Trucking through The Kimberley

Most touring companies travel across The Kimberley in nine days, adding up to around 3000 km of road from Broome to Darwin. As it has been clear throughout all my entries, I don't have much money left, so I opted for a 6-day budget version instead. I had booked the tour early on, and was gutted to find on arrival in Perth that some agencies were offering the same tour for $100 less. I figured it's always worth a try to look for a better deal, so I emailed the tour company voicing my disappointment and asking for a better price based on the travel agency's special offer. Who said complaining is not a good thing? Certainly moaning paid off this time, as I got the full $100 discount I wanted. Woohoo!

I soon came to realize that the problem with the six-day tour would be the considerable lack of time. We had tough wake up times each morning, the worst one at 4 am, while having the alarm at 6:30 was considered a sleep-in. It also meant that we spent a vast amount of time on our tour truck: the second day we drove for 14 hours, including only three short breaks! Therefore, most of the 3000 km journey was spent gazing through the bus window, looking at the empty landscape dotted with termite mounds and small heaps of grass, with a curious yellow, red and lilac soil. I did enjoy the more hilly parts of the scenery, and the adorable bottle-shaped boab trees. However, there is a limit to how long you can entertain yourself with that. There was no music as the guide didn't have an iPod and other passengers liked to keep their music to themselves, for some reason. During the tour I managed to go through a 900-page novel and several magazines, that's how boring it was!I didn't like our tour guide at all. The former army guy didn't believe in friendliness, and we saw his butt crack more often (5 times a day on average) than his smile (once during the whole tour). He didn't believe in hygiene either, not changing clothes or washing himself during the whole tour, and so also I got to wash my hair only once during the six days. If you approached him with any questions, he replied in an often rude or disrespectful way. Hearing some other guys talking to their groups made me realize how little information we got from ours about the sights we visited. I'm still considering sending feedback about him to the tour company.

Except for the lack of hygiene, I kind of enjoyed the rougher way of living. There's something very romantic about cooking your (quite delicious) meals above the campfire. (I was constantly hungry during the tour and kept eating loads anytime we got some food, because there were often 10-hour breaks between meals. The guide nicknamed me Mrs Machine, because I reminded him of a guy called Machine who ate shitloads and still stayed thin. I didn't even eat any more than the other people on the tour, it's just that they all snacked at all our roadhouse stops with chips and muffins and were therefore not that hungry during meal times, whereas I did pretty well at avoiding junk food and didn't snack.) I also liked sleeping in swags, which are very thin mattresses inside a big plastic pouch - reminded me of the body bags they put corpses in in hospitals. I had to pile on several layers of clothes to stay warm as my sleeping bag is very thin, but apart from that I actually slept pretty well huddled deep inside the swag, like in a cool, dark womb.

I continued to feel pretty homesick. Maybe that's way I didn't really enjoy the company of the other group members, as I would much rather have talked to my friends from home, whom I miss terribly. I was often cranky in the mornings because of lack of energy, as we were often too much in a hurry to boil some water - I only realized I was craving caffeine, when a cup of coffee at a roadhouse instantly lifted my spirits.

Despite the inconveniences and my moodiness, the fabulous sights we saw definitely made the tour worth the money.

First, we saw the towering walls of Windjana Gorge, a former coral reef that turned into stone when the ocean retreated away from there ages ago. On our walk into the gorge we spotted a freshwater crocodile on the riverbed lazing in the sun. It was quite small and didn't look threatening at all. Freshies rarely cause any trouble to humans, unless they are provoked.

Next sight was Tunnel Creek, a river running inside a cave. It was fun to walk in the river in the knee-deep water. Negotiating the pitch black tunnels without a torch was maybe a bit risky as I had to stay close to other people who had lights, and still couldn't see what I was doing most of the time. I enjoyed the little adrenaline I got from that. I was gutted I didn't have my camera (had left it in the car because the guide said that it would be wet, but actually it would've been fine to even take my DSLR) as the view in the end of the tunnel was lovely. (Found only one picture on Google but it isn't representative at all, so won't share.)

Then we got some bad news: as it had been raining heavily a week before, the dirt roads had still not recovered and were thus closed, which meant we weren't able to visit Geikie Gorge, AND would have to drive all the way back to the highway, making a 380-km-detour to get back on track! So vulnerable people are to the power of nature in the Outback. Thanks to this, we had to waste the next day sitting on the bus. We drove for 14 hours, only stopping for toilet breaks and to look at a big tree. The driver also wasn't very interested in our energy levels, as there was a 10-hour break between breakfast and "lunch"! After the boring second day we were glad to spend a whole day exploring the Purnululu (Bungle Bungles) national park, another World Heritage listed site. The gorges and the walks were magnificent, despite the punishing heat. There were a lot of funny-looking cows hanging out around the entrance to the park - they had a hanging neck that reminded me of turkeys.

I don't remember much of the fourth day, except that we ended up in El Questro homestead, a campsite that I loved because I could finally have a shower. We also visited Emma Gorge for a hiek and a swim under a gorgeous waterfall. After four days of heat and no washing up, it was fantastic to cool of in the waterfall pool, and let the water slowly drop on your face (being dry season, there wasn't that much water falling down).On the fifth day we got up before dawn again to visit some hot springs before other tourists get there. Then we drove on to Kununurra, where we visited a very boring sandalwood cafe and the shop of a rum brewery (I wasn't impressed by the brewery either, but the rum was surprisingly good). After a night in a bush camp with zero facilities (girls just love being behind the bush in the dry land that doesn't even soak up liquid...), on our last day we visited the stunning Lake Argyle, which made me realize how much I had missed lakes.(sorry, had to copy a tiny version of my picture from Facebook)

In the late afternoon we finally arrived in Darwin. We had agreed to meet up later for drinks. To be honest, I had no intention to actually show up (I can be rude when I don't like the people in question), but my plans for a quiet night were wrecked as one guy wanted to walk up to the pub together as he was staying in the hostel next to mine. I ended up going, and didn't really enjoy it at all as I was tired and not motivated.

All in all, I'm glad I got to see some of the sights of The Kimberley, but otherwise it was a really bad timing for going as I wasn't in the mood for it at all.