The Kimberly -Australia

It’s fast approaching 7am, we think we’re in the correct meeting place where the bus will pick us up, but we’re the only two people waiting for what we understood to be a sold-out tour. When the bus did turn up 10 minutes later it immediately became obviously why we had been the only ones standing on the street outside the hostel, that being the majority of passengers were many decades past staying in such establishments and had spent the previous night, and no doubt a much more peaceful night, in far more luxurious accommodation. But no matter, this was expected. The ten-day tour around the Kimberly came with a hefty price tag which usually attracts an older customer and then Rut and I. What I wasn’t expecting was for everyone to be from Australia, never have I been on a tour full of people travelling around a part of their own country. The simple reason why turns out to be accessibility. You either obtain a Landcruiser with a meaty caravan on the back, jump on a tour with a chunky truck looking bus, or fly into the more select places on a private aircraft should you be particularly loaded.

The first day of a tour is usually the worse and this was no exception. After stopping at an old Boab tree which had been used to hold aboriginal prisoners back in the day and laying eyes on the world’s longest water trough (providing water for livestock) we parked up for our first of many on-the-road lunches. Here everyone was falling over themselves to be of use from preparing lunch to gathering firewood, it was almost like a competition to see who were the most helpful. I thought this was just a first day thing but no it continued all week to the point where I felt I had to rush up to the washing bowl to claim dishwashing duties before I had even finished my dinner. It became almost impossible to relax for fear of being shamed for not running to the assistance of someone or some activity. After our first lunch, we drove on until stopping at a gap in some cliffs with one edge apparently similar in shape to that of Queen Victoria on a postage stamp. More exciting than this was when one lovely gentleman asked if I had a hat to protect me form the sun because it was hot and I should take sun protection seriously here in Australia. First off, he was genuinely lovely, merely looking out for my welfare, and we ended up having some mega interesting chats about farming and climate throughout the week. But. Why do Australians think that their country is the only hot country in the world!? I can’t expect everyone to know where I’ve travelled to or that I worked for five years in one of the hottest places on earth, but I surely look old enough to suggest that maybe I understand how hot sun works? It wasn’t even hot, hence not wearing a hat at the time. Warm enough, but 30^oC at best. Then there’s Vegemite. Why do Aussies and Kiwis get so protective over such an insignificant food item? God forbid anyone compare it to Marmite, that tasteless, intensely inferior product sold in the UK. I don’t care what anyone says, it’s essentially the same damn thing! Yes, maybe subtle differences to a regular user, but certainly not enough to cause offence on the level that Vegemite users appear to feel when their yeast extract is dared to be compared to another. Hear me now Australia, I love ya but I hate to break it to you, there are plenty of other hot countries out there, there are plenty of great alternative spreads out there for people’s toast, and let’s be honest, no one gives a damn if you have the world’s longest water trough. I can tell you now, unless it has several rapid flow valves, the trough is bloody useless. 

The first few days in the Kimberly were largely spent driving interspersed with small walks through spectacular gorges that would lead us to even more spectacular waterfalls where we could jump in for a cooling swim. Although it got a little repetitive and for the two of us at least the length the walk was never long enough to justify cooling off, it never got boring. The landscape was colossal, epic, and stunning, everything I hoped it would be. Our first night was spent in swags, beefed up sleeping bags that could be rolled out anywhere and slept in without the bother of putting up a tent. They’re great, unless it rains a great deal. We went to sleep under a clear warm sky, my head filled with dreams about dairy farming for some odd reason and where then it suddenly started to rain. As I grappled with the consequences of my cows getting wet I was woken by Rut who pointed out it was actually raining and we were getting wet. It wasn’t raining much but I was left with a lifechanging decision at 2am. Tell Rut she is in a waterproof swag, it’s not raining much, it’s not supposed to rain and it’s likely to pass over soon, so go back to sleep or, do what I know she wants which was to go and grab a tent from the storage trailer, erect it, and install her inside. Surprisingly I opted for the latter, and unsurprisingly once I had whipped up the tent in a timely fashion the rain had passed. The rest of the tour was spent in pre-erected tents complete with camp beds and not once did it try to rain.

As I have touched on, there were many opportunities to swim which didn’t come as a great surprise because I remember a lot of swimming featured when I travelled Australia as a much younger man and not once was I killed by a crocodile. Still, the tour leader confused the hell out of me when arriving at one campsite by informing us that, ‘the beach down by the river is a beautiful place for a swim, especially at sunset when it’s the best time to spot crocodiles’. I’m sorry, did I her correct? Apparently I did. There are two types of crocodile, saltwater crocodiles that are huge, aggressive, and likely to take your head off, and freshwater crocodiles that are much smaller and more likely to swim away should you say ‘boo’. We would over the course of the week swim knowingly alongside freshwater crocs that indeed were shy, however we passed plenty of places where we were told not to go near the water because of recent saltwater crocodile sightings. Saltwater crocodiles are not unique to saltwater, they are just as happy in freshwater. How anyone can be certain of an absence of saltwater crocs I’m not so sure, I doubt they can, but I for one can be a very trusting (naïve) person when it comes to cooling off in an inviting river on a hot day. 

I’ve ranted enough and had hoped to move on, yet this is a subject extremely close to my heart. Scones. The Kimberly is full of random places to visit from little art studios to microbreweries, whiskey distilleries, and essential oil factories. Among them was a stop at a cattle station that boasted one million acres, 2,500 cattle, and a café famous for its scones, the latter being far more profitable than cattle. Because every passenger was Australian there was no debate about cream or jam first, it was jam because obviously the cream would go everywhere otherwise. I’m a logical guy, this made no sense because in fact a good clotted cream will not spread well on top of jam and so I instantly smelt a rat. Sure enough the cream that was delivered to the table was fluffy stuff akin to that from a can. It got worse. The scones were plain, we had to share the wee bowls of jam and cream, and there was no tea. Rut and I were then, being the only two foreigners, treated to a lecture about the many types of scones available in Australia (although the evidence was on the contrary) as though we had never experienced such a delicacy. Rut is indeed a proud Argentine, but lecturing her on cream teas, never mind me, is like lecturing Willy Wonker about chocolate. We know a fantastic scone when we taste one, this wasn’t it.

From scones to Champagne. After four days of minute hikes through albeit incredible scenery Rut and I were getting a bit impatient for a proper walkabout which was clearly never going to be included in the itinerary considering everyone in the group didn’t want to or were unable to do such a thing. Our arrival to El Questro offered a solution. El Questro has a long history I can’t remember but one of its previous owners provided the name which is apparently meaningless in both English and Spanish. The new owners, of the corporate type, have turned the place into a bustling campsite with acres of caravans tightly packed in, camping, and luxury riverside glamping. People can fly in on their planes, the less fortunate can make do with 30-minute helicopter rides. One of the star attractions, unbelievably for I thought Australia was geologically dead, is the hot spring, which turned out to be overcrowded and underwhelming. There was also the five-kilometre Champagne Springs hike. A slight improvement, and one we could do at our own pace. We waited for the heat to cool off a little for the group were already judging us as mad for wanting to hike and set off at 3pm. We immediately learnt at the start of the hike that it was in fact a 10-kilometre round trip and we had been misinformed by or tour leader. Challenge accepted. We cracked on at pace through a track barely used, following a rocky riverbed in the shade of a cliff that meant we could have left much earlier. A big ode Boab marked halfway and we cracked on until a creek impeded our way. With the sun fast setting, there was little point removing boots and wading through a creek to get somewhere we were unlikely to reach. Disappointed to have not made it to Champagne Springs, another set of hot pools that we figured would be empty based on the very unused track, the two hours hiking alone at our own pace away from the group still reinvigorated us for the next half of the journey.