Vikings in Australia - Víkingar í Ástralíu

1^st of September

After packing, we left Mitchell Falls around 9am. We drove pretty much straight through to King Edward River, where we wanted to stop to look at some rock art. This is close to the river crossing, so it’s not that hard to find. There is road to the left about 200m once you cross when you come from the Gibb River Road. It leads to a visitor parking, where one exits the cars and walks a short walk around large boulders that are strewn across the landscape. Some of them have the rock art that dates back thousands of years.

We went for the short walk and quickly came to the area where some of the rock art is on one of the large boulders. When I say large, I mean large as a house! We took some photos of the main rock art site and also some of the others. Sibba tried to tilt one of the rocks and almost managed it! We then headed back to the car and drove away over the river crossing and onto the main road, where we this time, turned left to head for Kalumburu.

Kalumburu is the most northern community in WA and is mostly populated by aborigines. It was originally founded and run by missionaries back in 1908, but has since then become an aboriginal reserve and the aborigines own and manage the place, apart from the mission that is still there.

The road out there was completely destroyed in the last two rainy seasons, but much effort has been put into rebuilding it this winter. So most of it was pretty good at least to Carsons river, which is about 20km from Kalumburu. Past the river crossing, the road is quite rocky and winding, just as you would expect to find on an outback station!. Thus it’s slow going the last 20km. In one of the creek crossings a Dingo jumped out of the creek in front of the car. He wasn’t shy, simply stopped and stared at us. I managed to snap a photo of it to share with you. As we looked in the mirror, another one came into view as well, so perhaps they were on a tourist stake out!

When we arrived in Kalumburu, we quickly realised that everything here is closed as it’s a Saturday. We ended up catching some staff at the mission that told us we were welcome to camp in the mission camping ground. We could settle the bill at the office when it opens on Monday. I asked how we could pay for the permit that is required to proceed further into the nearby bays. They told me that the community office was also closed and would not open until Monday, so I should just proceed tomorrow, Sunday and sort it out later.

So, we went to the campground and set up the tent. We are the only campers here, so it’s pretty quiet, apart from the diesel generator station that supplies the town with electricity. We have power and showers with hot water, so we were quick to use the showers as we hadn't been able to shower properly since Drysdale!

While having our dinner, we noticed a lot of screeching in one of the trees. After dinner we went over with a flashlight to check and it was full of bats. By then they seemed to have settled down and things where relatively quiet again.

We also walked to the main street of Kalumburu, which is in front of the mission camp ground and found a Telstra pay phone. However, it was being used by one of the local teenagers, so we had to walk around some more until it became free. There is another one at the community office, but that one seemed to be broken. Once the payphone was free we called Linda to let her know that we were still in one piece! Then, back to camp to have our dinner and got to bed.