Oldfart's road trip.
 

We left Darwin headed for Broome about 1400 miles (2000km) to the west. It's through some of the most desolate country, a green desert filled with inedible prickly plants and free range cattle. The rainy season's just over and the ground's drying out at an incredible rate.

This part of the country was once described as the "bones of mighty mountains strewn across an ancient landscape".

The road to the Wolf Creek Crater (laughingly referred to as the Tanami Highway) is a thousand miles of corrugations, washouts, creek beds, sand patches and rocks the size of oranges. Sometimes even all at once.

I tore out a tyre at 120kph (75 mph) and thought I was going to roll the car.

The crater was about 20km off the highway on a rough-graded road that was mostly better than the main road. The only really tough part was crossing Wolf Creek's dry bed, littered with football and canteloupe sized rocks. No way was a 2 wheel drive doing that (I have an all-wheel drive).

Someone had built a cairn up on the rim. The crater is an intact meteorite crater which still has shock-rings visible after 300,000 years.

I went into the crater.

The rim of the crater was loose rock, one mis-step and I was in trouble.

Time to leave the Crater.

Then on to Broome.

Thanks for the guide and pics,OF. I always knew there had to be a downside to living in Oz - and I think that must be it!!

Terrific pics, though! :)

DM

Wow! Great pics and info OF! TY for sharing!

Those are terrific pictures, OF.

How deep is the crater? Looks like you had a pretty good hike to go down inside it.

Country looks very dry but has a beauty all it's own. Did you see much wildlife?

Fantastic pics. :thumb: I'm glad to see you survived the crush of the tourist season. ;)

That is one heck of a start. Now I can't wait to see the rest of your adventure. :car:

Downside DM? Nah!


Lixy, that's just where I had to take a break. There's more.


DB, the crater's about 20 metres below the mean ground level, so about 55metres below the rim. Most of the wildlife we saw were roadkill.

A lot of the country in that area is near the end of an erosion cycle, leaving these crumbling buttes.

We then went to Wyndham, a cattle export town with another claim to fame. In the deep distant past when bad guys were held by the law pending transport to Port Hedland for court, in the absence of a jail they were locked in a local Boab tree.

Broome, jewel of the northwest and one of the world's premier pearl production areas. (google Paspaley).

It is a modern town, small, but a long way from the shanty town it was.

I found a place which sold a number of brewed grain beverages called bier, or bere or something like that.

Cable Beach is renowned for it's white pointers, and sometimes it has sharks too.

When PF was young,some dinosaurs left footprints in the rock, visible only at the lowest tide. Cement casts are higher up.

Just some town pics of Broome.

I met some bronzed Aussies, and also found a place with some low-tech air conditioning.

On a walk home we ran into some ghosts in the night. They turned out to be the camels from the sunset tour being led back to their stables.Eerie.

More fantastic pictures. Looks like you had a great time. Wasn't there a topless beach? I think documentary photos would have been nice. :)

On the way to Halls Creek on the first night's drive, there was a series of dry creeks. At 120kph we hit the only one that wasn't totally dry. It was unsigned and a total shock. For a moment I thought we were dead.

Some of the landscape reminded me I hadn't been to Pixies for a while.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a group moving stock around with horses. The old West (Australia) still lives.

Hereby endeth the tail.

They were the white pointers, DB.

It's not counted as urbane to take pics when they have 7ft 57in boyfriends who get a tad possessive.

On the way back, we found a car crash, only a few hours old. There was no blood or effects in the car, but a classic example of keeping your mind on your driving.

No wonder the creek surprised you.:yikes: You can only see the warning signs in your rear view mirror............. after the fact. :car:









:rofl:

No doubt you decided to try some, just to see what the fuss was about ;)

Excellent travelogue...Nature's majesty always takes one's breath away...so much of your desert reminds me of the American West, including the buttes & the big honking hole in the ground.

Cool pics!!!!

BTW, the crater's a half mile across.

The Australian version of the Grand Tetons (OFT24)? :D Pixies would have come to mind. Actually, I probably would have thought about stopping and climbing to the summit. Not sure if I would have done it ... but the thought would have been there.

It has been fun reading your description of the trip. Thanks for sharing it!

If that kind of thought occurs to me, I usually sit down with a cool beverege until it goes away.

I loved the Erte' Guiness sign!

Sounds like you had a good time. What kind of temperature range does that area have???

Approaching zero at worst and 125F-ish at hottest.

Coastal Broome is a lot milder, peaking not much over 110F, down to maybe 50F.

I was just curious because Mexico is hot as a bitch in late June but your pics look like it was hotter than that.

:yikes::yikes::yikes:
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:faint:

The camel tour is amazing....makes me want to play Lawrence of Arabia at night.

"oft 22a" - is that the world's first all terra vehicle?

osuche

How do you get an old pearling boat 1/4 mile inland? You lugger.