, then forget it, this trip’s not for you.
Food – This is not a trip for gourmet snobs. The food is tasty and filling, but all guests need to be prepared to pitch in to help prepare, serve and wash up afterwards.
Upsides
If you are prepared to join in and embrace a dinky-di outback Australian adventure, the five-day Broome to Bungles tour or nine-day Wild Kimberley Loop adventures offer a perfect opportunity to meet the real people who make this country what it is. I feel privileged to have been one of the merry team on board Ms Leisa’s bus.
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