Helen and Geoff's Amazing Adventures

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Barking Owl at Timber Creek

Kimberley Trip 2017 – week 10

by | Jul 9, 2017 | Road trips, The Kimberley, Western Australia

We are now on our way back. The journey will take about 4 weeks. For the first week, we will be retracing our steps back through Kununurra, Katherine down to almost Tennant Creek where we turn off to Mt Isa. All of it is a bloody long way. You are probably going to get photos of birds.

Thursday 29 June 2017. Day 64. A day of washing clothes, restocking food, checking email, sorting through photos and getting the blogs up to date. No internet for the last 10-16 days has caused a bit of a backlog. Collected the painting/print that I had bought in early June from Sobrane here in Broome.

 

 

Black kite with his peewee companion

Friday 30 June 2017. Day 65. Drove 400 km to Fitzroy Crossing. Bit of a drag to be doing this long boring unwinding road for the third time. The highlight happened when we were sitting having lunch (a cold roast chook left over from yesterday). A black kite wanted some of that chook and swooped down and took a bit from the table (its wings brushed my hat and Helen’s hair) and then a few more bits that I threw to it. Quite partial to roast chook it would seem. I do like black kites.

Little corella

Saturday 1 July 2017. Day 66. Drove 460km to Warmun. Just as we were leaving Fitzroy Crossing we saw a pair of Brolgas dancing. An excellent meat pie for morning tea at Halls Creek – which is a grotty little town. Another long drive, although the section from Halls Creek north is at least a bit interesting with a few mountains and rocks. It is worth remembering that the land that we drove through today (alongside the Halls Creek Fault) would once have had mountains not unlike the Himalayas. All gone now.

 

 

Barking Owl

Sunday 2 July 2017. Day 67. Drove 400km to Timber Creek in NT. The section of the road from Warmun to the NT border is interesting – driving through an ancient (disappeared) Himalaya range. Good rocks. Where did all that sediment go when it eroded away? Very soon after the NT border, we crossed into the Victoria River basin. Boring again. We saw what will be the our last boab trees. The story is that boabs less than 1,000 years old hold their branches up. After 1,000 years, they let their branches droop. Quite a few old, droopy, tired ones.

 

 

 

White-browed robin

Timber Creek is an excellent campsite – very bird rich. Possibly the first place where I found 3 new birds (with photos: barking owl, white-browed robin, shining flycatcher). The campsite is separated from Timber Creek itself by a nice piece of lawn. Timber Creek has thickish tall pandanus, melaleuca. The powered sites are drive-thru one behind the other. We are the only van in our line and we intend to get away early. Today, the eggs had an excellent attempt at their national sport for which they are truly enthusiastic – jumping. Although they are very enthusiastic jumpers, unfortunately they get so excited about the jumping that they forget to plan the landing and tend to make a mess of it.

Monday 3 July 2017. Day 68. Drove 400km to Mataranka. We set the alarm for 5:30am, which turned out to be just a bit early (still very dark). Got away at 7:10am. Another long drive to Katherine and Mataranka. At Mataranka, the campground is full – as is the hot springs pool. We have now arrived in the land of Australian flags and 2 dozen stubby minimum per person per day. While we were sitting reading, just before dusk, our neighbour (who has come here for 25 years and stays several weeks at a time) fed a bucket of birdseed and 2 kg of rice to the pretty-faced wallabies. 15 wallabies lined up.

Wednesday 5 July 2017. Day 70. Drove 520km to ThreeWays (just north of Tennant Creek and at the junction with the Barkly Highway which we take tomorrow). We were planning to stay at Banka Banka 75 km further back, but it had no power and we are still struggling with the heat – especially for sleeping. Overnight, it stays in the twenties. We are back in the land of 130km speed limits and the worst roads and drivers in Australia. Drivers who come around the corner on the wrong side of the road at you with their vehicle tottering to fall over. Drivers doing well over 200km/h. A very dangerous place. Quite a few ‘bowser rage’ incidents along the way with blokes roaring at each other at fuel pumps. Helen loved it – not. The ThreeWays has an interesting looking pub attached to the servo/roadhouse. An extensive portrait gallery of trucker regulars. No internet. Very good water.

 

Shield Shrimp

When it rains across Australia’s vast inland region, temporary pools crop up all over the arid ground, giving life to a strange desert crustacean known as the shield shrimp (Triops australiensis).

Named after the formidable carapace that shields its head and upper body, T. australiensis can grow up to 7.6 cm long, and it uses its long, segmented tail and mass of 60 or so legs to propel itself through shallow water.

It also breathes through these legs – its sub-class Branchiopoda means ‘gill-legged’ – and in the females these legs bear ovisacs for carrying their tiny eggs.

Several pix in the Photo Gallery and a movie.

Acacia peuce

A rare and endangered plant. The tree grows up to 15 to 18 metres (49 to 59 ft) high, with short horizontal branches and pendulous branchlets covered in needle-like phyllodes adapted for the arid dry climate. It has a distinctive habit more similar to a sheoak or a conifer.

Although speculated to have been widespread across central Australia during wetter climates 400,000 years ago, the population is now mostly restricted to three sites, separated by the encroaching Simpson Desert. In the Northern Territory, the species is restricted to the Mac Clark (Acacia peuce) Conservation Reserve which is surrounded by a pastoral lease, Andado Station. The other two sites are near Boulia and Birdsville in Queensland. The tree is found in open arid plains that usually receive less than 150 millimetres (5.9 in) of rain per annum. They grow on shallow sand aprons overlaying gibber or clay slopes and plains and between longitudinal dunes or on alluvial flats between ephemeral watercourses.

 

Owen Springs Reserve on Hugh River

Owen Springs was a station on the Hugh River. The Hugh River flows into the Finke (when it actually flows). Both cut through the Western MacDonnell Ranges. The image above shows Owen Springs Reserve as a dot at lower right. The river it is next to is the Hugh. Hermannsburg, our next town, is near middle left edge. Hermannsburg is almost on the Finke River. You can see both Hugh and Finke Rivers cutting through sections of MacDonnell Ranges.

Palm Valley

Palm Valley is within the Finke Gorge National Park southwest of Alice Springs. Palm Valley has a smallish population of Red Cabbage Palms (Livistona mariae). The nearest related species is 850 kilometres away in Katherine NT. The average rainfall for Palm Valley is just 200 mm per year. Small pockets of semi-permanent spring-fed pools allow the unique flora and fauna (desert fish, shield shrimps tadpoles and frogs) to survive.

It had been assumed that the cabbage palms were remnants of a prehistoric time when the climate supported tropical rainforest in what is now the arid inland of Australia. Genetic analysis published in 2012 determined that Livistona mariae at Palm Valley is actually the same species as Livistona rigida from samples collected near Katherine and Mount Isa, both around 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) away. It is now thought that aboriginal people brought the palms to here from Mataranka.

Mound Springs

Mound Springs occur around the Western edge of the Great Artesian Basin and represent a natural discharge of Artesian water that was captured many hundreds of kilometers away from rain falling along the Great Dividing Range and New Guinea. This article provides details. Dalhousie is an excellent example of a mound spring.

Great Artesian Basin map Great Artesian Basin diagram