June 2 (Fri) Keep River to Kunanurra Tuckerbox Cafe for lunch. Had a "Burger with the lot". Stayed at Kona Lakeside Caravan Park. Got a powered site to charge batteries. Nice place, on the lake, but cold because of wind off the water. Met an Ozzie couple (ex-teacher). Went looking for rock art but failed. June 3 (Sat) Wyndham Drove 100 Km to Wyndham. Drove the King River Road (4WD only) 28 Km each way. Several challenging water crossings, wetland birds, prison tree & other Boabs. Black wing stilts, egrets, glossy black ibis, galah, pied herons, masked lapwing. Warriu Monument, bronze aboriginal figures of man, woman, child, kangaroo and snake and goana. Bought carved Boab nut from "Dennis Evans". Five rivers lookout. On way back stopped at Parry's Lagoon and Marlgu Billabong. Tons of wetland birds. Many trees look almost dead because don't have any leaves, but understand that trees drop leaves early to conserve water -- in this area, only enough water for the tree itself and not enough for the luxury of leaves. But means little shade provided for us dusty and hot travelers. June 4 (Sun) Kunnanurra to El Questro Drove to start of Gibb River Road. 8 Km in stopped at an unexciting rock art site. First time for Wandjina figures. Then went on to Emma Gorge in El Questro. Walked up river. Drove to end of the accessible part of the GRR. Crossing closed at Pentecost River crossing. Went back to camp at El Questro. $30. per night for a swamp, but at least private. Explanation of the name of El Questro: "means absolutely nothing! Property was settled in the early sixties. The two brothers who pegged the claim were reminded of stories about the bright red bluffs of New Mexico and the Rio Grande, thus the Spanish sounding name. A mate, we are told, who spoke Spanish handed them a translation on paper along the lines of 'land of great beauty and big mountains.' We then heard the two 'hit the Rum' in town before they made the claim, lost the paper and came up with a Spanish name which means nothing ... El Questro." June 5 (Mon) Down day in El Questro Spent day reading and being lazy. Tree identification a bust. Pitch dark at 5:30. Jo finally got a campfire...but no marshmallows. June 6 (Tues) El Questro to Purnululu Leave El Questro at 8:00 and arrive at turnoff to Purnululu at 11:30. 53 Km and 2.5 hours later arrive at entrance to park. Road was challenging with very rough conditions, lots of creek crossings, some corrugations and virtually no other cars. Tent camping at Kurrajong campground, flies early but gone by dark at 5:30. It's cold. Rental sleeping bags better suited to the tropics. June 7 (Wed) In Purnululu Up at 6:00 (Why not when you go to bed at 7:00) LP gas low or doesn't work because of cold, so no plunger coffee. Peanut butter sandwiches because running low on supplies... no muesli. Drove 30 Km to Cathedral Gorge (still in 4WD, took 1.5 hours). Walk was about 2 hours and was beautiful. Large plunge pool at end of narrow chasm. Saw Mulla-mulla, prickly grevillia, white quilled stone pigeon, spinfex grass, spinifex termite mounds and several tour busses. The tours do day trips from Kunnanurra, a 5 hour drive, 1 hour walk, 2 hour drive, 1 hour walk, 5 hour drive day, all for $295. Per person. At least someone else does the driving besides Jack (Jo thinks driving on these roads is something that men are genetically better at). Drove 50 Km north to Echidna Chasm, a 1.5 hour walk into a vertical fissure in the rock, 3 feet wide and 180 feet high. Saw Mulla mulla, sandstone grevillia, Livistona palms and a nest of a great bower bird. Path had several "big steps". Chasm is in deep shade. Drove back home to tent. June 8 (Thurs) Purnululu - Halls Creek - Fitzroy Crossing Up at 5:50 AM, PB&J breakfast and no coffee again cause no gas. Bird tries to steal PB sandwich. Jo left it on plate, went to the camper and came back to find it upside down on the table. Gave Jack a dirty look but he SAID the bird tried to steal it but couldn't lift it far before dropping it upside down on the table. Maybe... Saw Spinifex Pidgeon and also a Bustard & Wallaby in same view. 2 hours and 20 minutes and 41 water crossing and we are again back on paved road and out of Bungle Bungle. But saw a bustard watched carefully by a walleby on the road out. Fun. Halls Creek a pit. Lonely Planet says this about Halls Creek (and we believe it): "Nights are often noisy and interrupted by shouting, fighting and the din from smashing bottles. Dawn brings with it the scene of an uncontrolled, nocturnal rampage with scattered debris and human bodies lying where they fell. Halls Creek is about as close as you get to Australia's real shame." Fitzroy Crossing also not much. But cleaner, nicer people. Tired. Clear, cold at nignt. Finally get to catch up on laundry. Some shirts and socks seem to be permanently stained from the red dust. Saw red-winged parrots, Kookaburras. Got gas, so back to cooking. No booze. June 9 (Fri) Fitzroy Crossing - Windjana Gorge Drive to Windjana Gorge. 95 Km. on difficult 4WD road, but scenic. Black Falcon travels with us (about 10 ft. height about 10 -15 meters from us) for 2-3 Kms. Fires and whirlwind of kites. Running board depth river crossing. Windjana gorge walk. Easy hike down gorge on sand. Saw many "freshies". Saw fossils and tried to take picture of red dragon fly. June 10 (Sat) Windjana Gorge - Derby - Broome - Bird Observatory Arrived Derby early. Small. First time we have ever seen a main street that is divided dirt. But basically a nice town and they tried to cheer it up with lots of planted flowering bushes and trees. On to Broome. Had a very nice fish lunch at a cafe, but the flies are so bad, we spend all our time swatting...not very relaxing. Stayed at Bird Observatory. Not a great success. Many mossies, a few shorebirds. Tried to identify tern, but the one we thought best met the criteria in our bird book (Fairy Tern) has only been spotted 6 times in Broome so guess the 10 we saw in the mangroves couldn't be them. Johns have sign to "please close the lid to keep the frogs out." However, someone didn't follow the rules and there was a gorgeous green frog in Jo's area. Hopefully it ate some of the mossies. June 11 (Sun) Bird Observatory - Quandong Pt. 30 Km of bulldust and corrugated road to Q. P. Lots and lots and lots and lots of flies. Lazy day except a walk on the beach. Nice campsite overlooking water. Gorgeous sunset. Hear the waves all night. Jo got crocked. June 12 (Mon) Quandong Pt. - Pt. Headland 600 Km of "the most boring road in Australia" to Pt. Headland, an industrial town. Light traffic. Road trains - "no worries". Too many kangaroo (& 1 cow) carcasses to count. Wetlands by road, more birds there than the Broome Bird Obs. Pt. H (Cooke Pt) Caravan park is "packed tight". (but quiet) on the ocean. Internet connection is a royal ripoff $10 per half hour for a slow modem connect and it auto shuts off (without a warning) whatever you're doing at the end of the 30 minutes. June 13 (Tues) Pt. Headland - Karajini - Dales Creek C. G. 350 Km to Karajini. Dales Gorge C. G. Sites wooded and private. Walked to Fortesque Falls (800 m down to falls) Video crew messed up pictures. Short walk to Fern pool, 3 falls into a green pool, gorgeous and secluded, pool full of fish. Nice walk along gorge and across mesa to C. G. Wildflowers in bloom, but we have trouble identifying anything. But think we got the jam wattle, glowing wattle, and grivelia right. Back to camp for usual gormet dinner. June 14 (Wed)- Karajini - Kalamina Falls - Weamo Gorge. On way to new campsite at Weamo Gorge, stop at Kalamina Falls. Luck into a FANTASTIC walk. Walk down into gorge and then along the very fast, and cold, stream for 3 km. Falls to the right are beautiful and all along the 3 km walk to the left are small waterfalls. Full sun and a slight breeze. Couple of people stopped figuring the walk was getting a little wet and tough but we had on boots and had our walking sticks so we kept going. Some clinging to the rocks as we negotiated some high water but worse came to worse guess would just fall into the stream. Last 1-1/2 km saw no one - very quiet except for the tumbling water. At end of walk was a rock arch. Walk back and on the Weamo Campground (a very shitty campground - a small circle of open land with far more people wanting to camp than there were places). Walked down the gorge but couldn't get far trying to reach Handrail Pool because path covered by a foot of water and Jo didn't feel like taking off hiking boots. June 15 (Thurs) - Karajini to Exmouth. Very long driving day on well paved roads which didn't have any white lines on them - not on the shoulders (as usual in Western Australia) and not in the middle. Made it harder since roads are so narrow anyway. Stayed Exmouth Cape Village - close quarters but okay. Caught up on laundry and this time we know we are never going to get the red dust color off socks and shirts. Jack asked if I had forgotten to wash two pairs of his socks which were lying on the folding table. I had to tell him that they had already been washed in Australia's very hot water. Oh well, will make our trip back lighter. Dinner at Whaler's. Nice fish place but Jack and I were too tired to appreciate the beautiful salad and grilled snapper. June 16 (Fri) - Exmouth to Lighthouse Park Caught up on e-mail and then drove 15 km to top of land spit. Splurged and got a chalet (with a John, kitchen, bed, TV, electric tea pot and tea, dishes, microwave, ocean view, verandah and everything) for $120/night. Great place and we feel more relaxed and needed the ease of this type of accomodations. Three whole nights. From the verandah can see the ocean and white surf. Full sun and blue sky. Warm. Definitely Jo's kind of place. The chalets sit high above rest of the Lighthouse motel and caravan sites. Lazy today - recharging batteries (and us), reading, and catching up on journal. Tomorrow will explore Cape Range National Park and hopefully get to go snorkling.