Singular

Hmmm. Taken me a while to write this one - with good reason!

I have returned from my trip to the "last great wilderness" - not my words, but a reasonably accurate description of the Kimberley in northern WA. Nobody seems to be quite sure whether there's one or many Kimberleys - I've been corrected 3 times when I've said one or the other. I'm sticking with the singular version from now on - sounds nicer.

The Kimberley is really just a very large, almost empty section of Australia. For most of the first 5 days, we were travelling along the Gibb River Road, which was built to enable easier transportation of cattle from the various cattle stations in that area of the country to Wyndham, the nearest convenient port. I dread to think how they must have done it before the road was built, as it's basically just a 600-mile-long dirt track. This was about as good as it got. All that way and we didn't actually even see the Gibb River!

First real stop on day 1 (barring toilet breaks like the one in Derby, where there was one toilet for 15 people - until another bus of 30-odd turned up, then the blokes realised there were lots and lots of trees...) was lunch by a large pool in a creek. The Gibb River Road ran over a bridge over this creek where it entered the pool. It was, for some reason, a condition of travel with Western Xposure, that we jump into every pool of water from any available high thing nearby - 15 feet or so, didn't look too bad from beneath, quite scary from above! Second stop for the day was Tunnel Creek, a 1km tunnel all the way through a limestone escarpment carved by a creek. Hence the name! This was interesting, but not quite as spectacular as I'd been expecting. It was the hideout for a local Aboriginal "Ned Kelly" figure about 100 years ago, and we went into the area of the cave where he'd lived - totally dry at the moment (it being the Dry - see later), but filled with some quality, and very sparkly, stalactites and stalagmites.

We spent most nights at reasonably well-defined campsites, and the first night was a short hop from Tunnel Creek at Windjana Gorge, where it was suggested that we don't go wandering, as we might encounter crocodiles. The gorge is an amazing place - like several of the spots we visited, I would like to have spent more time there. Then on to Bell Gorge (in what became something of a theme - I think, on the original plan, we'd have seen at least one gorge per day!) This is one of the most well-known gorges in the Kimberley, and it was quite busy (relatively) - there were 4 or 5 other people there when we turned up. More swimming and jumping ensued. Then quite a bit more driving, till we got to ...

Manning River and Gorge, which was a lovely place. It was full of woollybutts, a beautiful flowering gum tree whose name I am unable to type correctly at first attempt, and boabs or bottle trees, which look like someone's attached a pump to a normal tree and left it to inflate for an hour. I was head chef for our first barbie (my first time in charge at an Aussie barbie!), and this was the site of our introduction to the Clinker game.

This needs some digression. The only Aussies on the trip were a 50-something couple who'd not grown up past about 25 - they were great! About 20 years ago, when their children were very young, they invented the Clinker game. Clinkers are an Australian sweet, which don't have a UK equivalent sweet I can say they're like - it's got a centre like a Malteser, but somewhat harder, is shaped like a rugby ball, and is coated in chocolate. The key to the game is that the centre comes in one of three colours, pink, green or yellow. So everyone sits in a circle and is given a Clinker, and takes it in turn to guess the colour of the centre, before biting it in half and revealing the centre to the adjudicator. Those who succeed in "becoming the Clinker" and getting the colour right advance to the next round, which repeats until either a draw (everyone in a round gets their colour wrong ... or the bag of Clinkers runs out!) or an outright victory (only one person in a round gets theirs right). At this point, they are crowned the Undisputed Clinker Master. At least until the next game starts.

Greg and Sue swear they're going to patent this game at some point!

The third day was my favourite of the whole trip. Firstly, we walked down to the river itself at the bottom end of the campsite. And then swam across it, towing our valuables in the conveniently-provided polystyrene boxes! Then an hour or so's slog across rocky outcrops and sandy soil, surrounded by ghost gums, till we reached Manning Gorge and its wonderful waterfall and swimming pool. (And jump-off point...) I found its rainbow, although couldn't get the camera there as it would have drowned, and spent a bit of time chatting to someone from Queensland who'd got there on a motorbike trip with his 2 mates, a third of the way round a 10-week tour of the northern coast of Oz. After we headed off from here, we stopped for lunch by Galvan's Gorge, the best place of the trip - plenty of swimming, rope-swinging (with the obligatory big splash in the water at the end) and waterfall massages. Plus Steve, the insane guide, jumped off the top of the waterfall - a jump of about 15m.

Then several hours of driving, till we reached our camp in the middle of the bush - weren't sure we'd be getting back out of it after Steve drove down to it off the road on a 30-odd degree gravel slope. Here we had al fresco toilet facilities, damper (aka bush bread) cooked by the fair hand of Steve, and honey and soy beef stir fry, cooked by the fair hand of me (I ended up in charge of food quite a few times!) - this almost ended in disaster, as we found out just in time that Anna was allergic to nuts. 100 miles from anywhere is not where you want someone to go into anaphylactic shock. We were surrounded by dingoes that night too, and we could hear them howling through the night.

At this point, I should mention the American. Richard. He was very definitely an American. Complaining about everything (including, as far as I could work out, the fact that there weren't many facilities at the campsites we were staying at - we were in the bloody Outback, you fool!) His wife, Jenny, was Scottish, and, to quote Steve, "not the brightest cookie in the jar." She's one of those people that need to be told everything about everything on a trip (the morning she spent in the driver's cab with Steve nearly ended with him killing her until he asked Anne Marie to swap with her). They insisted on placing their tent as far away from everyone else's as they could, and that really set the tone for them for the whole trip. He started to get on my nerves when I overheard him talking about me to some of the other people that night when I wasn't supposed to be able to hear - nothing bad in itself, but that sort of thing annoys me (and brought back memories of PV=nRT in Venezuela...) So he was off my Christmas card list from then on - and much of the subsequent days he moved himself further and further off it!

And so to day 4, and El Questro station. This is a former cattle station that's turned itself into a bit of a Wild West dude ranch, and gets so many visitors that I had a bit of a Beach moment at the bar that evening and had to go off back to the forest where we were camped out. It has some amazing things to see though - Zebedee Springs (yes, they have both the Magic Roundabout and a sense of humour here!) which are rock pools fed by hot springs, far too many gorges to count (of which we visited Amalia and had it to ourselves for over an hour) and the slowest taps in the world - Steve asked me to go fill our 50 litre water barrel. It took 40 minutes. And cold ginger beer too! Plenty of wildlife around, and it was here that I saw my first kookaburra.

Day 5, and the end of the Gibb River Road, and back to tarmac. A brief detour to Wyndham (spelt correctly, unlike the Gibb River signmakers) and the Five Rivers Lookout (Durack, King, Ord, Pentecost and ... another one), and a snack stop at Doon Doon roadhouse where I had the bittersweet experience of eating a Mrs Mac's Chilli and Cheese pie in 38C temperatures, then a long drive down to the Bungle Bungles. The national park in which they live is reached via a 50km dirt road that was in a lot worse state than the Gibb River Road. We stopped to have lunch by one of the fords across the various creeks the track crosses. Rangers station about 3.30 (having left the tarmac at about 12, with an hour or so for lunch).

The Bungles were, unfortunately, a washout. In 16 years, Steve claims never to have seen rain in May at the Bungles (this part of the world has two seasons, the Wet from Nov to mid-Apr, and the Dry from mid-Apr to Oct). 2 hours or so after we arrived (fortunately after we'd pitched the tents and got the fire going) it began to rain a little. Then a bit more. Then more. Then it started pissing it down. Then a bit more. Then... well, you get the idea. Most of the tents were about an inch deep in rainwater inside the tents the following morning, as the rain covers had bowed under the pressure of the rain, touched the inner tent, and leaked through. As the creeks were now at risk of flash floods, and the dirt track was in a bit of a state, the park was closed to both entrants and departees - we were stuck in there. At one point, there was even talk that it could be 4 or 5 days before we'd be permitted to leave! Still, it wasn't a complete write-off as far as the holiday went. With the exception of the American, we actually saw it as a bit of a bonding experience. The first night, we told ghost stories and played Shithead (an apparently universal card game, which I have now played on 4 different continents) on the bus.

On day 6, during a relatively long rain break, we played cricket with one of the groups in the neighbouring camps, set up a tarpaulin big enough for us all to be miserable together under, and played "Strand the Ants" (where you put a small rock covered in ants into the centre of a puddle, and see whether any of them can swim). There was also Blindfold Karaoke (which wasn't fun), Charades (which was) and Celebrity Heads (I was Victoria Beckham - "Am I an entertainer?" "Well, you'd like to think you are." gave me the answer!) by the campfire.

Day 7 dawned, and we got the go-ahead to leave, in convoy with everyone else staying in the park. A somewhat tense 3 hours later, and Steve pulled onto the tarmac to a round of applause. From there, we intended to make a 250km slog all the way to our campsite at Kununurra. However, a happy circumstance arose. As we stopped for lunch at a service station, we noticed helicopter flights over the Bungles were being run from just down the road. Enquiries were made. Affirmatives were received. We were going to see the Bungles! (And from a helicopter, my first time in one.) A fairly amazing (and stifling too - we'd asked for the doors to be left off, for better photos and more "realistic" experience, but the pilot obviously thought I would be cold in my T-shirt and shorts (temperatures were a frigid 24C - it was nearly the middle of winter, after all), so he put the heaters on! I was sweating like anything when we got out!) 45 minutes later, we landed again, happy to have seen the Bungles in some way. The night at Kununurra was punctuated by our trip to their carnival, at which we saw quite a good local band, and Anne Marie was asked if she knew Lily, who was also from Ireland.

Day 8, and dawn was, happily, spent by the side of Lake Kununurra, one of several artificial lakes resulting from damming projects in the area. First to Mirima National Park, which is similar to, but on a much smaller scale than, the Bungle Bungles. Then to a rum distillery (or hoochery - officially, as the guy who owns the place has patented that as a name for his outfit) where I did have a shot, and also an extremely nice slice of chocolate rum cake. Thence to Lake Argyle, a much bigger artificial lake, which is used for ... well, not much really. It was intended partly as a hydro power station and partly for agriculture, but neither have really taken off, so it's just a lake that contains 17 times as much water as Sydney Harbour sat in the middle of nowhere. (They're actually considering building a pipeline from it to Perth to help shore up the city's almost non-existent reservoirs - Perth's only about 2000 miles away.) Many semi-tame birds around, including these two who sat still and posed for us for a while. The rest of the day involved a fairly long drive to our final campsite, punctuated only by our entry into the Northern Territory, the only mainland state I hadn't visited before.

For our final night, we had another barbie, and I was head chef again. Some friendly rivalry ensued in the subsequent clinker game, with Steve having to cheat to keep up with me. In the end, I was crowned Undisputed Clinker Master (the only one of the trip, no less), so I did a lap of victory. Around Steve.

Our last day was not terribly exciting - we were about 600km from Darwin, where we needed to end up at, so it was mostly driving. We did stop for lunch and a swim at Edith Falls which was quite a nice place, but unremarkable by comparison to some of the other places we'd been. It did have a little river-rapids section though, and a blowhole where Steve scared Greg quite a bit! Darwin itself seemed a reasonably nice little town, but it's a lot smaller than York and you can walk around it in about 20 minutes - filled with backpackers, for some reason. This, actually, was a good thing, as it meant Michael and I (who were flying out of Darwin that night) could have showers ... once I asked the Scouse lady serving behind the desk in my best Netherton accent if it would be OK for us to use their showers, even if we weren't staying there. After a "night out on the town" with everyone else to say goodbye, Michael and I headed off to the airport. Once there, I tried to smuggle a penknife through the airport security scanners. Unwittingly - I could have sworn I'd put it in my main bag! This being Australia, they were relaxed about it, and gave me it back and suggested I go and check it in (in my rucksack) as hold baggage.

And that's where the holiday really came to an end. A 2am flight that was delayed till 3am, arriving at 7am in Melbourne, and I was in work by 9.30! (In body, at least - I was decidedly not there mentally for most of the day!)

All in all, an excellent holiday, marred only by the weather in the Bungles, and by that bloody American.

Spoken Highlights

"Poor little fucker."
"This is Qantas flight QF429."
"I thought your fingernails looked spotless."
"Pink."
"The family that squats together stays together."
"Do you know Lily?"
"Thunderbirds do the Beegees."
"Night Fever, Night Feeeeeeveeeeer."
"Jen, can you hop out? The trailer door's opened up again."
"I think I was up to about 46 by the time you jumped!"
"Did you move my tent?"