The big lap - Australia

[suby]

80 Mile beach

Hi Havachat, yep it was a great trip. I wish I was still on it :-(

Next we had a few days at 80 mile beach. I did a little fishing and my wife collected sea shells that are abundant on the beach and dunes. After a few days we had quite a collection. The water is shallow and no surf, apparently because the continental shelf is a couple of kilometers out to sea deadening wave action on the coast.












While we where there a science project was on. The scientists know very little about "Flatback" turtles at a small size. Several young turtles have been fitted with transmitters similar to EPIRB technology so they can learn more about movement of the little guys. They have leather like shells so the solar powered transmitters will fall off in a relatively short time. The scientists took them out near the edge of the continental shelf to give them the best chance of survival. Some 100mm PVC pipe with end caps and weights where fitted with SPOT PLB's, and also dropped off to track current movement


Cool amphibious boat with hydraulic wheels. No boat ramps anywhere near this place, and the water is very very shallow for a long way out.


Barnhill Station - north of 80 mile beach

 

[Twinklz]

Great trip report mate! Fascinating read and pictures were great too!

 

[havachat]

Fabulous part of Australia, and very remote. I had relatives at Kalbarri and in the 70's travelled around Canarvan, Tom Price, Paraburdoo, Newman through to Dampier.
So keep the report rolling!

 

[Kevin]

The pics are very nice indeed - what camera are you using? I think I need to update my old SLR

 

[suby]

Thanks for the input everyone. It is very remote, but having said that 80 mile beach was caravan central. Lots of people traveling and I must say everyone was social, they even had a weekend market and a few other organized things while we where there. Its a great place to stop for a while and chill.

As for cameras I have a few. They are useful for different reasons. I think camera technology has improved, for example most midrange phones do a good job.

Hope the following information helps Kevin.

1) Olympus PEN E-p3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_PEN_E-P3
with Micro Four Thirds lenses. I have two lenses and ultra wide adapter of one of the lenses. The setup is half the size and weight of equivalent SLR's. One problem is that it does not have a dedicated view finder, so it hard to see what is going on in bright sun light. And Micro Four third sensors are smaller that APS-c sensors in most other SLR's so you loose some low light capability and some loss in depth of field. So its a trade off of size and weight. Sensor technology is improving so I am going to stick with this camera format....

2) Sony Xperia Z2 phone - has good photo capability and Video up to 4K resolution. I do most of the panoramic shots with this, as its easy.

3) Canon compact camera - useful when you want to be light weight, and also does acceptable video.

4) Ebay $80 action cam with underwater case and accessories. Does a great job with HD video. In fact some of the photos I have posted in the water have been ripped from the video.

The model was a sj2000 not available now, however I see sj4000 looks like its replacement. From my research over a year or more ago the performance was about equivalent to a go-pro minus 60 frames a second mode. The controls on the sj2000 are not easy to use in the underwater case, so not good when treading water. Perhaps the redesign is better in the sj4000...

 

[Kevin]

^ thanks for the info, appreciated

 

[suby]

Broome and James Price Point

Broome - cable beach

Staircase to the moon - Broome

James Price Point - West coast of Cape Lavaque

 

[suby]

Cape Levaque

Cygnet bay - tide boat tour:
We visited the Perl farm and also did a tide tour. The perls do very well because of the amount of fresh water flushed in and out of the bay each day. This shows the outgoing tide rush. The opening to the bay must be a kilometer wide and the amount of water moving is enormous. Eddies and whirlpools are everywhere....

Goombaragin camp - Yum

Goombaragin

Goombaragin camp

Kooljaman - We did a 4WD cultural tour with a traditional owner. We visited Hunter creek and did some crabbing

You may be able to see the Forester behind the third truck....

kooljaman - fishing for sting ray.

kooljaman Camp

Middle lagoon camp with all the solar out.

 

[duncanm]

wow - I'm loving all these photos.. great trip.

Its so hard to get decent sunset shots, they rarely convey the feeling of being there. That one with the chairs and your partner captures it all. Well done

 

[suby]

Gibb river road

Windjana gorge

Windjana gorge

Tunnel creek

Tunnel creek

Tunnel creek

Bell gorge

Galvin gorge pool

Durack river

Mt Barnett

Bad luck - did a tyre and rim when we bounced across the rocks in a dip. We saw quite a few people with the same problem, every one stopped or slowed to check if everything was okay with each other... The eastern end of the Gibb must have sharper rocks then the west.

The road into Home valley Station

Home valley Station - we camped two or three nights, during this time we noticed two people checking there undercarriage/suspension after doing the Gibb. The Station has a mechanic, so Monday morning is busy with tyre repairs and other mechanical issues. Subaru tires and rims are not available. We have one spare tyre so we head off again.

Home valley Station

Home valley Station - Air boat. It was fun and a great way to see wildlife and views to the hills.

Home valley Station - Pentecost river mullet jumping

 

[suby]

Gibb river road - Pentecost river and El Questro

Thanks duncanm. The sunset did turnout okay. Most don't as you say.
Cheers,


Pentecost river crossing - checking the depth.

Most of the crossing is okay 300-400mm only one deep dip at the other side of the river. The water level was coming to the underside of big lifted 4WD's number plate, 600mm deep. So just in case fitted a tarp to the front...

We where lucky to have someone with a decent camera on the other side who captured photos of the crossing. Thanks Sam & Lauren, for the pics...

A track at El Questro

The Pentecost has a crossing at El Questro, I hit bottom crossing this one time in the 6 crossings I did. The rocks get moved about by all the vehicles crossing it. The water was perhaps 500mm deep. El Questro has interesting things to see on both sides of the river.

 

[suby]

Gibb river road - more from El Questro

More photos from ElQuestro

 

[suby]

Wyndham and Parry Creek Farm

Parry Creek Farm.

Wyndham

Brolga just out of town.

Perhaps a 2000 year old tree

Five rivers lookout Wyndham
The Ord, Forrest, King, Durack and Pentecost Rivers merge at Wyndham within the Cambridge Gulf. You and see the entry point form all 5 rivers from this hill.

Five rivers lookout Wyndham - local artwork. Must have taken some precision driving and planning to do this for the tourists.

Please remove this if regarded as offensive.

The whole area becomes flooded in the wet season.

 

[suby]

Parry Creek

This is the Ord river crossing on the Parry creek road. They have blocked it off now. As we pulled up we saw a sizable crock slip into the water and vanished. I don't think its a good idea to get to close to the waters edge!. Also a little Rainbow Bee-eater was flying about.

Rainbow Bee-eater

 

[havachat]

Really enjoying this post !!
Brilliant photos.
In case I missed it how long did the trip take and how many km did you cover?

 

[suby]

Hi havachat,

The trip was over five and a half months, just under 30,000 K's in total, from March to mid September.

 

[havachat]

I wonder how far I would go in two months.....just thinking !

 

[suby]

We didn't spend much time in one place besides a couple of cases, it was mostly a night or two then move on. You would be able to do the half a lap probably if you keep moving. As you are in Vic, you could do the East Coast, SA and Red Center somewhere, or visit WA.

The problem is you need to look at how far you can get in one month or so and allow enough time to get back home on time.

We did the lap but still haven't done the east coast as much as we want to. In the future I hope I can get time to do this. I will not get long service leave again in my working life, so will see how it goes... Oz is a big place.

Cheers,

 

[tasscube]

Amazing thanks for posting this love it, we all live vicariously when seeing this and also good to see someone with a love for the boab tree !

 

[suby]

Kununurra WA

Thanks for the comment tasscube. Boab trees are cool. We saw lots on the way from Broome. I actually did take a few more great shots on the way but won't post them as they are a bit off topic for a Subaru forum.

Kununurra receives lots of water from the Ord river irrigation scheme, and has farming areas around the outskirts of town.

We damaged the camper tent cover zip from the spare wheel carrier arm. The dust didn't help either, it was hard getting it closed up for travel. I pulled out some of the problem links so we could put the cover on. Luckily Kununurra had two places that did canvas repairs, one very helpful guy ordered in a new zip. I detached the zip skirt around the trailer and had it repaired within a couple of days. When we replaced the skirt I lifted it up 20 mm so it did not touch the rubber stop anymore.

At Kununurra we run into a the local freshwater crocodile at the bottom of the caravan park. Apparently someone in the past fed it, and now it comes every day looking for food.

It was not afraid of people.