Luxury Camping in the Australian Outback – The Kimberley’s, WA

I know there are those of you that refuse to believe there can be such a thing as “Luxury Camping” – but I can assure you, it is not an oxymoron.

The Kimberley’s are in the NW corner of Western Australia (WA). It is about as “Australian outback” as you can get.

We took a 12 day “adventure camping tour” starting in Broome and went through dry, desolate, remote countryside to get to Kununurra and the Bungle Bungles (a World Heritage Site). For the majority of the time there was no access to TV’s, news, or telephones, just pure isolation!

We stayed in wilderness camps on aboriginal lands most nights. The camps have permanent tents with raised wooden floors, we slept on cots and in most of the camps our tents even had solar heated running water with ensuite sinks, toilets and showers!!! Every night they served us appetizers by the campfire followed by main courses complete with wine AND dessert! That’s better than I eat at home! http://www.kimberleywilderness.com.au/content.asp?Document_ID=5367

A highlight for me was experiencing firsthand the vastness of this part of the country by driving. We could have flown from one highlight to another highlight, but we would have missed truly witnessing how big and isolated this part of the world is. We did spend a lot of time driving, but that’s because the Kimberley’s are HUGE.

Vast parts of the Kimberly’s are cattle country with land leased from the government. The land is dry with little vegetation and the Stations (ranches) are a minimum of a MILLION ACRES each! That sounds like a lot of land for one rancher, but they need that much land to have a viable operation.

We stayed one night at the Drysdale cattle station which is a million acres running 20,000 head of cattle. Because of the size of the station they didn’t see some of their cattle for 2 or 3 years, thus never branding, inoculating or castrating them. Often, the first time the cattle are ever exposed to humans is when they were mustered (rounded up) by HELICOPTER at $20K to rent the helicopter. It was fascinating to speak to the rancher’s daughter and learn more, including that in order to stay viable many of the stations have resorted to tourism for an additional cash-flow just to keep their heads above water.

We saw tons of crocodiles and were told that freshies (freshwater crocodiles) are harmless (having said that though, I certainly never tested the theory. And for that matter, nor did anyone in our group!) If you’re not sure whether you are looking at a freshie (safe) or saltwater (very dangerous) crocodile shine a flashlight into their eyes. If their eyes are red it’s a freshie, and if their eyes are yellow they’re saltwater and dangerous! Wait – I can’t remember - do I have that right???!!!! Was that the other way around????! YIKES!!!!

As we approached the town of Kununurra after 8 days in very arid bush, the dryness of the land was replaced with lush farmland. The Kununurra area is fed by the Ord River irrigation system. It was amazing to see what a difference the dam and irrigation makes to the countryside. Lack of water is a huge and frightening issue in Australia so needless to say, the future of Phase II of the project causes heated controversy here. There are those in favour of the project for the benefits to farming, but there are those not in favour because of the changes to the landscape and natural habitation.

Kununurra is a town of about 3,000 people. In comparison to the outback it seemed to be SO BIG and there were SO MANY people! Oddly enough, we all missed the isolation of the bush and were looking forward to getting back into a wilderness camp in the Bungle Bungles in 2 days.

While in Kununurra we had access to telephones, TV, news etc. We were rudely brought back to civilization to find out – after the fact - that Houston and Galveston had been ravaged by Hurricane Ike! The Wall Street crisis was also a headline on the international news. And then we learned that the helicopter ride we were booked to take in 2 days in the Bungle Bungles had crashed that day killing all 3 passengers and the pilot! It was like the world had gone to hell in a hand basket in 8 short days! Welcome back to civilization!

We then drove from Kununurra to the Bungle Bungles and we passed “near” the Argyle Diamond Mine. This is one of many mining operations in WA. It is also home to rare world famous pink diamonds, which are only found at the Argyle Diamond mine. Due to smart marketing and high profile purchases by Hollywood celebrities they are some of the most expensive diamonds in the world. John was not impressed that I now know about them!

The Bungle Bungles are amazing red beehive-like domes that pop up out of the earth. (Similar to Monument Valley and Moab in Utah.) Don’t worry, I have not studied geology and won’t bore you with pages of explanations of how they are formed. Just suffice it to say they are very cool. Check out the pictures on our web page. http://picasaweb.google.com/frederick.linda

Incidentally, John takes MOST of the credit for the pictures on the web page. He has a fancy new camera and is taking some great photos. However, he complains that there are no photos of him. I tell him if he’d let me have the camera every now and then there might be a picture or two of him!

After the Bungle Bungles we left our tour mates and returned to the town of Broome on our own. And I do have to mention, we traveled with 18 others, and we were thrilled to be travelling with ALL Australians! We have learned new expressions from our travel mates. And I believe all of them are clean and will not embarrass us if we use them in mixed company.

We then stayed in Broome for 4 days of R&R. Broome was originally a pearling port where mostly Japanese and aboriginal divers collected oyster shells for mother of pear buttons and inlays. After WWII and the use of plastics for buttons Broome had to reinvent itself, and thus the cultured pear industry developed. The oyster species is the largest in the world and produces some of the largest and most coveted pearls in the world (as the Australian pearlers and pearling industry have informed me.) John has another jewelry issue now that I have discovered South Sea pearls!

All in all we had an awesome time in the NW Australian outback and camping has now risen to a whole new level of expectations! Not to mention a whole new level of expectations for jewelry!