Tanami Trip

Day 1 - Monday 22nd June - Gunbalanya to Darwin

Left Gunbalanya around 9:30am. We were a bit worried about the river crossing as it was nearly high tide but we needn't have bothered - there was less than a foot of water over the road.

I had the AGM for my body corporate that night where I stepped down as the Chairman after doing it for 5 years. After that we went to a really nice restaurant on East Point called Pee Wee's for dinner. The food was great but the service was ordinary.

Day 2 - Tuesday 23rd June - Darwin to Kununurra

A long day on the road - we drove from Darwin to Katherine and then across to Kununurra - about 860km all up. The highlight for me was the Boab Trees, and knowing about the Quarantine restrictions - last year we had to dump over $50 worth of fresh fruit and veg we had only bought that morning.

Day 3 - Wednesday 24th June - Kununurra to El Questro

45 minutes driving on bitumen took us to the start of the Gibb River Road and then it was another half hour on the dirt out to El Questro. We checked in and then drove out to our campsite which was called "Osprey". We set up the tents and our kitchen area and then went for a swim in the river by the campsite. In the afternoon we drove up to the top of Saddleback Ridge which has a lookout from where you can see most of El Questro.




Day 4 - Thursday 25th June - Hiking at El Questro

I was awake by 5am so I did some fishing whilst I waited for Craig. I caught several fish that were way too small and one that was marginal. After breakfast we went to the Zebedee Thermal Springs and just lay around soaking in a warm pool for an hour or so.


In the afternoon we headed out to Moonshine Gorge which offers a 5km circular hike. You walk down a gorge beside a river before cutting back over the ridge to the starting point. It was a little difficult but not too bad and a good way to start off. We didn't see many birds or animals, but there was an interesting spider near the water and a rainbow bee eater near the end.




That night I tried cooking my fish in the coals but they were much too hot and all we ended up with was charcoal. I did a damper at the same time and that was crunchy on the surface but fine in the middle.

Day 5 - Friday 26th June - Horse Riding and 4WDriving

The day started at 6:30am with a 2 hour horse ride through some beautiful country. The guide Kat was the same girl that was there last year when I went and even remembered me. She choose a different route to last year and Craig and I both enjoyed it immensely.





In the afternoon we did the Explosion Gorge 4WD track. It was great fun - a challenging drive with some rocky descents, water crossings and drop-offs to negotiate.




Day 6 - Saturday 27th June - A longer hike

I had another go at fishing first thing in the morning and Craig joined me after a while. He caught a few that were too small and one that was big enough to keep. I also got a handful of small ones plus the best fish of the trip.

This was our second big hike, 4.8km each way out to a thermal spring called Champagne Springs and back. I was OK on the way out but my injured toe was killing me by the end of it.

The big annoyance was that my $1500 digital SLR, which is less than two years old, spat the dummy. Regardless of what setting you used everything was overexposed almost to the point of being completely white.

We cooked Craig's fish in the coals but mine on the BBQ just in case it burnt again. However this time we were using coals that had been sitting there all morning and were much cooler - which worked perfectly the fish from the coals was incredibly juicy and tender and turned out nicer than the one on the BBQ.

That evening there was an all you can eat buffet and some live entertainment at the station shop. The entertainment was a terrific guitarist named Chris whose hands could move so fast they literally blurred. He was joined for some songs by members of the staff who could sing - two in particular were terrific. He took a break for a while and an ex Rodeo Rider named Buddy put on a roping and whip cracking exhibition. He was terrific, more so when I later discovered he's now in his seventies. We were sitting next to two sisters, one of whom was a nurse and the other a fellow teacher. Buddy used the teacher as his volunteer and after he finished he joined the four of us and we had a great evenings conversation.

Day 7 - Sunday 28th June - Boating on the Pentecost River

We wanted a nice easy day to finish so we drove out to Pigeon Hole where we hired a boat for half a day fishing and exploring the river. Craig wasn't having much luck but I was pulling out heaps of good sized fish - pity they were all #@%$@#% catfish!

One real highlight of travelling outback anywhere in the Top End is the amazing sunsets.





Day 8 - Monday 29th June - El Questro to the Tanami Track and Wolfe Creek

We drove to Kununurra to fuel up and to try and find a doctor to check out my toe. There was a long wait at Casualty and the GP I found couldn't see me until the next day so I ended up giving up. I spotted a Betta Electrical and bought myself a small Sony Cybershot digital camera to use for the rest of the trip.

Afterwards we drove on to Halls Creek and then started down the Tanami Track arriving at the Wolfe Creek Meteor Crater just after dark - the only time on the trip we had to try and set up the tents in the dark. For the rest of the trip we made sure we stopped at least an hour before sunset.

Day 9 - Tuesday 30th June - Wolfe Creek to Renehans Bore

We headed up to the crater nice and early both to get the best light for photographs and to avoid the heat of the day. The crater is 850m across - which would give it a circumference of about 2.7km. I started the walk arounf but after about 1km decided the view wasn't changing enough to warrant the effort and more importantly the time.





We left Wolfe Creek about 9am but only drove for about 90 minutes before getting a flat tire. Which was when we remembered we had intended to buy both a better jack and a better wheel brace in Darwin. We made do with what we had and 45 minutes later we were on our way again.



We stopped for a late lunch at Rabbit's Flat Roadhouse, which boasts it is the most remote roadhouse in Australia, then continued on to the extravagantly named Renehans Bore. This is nothing more than a roadside campsite but it was in the right spot.





Day 10 - Wednesday 1st July - Renehans Bore to Alice Springs

We had enjoyed a couple of bottles of wine over the campfire the night before so Wednesday was not an early start. However we eventually got on the road and drove on to Alice Springs. The country here was flatter and more barren than any we had seen yet although we could see the West McDonnell Ranges of in the distance.

We got into Alice around 3pm and checked into the Aurora Resort where we both enjoyed much needed showers and an afternoon of rest. A quiet and early night was the order of the day.

Day 11 - Thursday 2nd July - Alice Springs to Tennant Creek

Another late start followed by a four and a half hour drive to Tennant Creek. I had done this drive many times in the years I lived in Tennant and it hadn't changed much but we did see quite a few Wedge Tail Eagles and stopped off first at the Tropic of Capricorn and then at Wycliffe Well (Australia's answer to Roswell) and the Devils Marbles.










To my great annoyance my new 3 day old compact camera stopped working while we at the marbles. Since photography is my number one hobby and one of the main reasons I planned this trip in the first place I was getting just a little fed up with all these camera problems.

Day 12 - Friday 3rd July - Tennant Creek to Katherine

After 3500km of driving I decided I was well and truly over it so Craig took the wheel for the four hours from Tennant Creek up to Mataranka and then I did the last two hours. We got to Katherine and tried to call our friend Ses who was supposed to meet us there. We couldn't get hold of him and were fuelling up with the intention of pushing further on towards home when Ses rang so we stayed in Katherine after all. We had a nice dinner in the restaurant at the resort and then hit the pubs until the wee hours.

Day 13 - Saturday 4th July - Katherine to Gunbalanya

We continued up the Stuart Highway as far as Pine Creek and then took the back way up past Cooinda to Jabiru and then on to Gunbalanya, arriving home around lunch time 13 days and 4420km after we began.

My friendly neighbours

Last Wednesday one of the local Traditional Owners gave the teachers permission to go fishing on his land.



The Bininj ladies cooked some damper for us.

Woody made a crocodile in the sand with Shaun and Ang's daughters.

On the way home I stopped at Red Lily to tak a photo of the sunset.


As I was walking over there was a crashing through the waterlillies only 5m away from me. I could actually see the lillies being pushed aside and for a minute thought it might have been a water buffallo but then I heard the splash as it entered the water and realised it was large croc. It went under water for a little while but then popped up out in the middle.

Gunbalanya Prison Camp

Shortly after I moved in I put in a request to NT Housing to put up a fence between my place and the vacant lot next door due to the number of people who were wandering through my yard. They promised me they would do so immediately. Five months and at least a dozen promises later it finally happened but they've gone from one extreme to the other - check out the size of the fence thet have erected.

West Arnhem

I flew out to our outstation or homeland communities recently to conduct the National Literacy and Numeracy Tests (NAPLAN). The testing wasn't exactly fun but the 45 minute joyflight over West Arnhem definitely was.

This is Gunbalanya (Oenpelli) from the air.

This is the house where I live.

This is one of the escarpments we flew over.

Recently one of my friends had one of his friends up to stay with him. Whilst he was here we took a trip out to Ubirr Rock, which is just the other side of the East Alligator River, about 15km from Gunbalanya.

Last week we took the kids on an excursion to Yellow Water, which is a tourist attraction in Kakadu not far from Jabiru. We went for a cruise on their boats and saw some crocodiles.





We also saw a pair of Brolgas, and got to see one of the Brolgas doing his mating dance.

Mowing the Lawn

Before I moved to Gunbalanya I lived in a block of units and had no need of a lawnmower. Then when I did come to Gunbalanya I was moving to a bare earth block so again buying one wasn't a priority. However in January I moved to a different house with a well established lawn and suddenly I had a problem. No lawn and no way to get one until the road opened up. The school mowed everybody's lawn at the end of the 6 week Christmas break, but my lawn has not been mowed since and was over a metre high.
Whilst I was in Darwin I used Kevin Rudd's little bonus to buy myself a lawnmower. I went one size up from wehat I will need normally because I knew what sort of a job I had ahead of me.
I didn't even try and do a nice manicured lawn - this was purely a knock'em down cut - no catcher, lawnmower jacked up to it's highest clearance just chopping it all down.
The lawn is not small, so even doing ot rough and dirty there was an houre and a half of mowing.
The noise and effort are bad enough, but unfortunately I'm also allergic to grass, and get hives and an incredibly itchy rash when I come into contact with it. The funny thing was that while I was mowing the noise, heat, vibration and everything else get me distracted enough that I didn't really notice the itch except as a vague nuisance that was slowly growing. The second I stopped though my body let me know ALL about it.
So now I'm lying here after a very thorough shower and a couple of anti-histamines hoping that the itch is going away soon.

Ps. That didn't happen. The rash was worse the next day and I had to go to the clinic for some stronger antihistamines.

Gunbalanya Sports and Social Club

This is the bar at the Gunbalanya Sports and Social Club. It is open 4:30 pm to 7:00pm on Tuesday and Wednesday, and 5:30pm to 8:00pm on Friday and Saturday. Children are allowed in with their parents for the first hour and a half but must leave an hour before closing. The only alcohol for sale is light and mid-strength beer, or their are soft drinks available.

One peculiarity is that they will only sell you one drink. So it is impossible to shout a friend a drink unless you actually take them to the bar with you.


There is a pool hall out the back with three tables which is where I usually end up if I go. I usually go down with a friend from work but I'm gradually getting to know some of the locals.

There is a large garden area that has half a dozen picnic tables. This is where we usually sit when a large group of us go.