Week 9 – Cape Leveque to Karijini National Park – 880kms

Week 9 – Cape Leveque to Karijini National Park – 880kms

Days 57 and 58 were spent exploring Cape Leveque and the surrounding Dampier Peninsula. First stop was at Cygnet Bar Pearl Farm, a family run pearling operation which has been operating since the early sixties. It was very informative to learn about the process used to culture pearls. However the highlight of the visit was trying on a $53,000 pearl necklace, unfortunately Pete wasn’t feeling very generous and thus I had to hand it back. I spent the afternoon lazying around the safari tent, whilst the others went on an Aboriginal spear making tour. The children got to cut down the branch for their spears, strip the branch, fire the spear, shape it and then final paint it. Once the spears were finished they were given a demonstration on how to catch fish using their spears. Their guide was successful in his fishing attempts and thus they then all sat around a camp fire cooking and then eating the fish. Unfortunately upon their return they got bogged in the sand and had to be pushed out, this set the theme for Cape Leveque. Whilst they were getting themselves out of trouble, I was relaxing with our new friends the Hopton’s and DeGasson’s having a quite wine watching the sunset.
The next day saw us visit the One Arm Point Hatchery where they culture Troche shells for sale to Italy to be made into beautiful buttons. This was followed by a wonderful swim at Cape Leveque and final a mud crab tour. The mud crab tour turned out to be the tour from hell. First we got bogged getting into the mud crabbing location and had to be pulled out, secondly mud crabbing involved wondering through mangroves digging for mud crabs whilst being eaten alive by sand flies and mosquitoes. Our Aboriginal guide took off without providing any instruction on what we were looking for, how to catch them and finally where we meant to go. After 1.5 hours covered in mud and bites we decided to call it quits and walked ourselves back to the car. The first group was already back cooking their catch over a fire, disgusted with the tour I was in no mood to hang around and thus we headed off home ahead of the group. This plan back fired as only about 5 minutes later we became seriously bogged and had to wait for over 45 mins for the rest of the group to arrive to tow us out. Tail between our legs we kindly accepted their help and then ventured home without further incident. The one highlight was catching up with Roger Chomley an old acutance who now runs specialized tours to Cape Leveque.

Day 59 saw us have a relax morning swimming again in the beautiful bay at Cape Leveque before heading back to Broome to pick up the van and to settle ourselves once again into the Cable Beach Caravan Park. After 6 nights out of the van, we were all very pleased to be back in our home away from home.

Day 60 saw Adelaide and I treat ourselves to a horizontal falls tour. After getting up at 5am, we were picked up and driven to the airport to board our seaplane for a 1hours flight to King Sound to experience the horizontal falls. The tour was fantastic. It started with landing on water which was like landing on marshmallows’, next we were transferred to a cruise boat where we were served breakfast whilst motoring around King Sound, Beside our tour group of 10 there was no-one else around, it was so beautiful and untouched. It would be wonderful to be able to spend more time just cruising around the area. Next we were transferred onto the mother ship to go swimming with the sharks. They lowered an open shark cage approx 5 foot into the water and then we swam next to Lemon Sharks. Next was the highlight of the adventure, speeding through the horizontal falls on a 500hp boat. The horizontal falls are caused by the large tides in the area being squeezed through two narrow gorges, causing very turbulent water with whirlpools and rapids. Final it was the flight home, a very scenic flight over the Buccaneer Archipelago, Cape Leveque, the Dampier Peninsula, and finally Cable Beach. Over Cape Leveque we managed to spot our friends and take a wonderful photo showing their camp sites. Whilst Adelaide and I were off being adventurers the others were relaxing at the caravan park and writing their daily journals.

Day 61 saw Pete once again head off on a Fishing Charter and come home as the successful hunter/gatherer. He proudly again fed our friends and we spent a very enjoyable evening sharing a meal, whilst the children watched a movie. The children and I completed the items on our things to list and relaxing around the pool.

Day 62 started with a walk out to the Flying Boat wrecks in Roebuck Bay, which are only visible on low tide approximately 3 times a year. In 1942, many Dutch people were being evacuated out of Indonesia via Broome to Freemantle as the Japanese were fast approaching. Given Broome’s limited accommodation, they were often kept on the Flying Boats in the bay overnight. Moored in the bay overnight were also a number of fighters. The Japanese struck early and bombed all boats moored in the bay, unfortunately approximately 150 women and children were killed. Broome had no defence as it was believed that the Japanese would not be able to attack so far south. After our lovely morning stroll we settled in for the long drive to Port Hedland. A short lunch stop was taken at 80 mile beach a great fishing stretch approximately 300kms south of Broome. In Port Hedland we faced rain for the first time since the end of week 3 and the need for jumpers, a real shock to the system and strong signal that we were entering the final stage of our adventure.

Day 63 started with a tour of Port Hedland and its large shipping port where we watched a ship being loaded with Iron Ore bound for China. The whole town centres around the mining industry and every second car is owned by BHP Bilton. Packing up in the rain was unpleasant and we hoped that this was not to be a signal of the weather to come. The majority of the day was spent driving to Karijini National Park, reportedly the best national park in WA. After setting up the van we went on a walk of Dales Gorge, swimming in Fern Pool and Fortescue Falls returning along the Gorge rim walk back to the van whilst the sun was setting, that’s living the dream.