The Kimberley region is one of the last true wilderness frontiers in Australia where adventure travelers can experience a landscape and environment still untarnished by civilization. Hey, with a land area similar to California, bigger than Japan, three times bigger than the UK and a population of only 34,000, it's not hard to see why. It also has only one sealed road from one side to the other so getting off the beaten track isn't too difficult.
The other main road
There are only two main highways through the Kimberley and that is the sealed road of the Great Northern Highway and the not so main road being the Gibb River Road which is unsealed and impassable in the wet season. The 700km Gibb River Road gets adventurous tourists right off the beaten track into the more isolated parts of the Kimberley. The road was only built in the 1970's to enable cattle station owners to move their cattle great distances to Derby to ship to market.
The Kimberley encompasses 421,000 square kilometers in the northern part of Western Australia extending from Broome in the west to Kununurra and Purnululu National Park (the Bungle Bungles) in the east by the Northern Territory border. It was the first part of Australia to be settled with groups arriving over a period of thousands of years from parts of what is now Indonesia.
She's a pearla mate
It only has three towns of any significant size which are Broome, Derby and Kununurra. Broome is the largest town and a very popular tourist spot with its beautiful and clear azure water of the Indian Ocean and the glaringly white sand of Cable beach. Broome was the pearling capital of the world until the 1940's and is a popular spot for artists and musicians. As well as its colonial history it is also infused with Asian influences which give the town a special and unique multicultural flavour.
If we build it they will come
Kununurra in the east is a fascinating modern town that was built primarily as a base for the construction of the Ord River Irrigation Scheme started in the 1960's as well as the Lake Argyle Diamond Mine, the largest in the world. More recently it has also become a base for Kimberley tours with its air access as well as for flights over the Bungle Bungles in Purnululu National Park.
Lake Argyle was formed with the completion of the Dam on the Ord River in 1972 and is the largest man made reservoir in Australia, close to 50 times the capacity of Sydney Harbour when full. It is used to feed Lake Kununurra which then acts as the irrigation distribution point to the many Ord River farms that boast an amazing diversity of produce.
It has created a whole new ecosystem being home to over 25,000 freshwater crocodiles, about 25 species of native fish and a third of Australia's bird species. It also hosts populations of marsupials, reptiles and insects living on the 90 or so islands dotting the 2,000 square km lake.
The Kimberly is an extremely diverse area in terms of climate and geography. The climate is tropical monsoon with distinct wet and dry seasons. The geography is one of stunning gorges, caves, lakes, waterfalls, ancient mountain ranges and desert country. It has a host of National Parks including Purnululu (Bungle Bungles), Mirrama (Hidden Valley), Mitchell River, Tunnel Creek, Windjana Gorge, Drysdale River and Prince Regent.
Tourism in the Kimberley is increasing steadily and why wouldn't it with so many inspiring things to see and do. There's everything from Barramundi fishing, wildlife spotting and caving, through to hiking great gorges and tracks as well as seeing cascading waterfalls and swimming in crystal clear waterholes below them.
Great Scott, a city of Beehives
Any trip to the Kimberley wouldn't be complete without walking through or flying over the giant beehive shaped domes of the Bungle Bungles in Purnululu National Park. These orange, black and grey domes rise 200 - 400 meters above the valleys and are sandstone remnants of an ancient plateau carved out over some 350 million years.
Any ground based Bungle Bungles tour will have to be by 4WD as the road in is very rough with high ground clearance required. Exploring these natural wonders has to be done on foot and climbing is prohibited given the very soft nature of the sandstone.
Other amazing features within the park are Piccannini Creek where you'll see bizarre rock formations on the river bed, Echidna Chasm and the towering cliffs of Cathedral Gorge.
Intensive agriculture in these parts ... Not!
Travelling from the east on the Gibb River Road, one of the first highlights is El Questro Station, a working cattle station of an incredible 1,000,000 acres with stock units of about 5,000 (that's one beast per 200 acres??). It hosts a Resort, a Homestead cantilevered over the Chamberlain River, Bungalows and riverside camping. It has some fabulous gorges such as Emma, Zebedee Springs and El Questro Gorge in which you can refresh yourself in the crystal clear waters.
From the Gibb Ranges you can drive north to the Mitchell River National Park on the coast fringing the Bonaparte Archipelago, a coastal area consisting of hundreds of islands and atolls. It is in this park that many travellers head to in order to visit Mitchell Falls, Merton Falls, Surveyors Pool and King Edward River on the Mitchell Plateau.
It is an extremely scenic, biologically and culturally significant part of the Kimberley. This northern region is home to the Livistona Palm (Darngarna) which can grow to 18 meters tall with examples over 280 years old as well as Wooly Butt, Blood Woods, Eucalypts, Pandanus Palms, Stringybark, etc. There are up to 50 mammal species, 220 bird species and 86 kinds of reptiles including the rather scary saltwater crocodile.
Rock art, but not as we know it
The Mitchell Plateau area features a large amount of indigenous rock art of the world renowned Bradshaw art style and the more contemporary and rather eerie Wandjina rock art. Much of the Bradshaw rock art is more than 15,000 years old and is quite unique in form and with an incredible amount of detail for their age making them still a source of mystery today. They have been likened in their significance to marvels like Nefertari's Tomb, the cave paintings of France, Cycladic sculptures of the Aegean, the Olmec sculptures of Central America, etc.
Yep, this is gorge country
Heading west again through the Gibb Range and Mount Barnett, located not far off the main road are Barnett River Gorge, Manning Gorge and Galvans Gorge, all of which offer a combination of good swimming spots, fishing and Aboriginal rock art. Further west lies Bell Gorge, considered one of the most picturesque in the Kimberley. It offers cascading waterfalls, lovely swimming, bird watching and bushwalking.
Crikey, is that a fish up there?
Windjana Gorge National park is another one of the Kimberley's stunning gorges. It is part of a barrier reef going back 350 million years to the Devonian period with its walls towering high above the plains up to 100 meters in some parts. The walls hold fossilised primeval life forms, remnants of its aquatic past. The Lennard River runs through the gorge but usually only flows until just after the wet season, the rest of the time it forms rock pools surrounded by vegetation. It has abundant bird life and plenty of fresh water crocodiles.
Not far from Windjana Gorge lies Western Australia's oldest cave system, Tunnel Creek. It is also part of the Devonian Reef, a worn tunnel formed by water flowing beneath the limestone of the Napier Range.
Walking the 750 metres through the tunnel to the other side of the Napier Range is an unforgettable experience with several permanent pools, stalactites and stalagmite, not to mention bats. There are at least five species of bats living in the cave, Fruit bats, Ghost bats, Western Cave bat, Bent wing bat and Yellow-lipped bat. Make sure you take a torch, wear sneakers and be prepared for reasonably chilly water.
The Gibb River road ends on the coast at Derby, a town located on the tidal mudflats on the edge of King Sound. Derby boasts the highest tidal range of any other Australian port and one of the highest in the world at nearly 12 meters. It has streets lined with Boab trees, with the famous Boab tree prison only 7 km's away (there's something about Australia and prisons??).
Incidentally, there are Boab trees throughout the Kimberley which share a strong similarity to the trees of the same name in Africa and Madagascar. One theory is that seed pods floated all the way across the Indian Ocean, which started a new population in Australia.
For people with a love of adventure travel to an area virtually unchanged over thousands of years, then a Kimberley tour is a must. To really get the most from your visit it is hard to go past a 4WD tour as the Gibb River Road and the offshoots from it are pretty rough and many are 4-wheel drive access only. Always check signs regarding swimming and make sure you use your common sense as help is not always just around the corner, but that adds to the romance and adventure.
