DERBY to WYNDHAM via CAPE LEVEQUE

Day 63, Friday 26-June-2015
DERBY to MIDDLE LAGOON 366k (7217k)
10.75 L/100k,
Packed up camp and headed off over the Cape Leveque road to middle lagoon which is like driving down a large spoon drain, red dirt with sections of corrugations, our morning tea stop was Beagle Bay where we visited the Catholic Sacred Heart Church, build by the monks in the 1890,s the alter and the interior is decorated in mother of pearl shell. We then moved on from here to Middle Lagoon, a

beautiful spot right on the beach with many other campers, most of them there for the fishing, a couple of guys caught decent size Spanish Mackerel and Spanish Flags from their boats, we tried fishing from the beach but no luck. There was plenty of wood lying around in the bush so we were able to have a campfire.
Day 64, Saturday 27-June-2015
Our second day at Middle Lagoon relaxing around camp and on the beach with another shot at fishing but still no luck, there was a bushfire off in the distance which put a smoke haze along the horizon to make a spectacular sunset.
Day 65, Sunday 28-June-2015
MIDDLE LAGOON to CAPE LEVEQUE 112k
We continued our trip to Kooljamin Resort at Cape Leveque, the last 70k or so is bitumen, we had the best campsite in the whole camp, on the edge of the rocks overlooking the western beach and a grass

roofed shelter right next door to us. The boardwalk down to the swimming beach takes you past the Cape Leveque Light House, Family Safari Tents and the beach style Dinkas Café. After a walk along the beach we returned to camp and picked up some takeaway Fish & Chips to eat at our campsite shelter, the Fish & Soggy Chips were pretty avaerage but the view was great. In the afternoon we walked down to the Western Beach and then returned to our camp shelter for Happy Hour while watching the sunset.
Day 66, Monday 29-June-2015
CAPE LEVEQUE to WILLIE CREEK 187k (7924k)
10.74L/100k,
One day was not enough at Cape Leveque but that was all we could book for so we headed back towards Broome but first a slight detour and overnight camp at Willie Creek, once again no luck with the fishing.
Day 67, Tuesday 30-June-2015
WILLIE CREEK to DERBY 199k (8197k)
10.15 L/100k,
Before heading back to Derby we went into Broome to check out the caravan park situation for when we return with our vans, had lunch then drove back to Derby. We returned to the Kimberley Entrance Caravan Park, now the man said if you take a No 6 hook with Pilchard for bait down to the Derby jetty at 8am tomorrow morning you are guaranteed to catch a fish.
Day 68, Wednesday 1-July-2015

HORIZONTAL FALLS Tour
At 7.30am we were waiting for the IGA to open so that we could get our bait, then off to the jetty, Derby can get up to 14 metre tides so you can imagine how high the jetty pylons have to be, when we arrived at 8am we were looking down at sandbars under the jetty, a local advised us, its low tide mate your not going to catch anything here. A short time later the tide turned and started to come back in fairly quickly so we threw in some bait, John caught a small catfish and after a couple of hours we retuned to camp. Went around to see Betty at site no7 for a hair cut, she is the wife of Alec Beckett the country singer who had a few gigs around town including one at the caravan park the night before, showered, then lunch and ready for the bus to pick us up for the horizontal falls tour.
The trip out to Horizontal Falls is by seaplane, 14 passengers per plane and there were 3 seaplanes, we boarded and they all took off

about 5 minutes apart, the flight takes 30 minutes across the Kimberley Buccaneer Archipelago landing on the water in Talbot Bay, the plane docks at the floating hotel, no shoes allowed inside, we are taken to our cabins to drop our bags then back on deck to feed the fish, sharks and bat fish. When we have finished the fish feeding we get onto “Full Throttle” a 900HP Power Boat for a cruise up Cyclone Creek and then over to the Horizontal Falls with a couple of power runs through the first falls which has a wide opening, the tide is going out and there is about a 2 metre difference in the height of the water through the choke, the second falls is a narrower choke and the force of the water is too much and too dangerous for the power boats to go through so we head back to the floating hotel where we have happy hour drinks and nibblies while watching the sunset, its BYO drinks but they have a couple of large ice filled eskies on deck to chill them. Dinner is then served, a buffet of barbequed crispy skin barramundi with a variety of salads followed by a choice of deserts, after a social evening on deck we headed down to our cabins to get some sleep before the 6 am start next day.
Day 69, Thursday 2-July-2015
Up at 6am for the buffet breakfast then onto “Full Throttle” for another trip out to the falls this time the tide was just on the turn with very little flow so we were able to travel through the second choke into the land locked bay where we saw a 5 metre croc swimming along beside the boat, we watched the seaplanes land as we headed back to the floating hotel, boarded our planes and flew back to Derby where the buses were waiting to take us back to reality of the tent and caravan park. What a fantastic experience this tour was, we can thoroughly recommend it to anyone who is considering doing it.
We arrived back at the caravan park mid morning so this gave us a chance to get the gas bottles filled and have a look around derby, we visited the two art galleries in town which were great but extremely expensive, we then moved on to see the huge Boab Prison tree and then to the Derby jetty where it was high tide and about thirty fishermen but no fish, just one crab. We had lunch at the Jetty café and then went around to Warfinger House which is the Derby Museum, from there we went to the Old Derby Goal and then went on to do our shopping and back to camp.
In the evening we went to the Derby night markets.
Day 70, Friday 3-July-2015
DERBY to NGUMPAN CLIFF Rest Area 335k
We left Derby today and headed out along the Great Northern Highway for our trip back to Wyndham to pick up the vans, our over night stop was a free camp at the Ngumpan Cliff rest area. Ngumpan Cliff is a high plateau with great views across the surrounding plains, there were a couple of tents and about 30 vans and motorhomes also camped here for the night.
Day 71, Saturday 4-July-2015
NGUMPAN CLIFF to WOLF CREEK CRATER 319k
We continued on our journey along the Great Northern Highway to approximately 16klms before Halls Creek where we turned onto the Tanami Road for the Wolf creek crater, the Tanami Road was a pretty good dirt road, with only a few corrugations except for the last 20klms into the Wolf Creek Meteorite Crater which was fairly rough. We set up camp and walked up to the top of the crater, it is an amazing sight, about 800 meters in diameter and approximately 50 metres deep, the inside edge of the crater was rocky and too steep for us

to walk down but the centre was flat from sediment that had built up over the years and had trees and scrub, the meteorite crashed into this flat plain about 300,000 years ago and it is estimated that the crater would have originally been about 70 metres deep, remnants of the meteroite have been found up to 4klms away.
Day 72, Sunday 5-July-2015
WOLF CREEK CRATER to BUNGLE BUNGLES 310k (9000k)
10.15 L/100k,
We packed up camp for our trip to the Bungle Bungles, you can’t get lost on the Tanami Road on the way back to Halls Creek, just follow the trail of green “VB” cans, stopped at Halls Creek for morning tea and a refuel, then continued on to the turn off into Purnululu National Park (Bungle Bungles) 52 k of rough corrugated road to the Ranger Station and the another 12k of similar road to the Walardi camping area, we set up camp and checked out the map to plan the next couple of days

Day 73, Monday 6-July-2015
We started early and drove 30k to the Northern end of the Bungles over those rough roads and did the walks into Echidna Chasm and Mini Palms Gorge spectacular escarpments and colours, on the way back we called in at the Kungkalanati lookout for some great views. Although it was 30 deg during the day it got down to 7 deg overnight brrrrrrr.
Day 74, Tuesday 7-July-2015
Another early start and this time a 17k drive to the southern end of the park, we walked the domes track, Bungle Bungles are famous for these large domed rock formations and a side track takes you into a large natural Amphitheatre, at the time we were there it was also school holidays and a school group followed us into the amphitheatre (plenty of room, it would need a thousand school kids to fill it), after a bit of running around and being school kids the teacher gathered

them together to sing Advance Australia Fair a great moment as their voices carried through the high rocky ceiling.
Day 75, Wednesday 8-July-2015
BUNGLE BUNGLES to WYNDHAM 329k (9744k)
10.67 L/100k,
A very exciting day today, we were heading back to Wyndham Caravan Park to dock with the mother ship and looking forward to getting back to the luxury of our caravan, we spent most of day reorganising our stuff back into the van.
The other big event today was the NRL State of Origin so we went down to the Wyndham Port Hotel to watch the game, there was the four of us, another couple plus the publican, the cook and the 2 resident dogs, not the sort of pub crowd we had been used to for a State of Origin Match, we were all Queensland supporters except for the cook who was a NSW supporter, it was a Queensland massacre of the Blues 52 – 6 so we had to be careful not to upset the cook, the meals were absolutely first class.
Day 76, Thursday 9-July-2015
We had our cars booked in to get serviced in Kununurra today so it was an early start to get there for 8am, my mobile phone had packed up so I was able to get a new one while we were in town and we all met back at the Kununurra Pub for lunch then picked up the car and onto the supermarket for supplies.
In the afternoon we went down to the Rusty Shed at Wyndham Port for coffee, we met the cook from the pub in the main street and because there would be no consequences we could remind her how well Queensland played last night, we then walked on to the Wyndham Historical Museum which had a comprehensive display of Wyndhams history.
Day 77, Friday 10-July-2015
Wyndham Caravan Park, cleaning out the dust and cleaning the car.

Day 78, Saturday 11-July-2015
Wyndham Caravan Park, relaxing day.