THE PILBARA - RED ROCKS BLOOMING

The Pilbara is like a land of giants – high red escarpments bitten into by monster machinery, the rocks transported by huge trains to the coast and shipped to Japan and China. Each 225 carriage train load is worth $3mill. It’s easy to understand why the larger than life individuals who developed this region such as the Hancocks and Twiggy Forrest and the mega  resources companies really reflect the scale of this place.

The Pit at Mt Tom Price...with a Mulla Mulla managing to survive at the cliff edge

An ancient ore shovel - which is the more ancient?

A modern ore extractor

Women are sometimes preferred drivers...they are gentler on expensive machinery.
Note human figure! Capacity: 260 tonnes

When Len Hancock began his mining operations with Kaiser Steel in the 60’s the town and mine at Tom Price, the port at Dampier and the connecting 220km rail link were completed in 18 months – it took energy, vision and very deep pockets to get the industry started.

Two engines on private Rio Tinto track. We needed permit to travel service dirt road. Trains are 2.5 km long and transport 30 000 tonnes each load. Train spotting was fun!

Our VW handled the rail service road well!

Tom Price mine from summit of Jarndunmunaha/Mt Nameless, tallest peak in WA.
This was a challenging 4WD trip to summit.

Even the white Corellas can't help being covered with Pilbara dirt!But despite the monster cuts into the iron-rich lands, stand on top of Mt Nameless over Tom Price and look away from the mining operations and the Pilbara wilderness stretches to the horizon with not a sign of human occupation. It wasn’t always this way. Mt Nameless was well known to the local Eastern Gurumu Aboriginal people who called this highest peak in Western Australia Jarndunmunha, meaning that wallabies live close by. The Geographic Names Board now gives it a joint name. 

Despite mining operations, most of the Pilbara consists of dramatic wilderness.

On the Burrup Peninsula near Karratha, near where Woodside liquefies offshore natural gas for export in giant spherical containers to China and Japan, Aboriginal people have left engravings which are older than any others in Australia…some say up to 30-40,000 years BP.

A midden tells of millenia of Aboriginal occupancy

Pecked fish figure is typical of the estimated million or so engravings on ironstone boulders on Burrup Peninsula

Emu footprint engravings

Replica of some of most important engavings. Note the tree climbing figures and abstract symbols.

Kangaroo engraving

Kangaroo in hidden valley we discovered when "temporarily disoriented" on walk back to the track head

The spirit of the land, though, lives on in the way that the poor soils derived from these red and black rocks, when mixed with occasional water, cause a floral blossoming in ways that overwhelm the senses. From around Karratha, and throughout Millstream-Chichester National Park right through to the Coral Coast, Sturts Desert Pea and a multitude of other flowers paint the red soil with every hue.

Billabong campsite in Millstream-Chichester National Park

Millstream Palm at campsite - remnant of past more tropical climate

Pilbara blooming...

Ashburton Pea

Bachelor buttons

Tall Mulla-Mulla and Sturt's Desert Pea

Sturt's Desert Pea flowered widely over the Pilbara

See!

Fertilise me! Showmanship has a purpose.

A very "showy" Cassia

One of many Eremophilas (Emu bushes) in bloom in Pilbara

Holly-leafed Grevillea (Spider flower)

Native Hibiscus

Yellow native pea

Many-leaved Petalostylis!!

Typical Pilbara sand dune. Snappy gums and spinifex

 A 50 km dirt road from our billabong retreat in Millstream-Chichester National Park to Python Pool was fringed with carpets of dramatic Sturt's Desert pea. Add to this, a textbook vista of desert landscapes and a swim in the pool with not a tourist (or python)  in sight and one could be forgiven for feeling that you have found heaven on earth…in case you wondered where it was! There is no doubt that the original people who trod the sands of this magic place felt a different, but equally strong spirit.

Sturt's Desert Pea dominated the floral displays towards Python Pool

Mesas and buttes and Pilbara Ironstone: One of most dramatic landscapes we can recall in our wide Australian travels.

Python Pool: A refreshing finale to our 4WD journey to the heart of a Pilbara National Park

After two nights camping and a cleansing plunge into the Millstream billabong, we headed for Karijini National Park, where we explored one of its deep canyons to revel in the fig-cooled calmness of Fern Pool. Banded ironstone on the pathway and ripplemarks in two billion year old ironstone told of a giant shallow sea where iron deposits were oxidized into brown/red haematite alternating with lighter silica. And this was the first oxygen that built up in our primitive atmosphere from plant-like bacteria, stromatolites, whose living relatives we will see at Shark Bay down the Coral Coast. The rocks CAN talk.

Karijini National Park campsite at sunset

Above-gorge landscape, Karijini National Park...and termite nest

The four of us at Dale's Gorge, Karijini National Park

Banded Ironstone formation...a rocky record of oxygen's addition to earth's atmosphere

Jillian walks down into Dale's Gorge and Fern Pool

Gary cools off in Fern Pool

And still the desert bloomed. Unseasonal rain in June had swept in a band from the Western Australian coast to the “dead” heart of Australia. The dormant seeds of ephemeral plants germinated providing the observant traveller with many challenges in working out what plants had been resuscitated from the dust. A flash of red here; a little purple plant there; just stop-a-while, photograph and check out the native plant guides and the kilometers just zoom by. Boring? The desert? Never!

Royal Mulla Mullas

This emu bush dominated the drive out from the Pilbara

The surrounding sepals of this emu bush were bigger than the petals
...so much better to attract a pollinating bird or insect

In between flower and bird spotting there was time for fishing in places like the untouched estuary at Cossack near Karratha. And time too to reflect on the sorry history of places like Roeburn where the gaol was once full of Aboriginal people accused of cattle stealing after their hunting grounds were turned to stock production. And Cossack was built on slave Aboriginal labour and Asian divers who risked all for a pearl shell industry which later relocated to Broome when the shell beds were exhausted.

Gary hooks a nice bream by casting beside the mangroves at Cossack

...and the other Gary (my brother in law) snares a snoek

Clamorous Reed-Warbler in reeds of Tom Price sewage farm...one of 60 Pilbara birds identified

The Pilbara has captured our imagination and delighted our senses more than many regions of Australia. It is a harsh hard country of natural and economic riches creating many challenges for both the original and contemporary inhabitants.

Parabardoo at the junction of the Pilbara and Coral Coast had one last show for us
as the Pilbara peaks gave way to low hills.

Coasting down the Kimberly

The road into Broome bloomed brighter as we reached the edge of the band of rain clouds that had swept through to the Centre just 5 weeks ago. Ephemeral wildflowers flowered and dormant grass seeds germinated to produce green blushes across the landscape.  When roadside flower ‘colour’ was spotted it entices us to stop and take photographic evidence of the flower, pods and buds and hopefully an identification.

Holly Grevillea (Spider flower)

A field of Tall Mulla Mullas

 A small flower sprig is taken to spend next 5 to 10 minutes checking our “Plants of Inland Australia” book, then recording position and date details. We can’t help ourselves … identification obsession becomes addictive!

Turkey Bush, a type of Calytrix

Cockroach plant

Silver-leaved Grevillea

This was our third time in Broome, a wonderful outback town with character, with its mix of nationalities originating from its pearling, fishing and pastoral origins. We have to confess to indulging in a bed and breakfast to wash the desert dust from our bodies. Besides soaking up the ambience and some nice dining out at Matsos’s pub and Tong’s Chinese, we were here to try to see some of the 30,000 humpback whales that migrate from Antarctica up to Broome and further north, to mate and give birth.

Within ten minutes of wading to our whale boat’s dingy and motoring to sea, a massive humpback breached just 50 meters away. How this creature could get most of its giant body out of water is still a mystery to us, but I was ready with the “big” lens to capture this seemingly slow-motion revelation of its barnacle-encrusted frame. Star ship enterprise from an oceanic universe. Many people on board regretted they weren’t quite ready for capturing this image and we have been fortunate to sell our first photos to the whale-watching company.

Down it goes...will it breach on surfacing?

What can you say?

In Broome we met up with Bronlyn’s  sister, Jillian (and Gary) and her cousin Jennifer (and Noel) and parked our campervan at Broome and joined them in a 4WD expedition to Cape Leveque 200 km north, our van could not have handled the sections of soft sand. 

This road is not for the feint-hearted

A Jabiru along the way...now called a Black-necked stork

We called into at Beagle Bay to admire the mission church – the altar and stained glass windows were beautifully decorated with mother of pearl shells. “The oldies still worship here” said the store proprietor, “but the youngsters have drifted”.

We were on Aboriginal land at Cape Leveque

The seasons are marked by natural events, not months

The gang of six at Cape Leveque...comfortable coastal cabins

Cape Leveque’s red rock geology also turned into a place of contemplation as the sun setting over the Indian Ocean turned the crumbling sandstone into a glowing beacon. The low light on the sand and ripples combined to create a landscape only humans and a fish eye lens could take in all at once.  Do fish really see it like this from their watery world?

Two men (Gary 1 + Gary 2) and a collapsible boat chugged over the coastal reefs and managed to catch two good pan-sized reef fish. 

We spent a lazy 20 minutes chatting to a water policeman from Perth up here to train the locals in marine rescue. We too were given a friendly warning nudge by another police officer just as we were turning for home on a turning tide. We were nonchalantly enjoying ourselves, but the shore crew with us, imagined the worst in the last hour.

I must admit, the little 5 horsepower engine had to work a bit harder getting us back to shore against a falling tide, and increasing sloppiness of the wavelets near shore. Madagascar is the next stop if you get your timing wrong.  One can’t be too careful in this region of giant tides that can range over 6 metres. “The crocodiles just north of here submerge under boats and are happy to wait for a mistake. I wouldn’t go swimming here,”  admitted the water policeman. Cape Leveque? Cape Danger? despite its splendour!

Bronlyn's sister Jillian and her Gary DID swim here as did we...just too tempting!

Early morning on East Beach..time to contemplate life's meaning!

After a further night in Broome, the four of us drove into Bird Australia’s Broome Bird Observatory on Roebuck Bay 25 km south. 

Invitation to avian wonders

Some of mangrove wetlands at Broome bird observatory. Visitors swam near here and the next day a 4 meter croc was seen there.

This RAMSAR (internationally protected) site is home to 150,000 migratory wader birds that arrive from China and Siberia late winter and spring to feast on the mud critters here during the northern winter. This is the fifth most important wader wetland in the world as moderately-sized dull coloured birds such as knots, godwits and greenshanks gorge themselves on worms, shells and crabs winkled, sucked and pincered from the mud. Fat reserves are built up for the return journey after summer, to their northern breeding grounds.

Broome Bird Observatory is at a strategic international bird flyway crossroads

We spent most of our time looking at the “bush” birds at water baths from the comfort of a shade-house. I took on the photographic challenge of capturing the double-barred finches as they revelled in the water splashing themselves to clean dust off their feathers. Brown and rufus-throated honeyeaters plunged warily for a microsecond into the water.

Three birds vie for space in the bird bath

Double-barred Finches pose for the camera

The brown honeyeater wasn't hanging around after drinking

Agile Wallaby visits the bird bath

Lucky spotting: Mating Blue-tongued Lizards

Bower of Great Bower Bird

Male Great Bower Bird on lookout for a mate...how enticing can its bower be?

Definite and tenuous identifications were recorded and discussed in a social sharing session at the shade-house that night. I learnt the difference between a peaceful dove and a bar-shouldered dove, but my “expertise” was eclipsed by a nine year old lad who quickly recognised that my picture of a brown goshawk was in fact a nankeen kestrel. When it comes to birds, it is a life-long learning experience!

I should have known this was a Nankeen Kestrel!

A two day stay at Eighty Mile Beach 335 flower rich kilometres  further south was a chance to admire this sweeping wilderness coast. Beach walks and shell spotting and a crocodile-avoiding swim was the order of the day as “there have been no fish biting for six days” according to one piscatorial expert. A pleasant sea-breeze moderated  evening listening to an excellent country has prepared us for the exploration of the Pilbara from Point Samson 400+km further south.

Can you tell Jillian and Bronlyn are sisters?

 Eighty Mile Beach...a magnet for shell admirers