A bit of Disappointment

Friday 7^th June

Today we had planned to move to, arguably, our favourite spot in WA on the de Grey river.

Last year we spoke to the Station Manager and thanked him for letting us stay on his property.   He said that sadly, they might have to close it because of the increasing number of people who have no respect for the countryside or other people’s property and leave all sorts of rubbish including human detritus everywhere.

So, it was with little surprise but great disappointment, that we arrived to find that the access had been properly fenced off!

Our solution was to return to Doolena to reconsider the next couple of weeks!

Saturday 8^th June

This is a very pleasant spot and it is very easy to get into a rhythm of doing very little except read, write and do crosswords and sudoku!  

We can go for walks of course!  

There are three pools, one below the other in the side of the gorge, called the Infinity Pools, which would be a beautiful cascade in the wet.   As it is, the bottom is good enough to swim in, as is the second one up also but the top pool, we were reliably informed, is empty.   Some minor mountaineering was required to get to the top one and Roger says he’s past that these days!

It is difficult to photograph the pools because the sun creates dark shadows and bright highlights.  

Sunday 9^th June

Roger went to see if he could get a better shot of the but again the shadows were a problem, he says he might be lucky first thing in the morning!

We walked across the flood plain and dry riverbed this morning, when we last here we found a cave on the far side of the water but this morning we found it was difficult to access, we’re definitely getting older!! The bird is a Jabberoo.

Monday 10th June

On the road again and into Marble Bar for fuel, food and information.   Did the chores then took a little time to get the blog up to date.

We wanted to know about a camping possibility about half-way to our next stop.   It is called the Meentheena  Veterans Camp and is one of several retreats around the country which were created for mainly Vietnam war veterans (although I guess any war would do!), where they could veg out and try to get the war out of their heads (in some cases literally).   Apparently, they were quite popular and have remained so although for some time they have not been limited to ‘vets’.

There was little financial support for these places and they are usually fairly remote so the facilities are quite limited.   However, the attraction for Vets was the peace and quiet which works well for us.   This one is about 5ks off the road to the Telfer mine roughly 75ks from Marble Bar.  We have passed here before and considered looking in but never did.

The very helpful camp hosts are Glen and Colleen.   We were told we could park the BT in the welcoming/office area where there are sites with limited power and water and there are showers and toilets which are clean but very dated, or down by the Nullagine River at a camping area called Paperbarks.  Glen took us in the landcruiser to show us the places where we could camp by the river, a couple of ks away. We decided on one of the places and took the van down.

We get settled in and have a look round, the yabby net goes in but the info from Glen is not promising, apparently!

It is so very quiet and peaceful, only one other campertrailer many metres away.

Glen offers to take us on a trip tomorrow out to some aboriginal rock drawings which sounds interesting, so we accept, a 0900 start which will be good for the temperature.

Tuesday 11^th June

Glen uses the camp Landcruiser because the track is very rough with lots of washouts from the rain earlier in the year.  We all sit in the front! It takes about 45minutes to cover the 10 or so ks out Widgerina Rockhole. As he drives he points out various places of interest and the geology of the surroundings. this land was a station with cattle and we are told of the history and see one of the 3 homesteads. the owners seem to move due to the poor land. We think he said altogether there’s about 230 thousand acres. A the end of the track we get out and take a short 250-300 m walk up through the stony gorge to the rockhole at the bottom of a 30m high wall of broken rocks.

Looking up to our left as we walk along we can see lots of typical aboriginal rock paintings but they are mostly about 5m below the top of the cliff face. 

(These are all taken with a telephoto lens so apologies if the quality is not crash hot due to some shaky hands!)

We speculated on how they were achieved and wondered if the floor of the gorge was much higher when the drawings were done.   Dating is apparently quite difficult and they could be tens of thousands of years old and the gorge could easily have been reshaped over and over by the enormous volumes of water which have flowed through here.

Regardless of how they were achieved there is something elemental when contemplating the drawings creation and symbolism.

Also, at the top of the gorge is this amazing permanent water hole which almost certainly why the aborigines spent time here. As mentioned Widgerina Pool is a fairly large stretch of water, around 100m in diamenter and apprears to very deep. Again, there is something about the place, wouldn’t call it spiritual but just a sort of feeling. Again the peace and quiet of the place helps to foster that feeling. Due to the nature of a large number of the rock carvings we wondered if it was a place of ‘secret women’s busineess’ perhaps the education of young girls?

A very special experience.

Caught a few yabbies / Red Claw tonight, soon have enough for a meal!

Wednesday 12th June

Another trip in the camp Troopy today to Rocky Pool but an even rougher track than yesterday. However it is really worth it, ambiance at the pool is so quiet and peaceful, oh! that we could get the caravan down here! While we enjoy it Greg is disappointed. He used to come here a lot last year but the rains and floods have caused the river to reshape itself and lots of trees have been uprooted and washed downstream so that now the bottom of the river is full of debris and the banks scoured deeply and there’s no grass on the banks, just mud/sand. It is still very peaceful.

Since we’ve had two busy days we decided to stay on another day!

Thursday 13th June

A quiet day, a wander along the creek. We go up to the office area where there’s a reasonable teltra signal. the camp hosts have gone for a trip to Port Hedland but we chat to John and Fred and find out some interesting spots to follow up sometime. There are lots of birds around the water course and we get the binos out for a closer view.

Roger went to retrieve the yabbie net and found we’d caught enough for a starter so we cooked them and put them in the fridge. We have another fire later and lsten to the dusk chorus.

Friday 14th June

Sadly we need to leave today, we’d like to come back but we not sure what it will be like when the aboriginals take it over! We’re going to see if we can get a camp site in Marble Bar for a couple of nights so Pat can do some washing.