Wolf Creek ...

Duncan Road stretches for 429km and is an unsealed track that leads you through some of the most scenic landscapes in the Kimberley.  It travels along the eastern side of Purnululu National Park (Bungle Bungles).  It’s a reasonably easy unsealed road with many, many creek crossings (mostly dry) which you drive down into, and an ever changing landscape from open plains to lightly wooded to undulating with huge plump green spinifex bushes covering the hills looking like plump green/yellow marshmallows.  The landscape was green and in some places simply lush.  A few cows (like hundreds) can be seen on your travels.  We saw a couple of wild camels, many wallabies, a huge snake and the odd wild donkey looking at you somewhat inquisitively.

We found a free camp on the Behn River along a dusty and rutted track that put us right on the river.  The river was a series of waterholes that in the wet season would be a torrent.

The next morning we headed south along Duncan Road hoping to find another free camp along the way … you would imagine that in a 335km stretch that there would be somewhere to stay … well … no.  It was either open plains or deep dry creek beds … all exposed to the road (not that traffic would be much of a problem as we only saw 4 other vehicles for the day).  Anyway … we ended up about 30kms from Halls Creek. 

Brehn River

The background to this video is that around sunset at Behn River, hundreds and hundreds of cockatoos flew overhead in flocks of 20-50 birds at a time ... all screeching ... as they do ... they flew upstream from us ... then the sound died down.

I then launched the drone sending it upstream ... thinking that the cockies were well upstream and far away ... little did I realise that they were out of sight ... but about 300m upstream ... so when the drone headed in their vicinity they took off ... they dive bombed the drone ... as soon as I realised that they had taken fright I recalled the drone ... you can see a couple of wings up close in the latter part of the video ... they then headed downstream toward us as I was trying to retrieve the drone ... a few anxious moments was had by all !!!

Back on the road we headed to Halls Creek where we eventually found Saw Pit Gorge. This was a stunning little waterhole, and quite secluded … down a narrow, rocky, sandy and very steeply rutted track (with 2-3 feet deep ruts) to the water’s edge … doh!  Another camper right on the water at the junction of the track … strong wind blowing dust straight up the gorge.  That aint gunna work!

Next ... to another free camp … a few kms away ... Palm Springs ... which turned out to be just a roadside stop with a rubbish bin (and rubbish strewn all over the place), a creek (that was stagnant was nearby) as was the dust being blown up by the wind or passing adventurers … nope ... that aint gunna work either ... so we moved on and eventually found the last remaining free camp in the area … Carolines Pool … down a steep and deeply rutted track we go again onto a dry river bed with soft sand and a waterhole and only one other camper some distance away.  Brilliant!!

Within 2 hours we were adjoined with 3 vehicles of French, Italian and Chinese travellers who setup camp with much excitement and banter then played “their” music until quite late. 

The following morning we drove back to Old Halls Creek (about 1km) to check out the town history and ran into a couple of travellers in vehicles that tried to get into the waterhole the previous night and ended up parking up on the bank … they complained about the loud music coming from below them (right next to us!)

Halls Creek is famous for gold … on Christmas Day in 1885, Mr Hall (Charlie to his mates) stumbled across a 1kg nugget … how lucky is that? Stumbled upon a 1kg nugget of gold!? He sparked a gold rush with about 15,000 hopefuls making their way, from all over the world to this very creek ... so named after him.  Today, Halls Creek is home to about 4,000 people.  The Old Halls Creek was abandoned in 1954 and the town moved about 15kms away to where it stands today.

Halls Creek is the last stop on the Canning Stock Route.

We headed through Halls Creek, where the annual rodeo was about to kick off with cowboys and horse floats jampacking the showgrounds.

Green ants

We took the top end of the Tanami Track (a largely unsealed 1013km trek that runs down to Alice Springs) out to Wolf Creek Meteorite Crater site (152km), where 300,000 years ago, a 50,000 tonne space rock travelling at 15km per second smashed into the earth!  It left a bit of an indentation in the surface that was not discovered by a white man until 1947. The road out is rough … they tell you that … everything you read about this bit of road says so ... and they are not kidding ... one little bit! 

Wolf Creek Crater

We did the rim walk of the crater which is about 3.8km of a rocky trail around the perimeter. This was the first test for the Queensland tourist ... which she undertook admirably! The wound is healing well ...

Wolf Creek Crater

This little guy was so hard to see ...

We’ve had 2 nights here … it's much cooler ... we are wearing jackets for the first time in 8 weeks ...