Working In The Kimberley

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am working at a diamond mine driving trucks in the Kimberley called Kimberley Diamond Company (KDC). The Mine is called Ellendale. Tracey is working for Aboriginal Legal service in Broome and at Target in Broome. She was bored while I was at work so she got the Target job to work the weekends and Thursday nights.

The mine site is on the Gibb River Road and about 200 K's from Derby. I fly in and fly out of the mine on a 16 days on and 12 days off roster. The 16 days are split between day and night shift. 12 hours a day.

Map of Ellendale (see arrow)

It's not too bad a job when I am driving the trucks, but that is rarely. When not driving I am driving loaders and bobcats around the plant cleaning up mess. It's not a place I'd make a career out of. One of my objectives this year was to drive dump trucks at a mine and I guess I've achieved that.

The Plant at KDC Ellendale

My job in the truck is to ferry ore from big piles on the ROM (Run Of Mine) into a crusher using Moxies, CAT 740 dump trucks. The term "Moxie" refers to a sort of dump truck that is articulated, mine is a 30 tone truck that can carry and additional 40 tone. I get loaded by large articulated loaders CAT 988's and reverse onto a bridge that the crusher is under and tip the load. Sounds pretty boring but I like it, when we get to do it. :-)

Picture of a Moxie

It's frustrating when the the trucks are not running as I work in the plant cleaning up. The plant is a large mud pile, not too nice to work in. Still, the money is good and will do for the next few months.

About Bloody Time For An Update

After spending a month and a bit at the transport company, won't name names, I decided to quit. There was not a good "feeling" at the place I liked and gave it up. Broome is turning out not to be so bad and I have scored myself a mine job driving dump trucks 16 days on and 12 days off. This still provides me with the most money I have ever earn't in my life on a weekly basis. Not bad for working for almost half the time I guess.

The mine is a diamond mine in the Kimberley, we drove by it on the way to Derby. There is a short flight to the mine from Broome which they call FIFO (fly in fly out), out in the bush. I like that !! :-)

Will update with some pics and details about the mine when I get back from my "swing" another mining term I guess.

Until then...........

Location:Murray Rd,Cable Beach,Australia

GRR Wrap-up and Broome.

Gibb River Road Wrap-Up

We had a fabulous time on the GRR and are very glad we did it. Some of the things we learnt on the road were that heaps of people go on that road terribly under prepared with their cars. There were cars on the road with normal road tyres on them and wondered why all their tyres were ripped up. Most people carry too much speed on the road, a combination of corrugations and speed is not a good recipe. We saw a rollover, probably due to speed. Lower tyre pressures and lower your speed, anyone that tours this country on the dirt road know that, not all apparently. We did one tyre and that was a chance shard of stone slicing the caravans rear LH tyre. All in all a great experience and some lovely landscapes and waterfalls to see.

Broome.

We are in Broome at the moment after hitting Derby for an overnight stay. Derby was not to exciting, all that is there is a big wharf and a small township. Still, good to get into a bit of civilization and catch up with all the news. After doing a shop in Derby we headed for Broome, about 200k away and to the west. Well.........what a fantastic place. It has the feel of a sunshine coast or Cairns. There are a lot of people in town at the moment but that will change within the month as all the old people leave due to the weather getting a bit hotter. We had to stay 30K out of town then go in early one morning to line up for a spot as the town is totally booked out.

We have decided to stay and I have a job driving freight trucks around the joint. Tracey will have a job in the next couple of days no doubt, a bit different this time as its always Tracey getting the jobs first. Our caravan park, Roebuck Bay Caravan Park, is right on the water edge. Apparently the site we are in is evacuated during the wet and we are moved to higher ground, we will see.

Picture of Cable Beach the other day.

Have a look at our YouTube Channel here.

GRR - Tunnel Creek

We left the van at Windjana and did a day trip to Tunnel Creek. As the name implies it is a creek that runs through a mountain. The bush walk takes you right through the mountain following the creek. Awesome spot and some great scenery.

The entrance of the walk.


In the cave.



We had a great walk with most of the water about chest height. A real adventure as you have to take a torch to do the walk. The photo above is half way through the walk.

The other end.


We will be off to Derby tomorrow as this is the last attraction we wanted to see along the Gibb, a bit sad really as we have been having a ball. On the other hand it will be good to get onto some bitumen as we are over the corrugations and dust. We have a massive job when we get to a caravan park to get all the dust out of the car and clean car and van.

GRR - Windjana Gorge.

We drove out on some of the most rocky and corrugated roads we have been on from Bell Gorge back onto the GRR. The GRR wasn't much better at this stage as we drove into the King Leopold Ranges, up and over them and the road got markedly better. A nice change from the last few days, in fact it was the best bit of dirt we have yet to drive on the GRR. A nice change.

The ranges are beautiful as the scenery changes with every kilometer you drive. There is a little gap you drive through where an outcrop of rock looks like Queen Elizabeths head, pretty cool. Fantastic drive, not because of the good road but easily the best scenery yet.

The head.



We once again we turned off the GRR, this time to the south and into Windjana National Park where there is two things we want to see and that is the gorge here and Tunnel Creek. We arrived at the camp ground to find a cracka of a spot and set up.

Our camp spot.


A few hours later a few Variety Club bash cars drove in the camp grounds as they are on a rally from Port Headlands to Kununurra. They partied on long into the night and sounded as though they had a good time as they always do.

In the morning we did the walk up the gorge, the scenery was great but the walk it's self was a bit "blah", if you know what I mean. The track was just all bull dust. Windjana Gorge is famous for all the fresh water crocs and we saw heaps. They weren't that big, perhaps up to 2 meters, but they were along the gorge everywhere. You could get up really close to them before they ran away, pretty cool.

Trying to get the freshie to move.

A little freshie.


We had a nice walk and spent the rest of the day relaxing as we have been doing a lot of driving in the last few days and its good just to sit for a while. While we were here census night happened and believe it or not there were a couple of women from the bureau of statistics to hand us a census form! Incredible, they miss no one.

The start of the gorge just a couple hundred meters from where we are camped.


Off to Tunnel Creek tomorrow, just a short drive down the road. We will leave the van here and spend another night.

GRR - Galvans And Bell Gorges

We got back on the GRR and headed west, just down the road was another gorge by the name of Galvans so we popped in there to have a look. The bush walk took us into a little waterfall with a plunge pool at the end of the track. At the top of the falls there is a boab tree growing in the middle of the falls, made for a great photo.



After Galvans we headed to Silent Grove for the night. Before that we stopped in at Imintji road house to get the tyre we damaged near Mt Barnett fixed, for $55 the guy installed an internal patch and all was good. Nice bloke. Some of the damaged tyres he had in the yard were fascinating to look at and made me wonder what some people are thinking driving the way they do out on these roads and causing that kind of damage to the tyres. We topped up with diesel and headed off down the rocky road.

Silent grove is a camp ground in the King Leopold Ranges Conservation Park and a great place to make a base camp for a look at Bells Gorge. The campsite was great and we made the 10k drive and short walk to the gorge the next morning. Another excellent gorge with fantastic views.

Bell Gorge Vid.






Off to Windjana Gorge.

GRR - Mount Barnett Station and Manning Gorge

Once we got back onto the GRR we headed for Mt Barnett Station camp area, from there you can walk to Manning Gorge. As we pulled into the station we discovered the van had a flat tyre, took the wheel off and discovered that a shard of rock had punctured the tread just near the sidewall of the tyre. We will have to get that fixed at the next road house at Iminji as Mt Barnett did not do tyre repairs. We topped up on food here as well, a couple of packets of chops, frozen veggies and some butter etc cost us $135!!

The falls were awesome!! We had a ball swimming in the gorge, it's such a pretty spot. The walk starts with you wading across the river with the water chest high and swimming the last bit. The camp area provides styrofoam containers to transfer your stuff across.
The view from the camp ground.


Once across the river it's a 3k walk to the gorge. When we got to the falls the scenery was spectacular. Video of the Waterfall.



I found a rock to jump off and we proceeded to spend the best part of the day there. Fantastic spot!!

The rock we were jumping off.

Video 1 Jumping.

Video 2 Jumping.

Next stop is Bell Gorge........

Kalumburu

Back through the corrugations and onto Kalumburu, an aboriginal community on the coast in the North of the Kimberly. We got to Kalumburu and had a quick look around, the town was borne from a mission back in the day and the mission still exists with a small museum there, nothing much more that that. Oh, by the way, we had a look at the local diesel bowser to find out that the price was $3.75 a liter!!! The fuel comes in on a barge once a fortnight along with all the food for the town. As you could imagine the groceries were absurdly priced.



The reason for making the trek up here was to go and stay at Honeymoon Beach as we heard that it was a lovely spot. We made it out there on the worst road I have ever seen, bit of an adventure but the reward was a great spot on the coast and a private beach. The fishing here looked great as we watched a couple of guys gut and scale some fish they just caught, one of which was a giant trevalley that was 3-4 feet long! And I left the rods in the van...... amateur hour that was.....






We stayed the night in the camp ground there with the sound of the beach and waves crashing all night. Tracey got eaten alive by sand flies and mozzies, poor thing has bites from head to foot. We also went to have a look at McGowans Island that is the next bay across from Honeymoon, it was also a nice camp spot as well.

Back to Drysdale tomorrow and back on the Gibb.

Mitchell Falls

We left Drysdale and headed to the falls. The road was pretty corrugated and gave the suspension a good workout along with the tyres as the surface of the road was pretty rocky in places. Once we turned off toward Mitchell Falls the road got even worse! The corrugations were massive, I am pleased to report the car and all the accessories passed the test.

We booked a night at the falls camp ground and at lunch decided to take a helicopter flight up to the falls and walk back down. The walk is only 4k's but I have read that there is no vantage point to look at the falls front on when doing the walk and that a helicopter flight is well worth it to get the views. So we flew from the camp ground up to the falls, the views were spectacular. Tracey had a ball as it was her first time in a helicopter. Vid of the first time in a chopper.



The view of Mitchell Falls from the chopper.



Some of the scenery walking down.



We spent the rest of the afternoon walking down and swimming in all the water falls and water holes, a truly awesome place.

Video from the top of the falls.

We left the next morning for Kalumburu...

Drysdale River Station

Upon leaving Ellenbrae Station we travelled 70k's west along the GRR and turned off the road north toward Kalumburu, next stop is Drysdale Station. From there we will go to Mitchell Falls and Kalumburu.

We got to Drysdale and unhooked the van as we heard the road was pretty rough up north, glad we did! We got a lovely surprise when asking how much is was to leave the van here and the answer was "free", pretty unusual out here as everything costs.

Up the road was a rolled over car that happened earlier that day, luckily the passenger and drive got out alright. I had a talk to the bloke that WA driving and he reckoned the tail shaft let go.



Off to Mitchell Falls tomorrow.........

GRR - Ellenbrae Station

Not too far down the track is our next stop, that was Ellenbrae Station. It's about 110k's west of Home Valley and a lovely spot for a stop. We were told the fishing wasn't too bad and were advised that the black brim loved chicken, so off we went with the rods and caught dinner for that night. We both caught fish one of which we kept for dinner, just a bit larger than the plate so we cooked him whole on the barbie. Not too bad, preferred the barra though. :-)

We like the spot and stayed another day just fishing and putting the pots out for the cerubin ( kind of like yabbies, red claw etc ), we caught enough for a good feed and put them in the freezer for later.



Back on the road tomorrow.

GRR - El Questro

El Questro is a million plus acre cattle station that has a few gorges to go and see. Our first stop was Emma gorge and the walk in was excellent with a great waterfall at the end of it. We went for a swim in the freezing cold water as a bit of a refresher and took some photos.

Emma Gorge Vid.



From there we went to the station homestead to find it packed full of people, the advice we had been given was correct. We had a quick look around there and read on a notice board that our next destination, Zebedee Springs, closes at 12 noon due to the high paying guests having exclusive access to the springs after 12. We heard that those guests pay up to $2000 a night to stay out there. We saw a bus load go in on our way out.

Zebedee Springs was nice, not as nice as some of the other springs we have been to but a welcome change to the freezing water we have been swimming in. The water in the spring was 30 deg so we found ourselves a little pool and soaked for a while.



Next up was Moonshine gorge walk. This was a 5k loop in the gorge then out to the Kimberley wilderness, the scenery was magnificent as we followed the river bed up and turned back on ourselves through the bush back to the car park. Well worth the effort to do this one if you are up this way.









Next walk we did was Amalia gorge, our last walk for the day as we were getting tired, we had done about 12k's. This too was a great walk with pools on the way up and a waterfall at the end. The water here was the coldest we have yet to experience.






We had an excellent time in El Questro having a look around, pity it was so busy! We will be back on the GRR tomorrow to head off to Ellenbrae.

Until then...........

The Gibb River Road (GRR)

Our first day on the GRR saw us get to Home Valley Station. There are two stations at the eastern side of the road the other being El Questro Station. We were advised to go to Home Valley as El Questro can get busy. We crossed the Pentecost river and headed for Home Valley, we would go to El Questro for a day trip to explore the gorges.

Crossing the Pentecost River.



We got to Home valley and that place was buzzing as well, they had a bush camp down on the river so we opted for that. We are right on the Pentecost River, a lovely spot. We kept well away from the rivers edge at there are some massive crocks in the system.



The stations are set up well out here with all the amenities, cabins, restaurants and bars. They must make a fortune as there were hundreds on the upper reaches of the station, glad we went to a bush camp.

Tomorrow we will go and explore the gorges in El Questro.

Kununurra and Surrounds.

We headed off to Kununurra from Litchfield to prepare for the Gibb River Road, this involved doing a bit of backtracking to Katherine and off to the West. We took a couple of days to do the trip as we aren't in any hurry, can't rush these things you know! ;-). The aim is to get over to the west and look for work in either Broome or Derby.

We arrived in Kununurra to find the town packed full of 4WD's and caravans, we thought it would be busy but it was ridiculous. There were no spots in the caravan parks anywhere to be had, the best we could do was one nights accommodation, the next day! We ended up going to the show grounds where there was a big rig patch there and got in, we stayed for 2 nights, serviced the car and restocked, caught up on bills and addressed those.....

Kununurra is a lovely place that has the best fruit and veggies. The soil here is supposed to be excellent to grow in and there is heaps of water from the Ord River. There are heaps of mango plantations, cotton, sandalwood and fruit and veggie farms. You can go and visit them and purchase their produce right from the barn door, fresh as you like! This will be the place we will come back to if we are unsuccessful in getting work in Broome or Derby, plenty of work here.

While we were here we popped up to Wyndham, north of Kununurra and the most northern point of WA. We visited the croc farm and had a ball, the guy that owns it is a real card and he had some great stories to tell. As we were going to look at the crocs a lady passed us with a crate of baby salties. We were lucky enough to have a hold of one as they don't normally let people handle the crocs. Trace was not too keen to grab one but did to her credit. Funny times! We also went to the five rivers lookout where the Ord, Pentecost, Durack, King and Rivers empty into the Cambridge Gulf then onto the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf. Spectacular view.






Gibb River Road here we come!

Litchfield National Park

Litchfield is 100 odd kilometres South of Darwin We headed there after hearing nothing but great reports about the place and we weren’t disappointed. We loved it, it's famous for the huge magnetic ant hills in the park. We saw heaps of them and they are huge!




We decided to base ourselves at Wangi Falls and do the park in halves, we spent two days there. The waterfalls are spectacular here, our favourite being Florence Falls and Tjaynera Falls, or Sandy Creek as they are known. Down near Sandy Creek there is Blyth homestead to go and visit, it's in great order and demonstrates how hard it was in the early 1900's to live in Australia, an old tin mine was up the road as well and interesting to look at. We also went and saw a lost city, made up of sandstone features that look like an ancient city abandoned.

Blyth homestead.



A little water fall spa we found.



Tin mine in Litchfield.



Sandy Creek Falls.



We basically went to every water hole/water fall in the park, bush walked to it, swam for a bit then onto the next one. We had a ball here and would recommend it. Onto Katherine now and west from there to Kununurra.

Darwin and Berry Springs

We headed to Darwin to catch up with my uncle, he lives in Berry Springs and works in the Territory Wildlife Park nearby. The visit was perfect timing to get a few things done. I updated my mobile plan to Telstra, finally I have reception more than 5 klm out of a major city! We had the van in for a wheel alignment as one of the tyres were scrubbing out. Topped up the lure box from fishing at Shady Camp and did some shopping, We ended up staying a week. On the tech front I replaced all the fluoro and halogen lights in the van with LED lights we sourced from a mob here in Darwin. Saves heaps of power when you are living on 12V batteries. Hopefully money well spent.

We visited the city of Darwin and did a tour through some underground oil storage facilities they used during world war II. Learnt allot about the bombing of Darwin throughout the city as there is monuments and historic places pointed out throughout the town. We also went to the Aviation Museum where they have a B-52 bomber in a hangar and heaps of WWII and Bombing of Darwin photos and movie footage in displays. Well worth the visit to that museum if you are up here.

Oil Storage Tunnel



B52 at the aviation museum.



While we were up here Tracey wanted to go to see the Mindil Beach Sunset Markets, they are on a Thursday night. We had a bite to eat as it's quite famous for the variety of Asian cuisine, my eyes were too big for my belly and ate too much. Delicious food and a cracka sunset to watch, a first for Tracey to see the sun set over the water. There will be many more of them to come as we head West.

Sunset at the markets.




We washed the car and van and headed to Litchfield National Park for a couple of days. We liked Darwin and have it on a short list of places to spend more time in. Let's face it, it's winter and the days are 30 degrees and we are going to swimming holes. Swimming in winter! Really easy to get work there as well. Don't know what the wet and the build-up to the wet would be like here though, like I said, it's on the short list.

Shady Camp

We left Kakadu and headed westward along the Arhnem Highway toward Darwin. There was one spot I wanted to go before we got back to a large town and that was Shady Camp in the Mary River National Park. It's a very popular spot for barra fishing and crocodiles, we were not disappointed. We have been here 3 days already and are having a ball. All we do all day is go fishing and croc watching with spectacular sunsets at night.

There is a barrage at the boat ramp here that separates the salt tidal waters and the fresh water of the wetland river system, this prevents the wetlands getting too much salt water in them and helps to preserve the fresh water ecology up river. It's interesting to watch the fresh water crocs on one side and the salt water crocks on the other.



Trace and I have both realized one of our goals for this year and that is to catch a barra. We had a cracka of a day today as we found a nice hole in one of the wet land estuaries and proceeded to spend all morning catching small barra and sharing the bank with crocs. Tracey went for a walk to a different spot and saw a big croc I saw yesterday. I only saw his head in the water as I was keeping an eye on him while I was fishing the other day, his eyes that were poking out if the water were were about 10-12 inches across. Trace came back today to report the guys she was with surmised him to be about 16-18 feel long as he was sun baking on the bank!! Below picture.

We are going for a boat ride tomorrow with a guy we have me here to go and have a look at the really big crocs up stream. Should be good.

Update, we went for the boat ride and were astounded at the size of some of these beasts. They were easily 20+ feet long! I have no words to convey how fantastic it is to see these guys in the wild. The crocks we saw today made all the guys we have seen up till now look like babies. Fantastic!



The barra we were catching were about 30-40cm long but the legal size up here on the Mary River is 55cm, we were having a ball!!! As the morning went on the fish seemed to get bigger and bigger when finally I landed a keeper, dinner! He ended up being 58cm, next to get a meter barra. So we had some salad and barra cooked on the barbie tonight for dinner.






An excellent day today, I think we will stay a few extra days. Next step is to head to Darwin, I have an uncle that lives in Berry Springs so we will stop in on him, have a look around Darwin and head back down to Katherine then west to the Kimberlies.

Hope everyone is well and I will update soon.

The Rest Of Kakadu

We headed off from Gunlom and proceeded to all the walks and attractions around the Kakadu loop. We were headed for Jabiru and the sights there. The park is pretty cool into Jabiru as there are many sights to see and walking to do. We stopped a couple of times on the way up there and based ourselves in one spot as we did all the walks and sight seeing in the area.

We went for a drive off the main road to a place called Sandy Billabong and saw our first croc in the wild there as we approached a river. The billabongs are nice spots with most having board walks around them to view the wildlife.



We made it to Jabiru and stocked up on food and fuel and headed off to Ubir that is on the border of Arnhem Land. Ubir was fantastic with heaps to see, we stayed in a camp ground called Merls and travelled without the van to the nearby sights. There is a walk up to a lookout over the wetlands that was fantastic, this is the location of all the photos you see in the media of Kakadu and the scene in Crocodile Dundee where he is sitting on top of a mountain looking over the scenery.






The was aboriginal rock art to see here as well. If you are coming up this way Ubir is a must.

Back down towards our camp there is a barage, or causeway (They call them barages up here) called Cahills Crossing that separates Arnhem Land and Kakadu on the East Alligator River. The tides through here are fantastic to watch as the river drains away and as the tide comes in reverses the flow over the causeway. We grabbed the rods and fished for barra, there were a couple of guys over the other side of the river hauling in 1 meter fish. No luck for me.