We found a pleasant little disused gravel pit not too far from Telfer mine to spend the night. I can almost hear some folk thinking to themselves that ‘gravel pit’ & ‘pleasant’ are contradictory terms! Well not in this case. Not only did it provide us with a sheltered & private position it had a rather lovely garden of flowers & shrubs as the desert took back it’s own. Climbing to a vantage point a short distance away placed the man made ‘scraping’ into perspective. Both we & our camp just a tiny pimple on a giant’s bum, inconsequential & unnoticeable in the surroundings.
At the mine we pulled up at a boom gate & were met within moments by a personable young chap who explained he would escort us through the mine & out to the road we wanted to take south. Our details were recorded & we promised not to steal any gold before following his vehicle along the several kilometres of almost manicured dirt road – not a corrugation, pot hole or wash out in sight. This ‘road surface heaven’ was unfortunately very short lived, changing the moment we turned off onto the northern access track to Karlamilyi National Park (aka Rudall River NP).
The next 100+ kms took us over a variety of surfaces, a mix of narrow gravel road ranging lightly to horribly corrugated, sand ranging from gorgeously smooth (for just long enough to relax the shoulders & say “Arhhhh’) to horribly corrugated. We wound our way around & occasionally over wash outs & on occasions the road was a dry river bed of deep soft sand lasting kilometres at a time. We are not hard core 4wd’ers wanting obstacles to conquer, but after days of driving the Gary Junction Road, wide & red, found this smaller more ‘intimate’ track to our liking. Confidence built as we managed the softer sections, we became adept at calling out on the UHF radio (Channel 39) to determine if anyone was headed our way & pre-arranging our passing tactics on the mostly one vehicle wide track. The intimacy of the track helped to make us feel much more ‘part of’ the striking country we were passing through, far more than the big, mainly straight, road we had been on since leaving the West MacDonnells.
Arriving at the Karlamilyi NP northern boundary suggested that this remote 1.5 million hectare park in the midst of the Great Sandy Desert & the Little Sandy Desert might be a little different to any other National Park we had previously visited in that there was no signage, nothing, to inform us that we were entering the park. Only our maps & GPS navigator told us we had arrived. All the tracks through the park are 4wd tracks requiring high clearance, none carry any signs to give directions. We did see one sign saying 4wd was required (at the turn off to Desert Queen Baths), someone had added, in scrawled texta that this was the way to DQB.
Walking paths in the park are similarly unsigned, no directions, no arrows, find your own way. Although challenging on occasions (are we where we think we are? this track is on/not on our map? there are footprints here so someone has walked this way previously – hope they weren’t lost) we think we prefer national parks to be like this rather than the increasingly common other extreme of signs, steps, manicured paths, boardwalks & bridges…… all just a step away from ice cream kiosks! The *only* infrastructure in Karlamilyi is the rough tracks & there are more of those than the maps suggest.
First camp was at Desert Queen Baths, a series of rock pools along a narrow gorge, each reached via a bouldering/rock clambering walk. Navigating involved trial & error but was made easier by being in a narrow gorge. We always had the gorge cliffs to follow but pathways were not always clear. “Is there a way across the water here somewhere?”
The walk, past half a dozen pools (we think, it got a tad confusing) brought us after an hour or two, to a larger deeper pool which could not be bypassed. Either swim or go no further. We had learned of this from others before we walked, & had also been told how cold the water was, getting relatively little sunlight in it’s sheltered position. “If you dropped ice cubes in it, they’d likely still be floating, intact, the next day” we’d been told. Well I am a renowned cold water woosie boy. I like warm water & 40 degrees ambient before the water is allowed past my goolie line. MrsTea however is braver one of this pair, but the prior warnings had put her off. Neither of us had bathers or towels. My attempts at convincing her that she should be the cold water guinea pig were met with a convincing “Not on your nelly mate”. After the effort we’d made to get there, & the beauty of the pool before us, not swimming & not seeing what was on the other side of the pool was unacceptable …… & so sacrifice had to be made. Off came the clothing & to MrsTea’s (& my own) total amazement I took the plunge! None of your usual graduated entry with accompanying gasps & protestations. Oh no Sirree, this was all or nothing machismo plunge, albeit with a modicum of gasping once in. By the time I clambered out at the opposite end into the sun my skin was tingling so much it felt warm. During my return swim my cajoling, in connection with the extraordinary nature of my deed, had convinced MrsTea that she too should take the plunge, & so she did. What is on the other side of the pool remains a secret to encourage others to take the plunge if visiting, but I assure you it’s a worthwhile experience. 🙂
We very much like this place & stayed a second night, discovering another waterhole outside of the gorge.
It was easy to understand how in this country which gets little & irregular rainfall (usually only ‘leftover’ rain from cyclonic events further north) Desert Queen Baths had been an immensely important place to those who lived here for millennia. So important to survival that there were protocols allowing for the sharing of this resource between several different tribes/nations.
On our 3rd day in Karlamilyi we left DQB & drove to Tjingkulatjatjarra Pool – we have absolutely no idea of how to pronounce that, but it is also known more simply as either Jarra Pool, or Jarrah Rockhole. We almost failed to find it. Our Hema paper maps & GPS navigator show it in the wrong place. We knew it was a waterhole along the dry creek bed of the Rudall River but at the location according to the map, no waterhole, just dry creek. Should we continue looking & risk getting lost or return the way we had come back to where we knew we could find our way southward out of the park. On the off-chance we took a look on our Wikicamps phone app, & lo & behold it not only showed the camp but it also showed it was north of our gps position. Now Wikicamps is user sourced info, & not always accurate, but we decided to try to follow the creek line, & reassuringly our gps position on wikicamps moved closer to it’s Jarra Pool location as we did so. Just a few minutes later we found it & so glad we did. A lovely spot with abundant bird life, occasional visiting camels (according to the other couple camped here for the past week) & dingo howls all around us like you wouldn’t believe, after nightfall & accompanying the rich dawn chorus of birdsong. We stayed for a couple of days. Australian Grebes on the water, have watched both Red Backed Kingfishers & Sacred Kingfishers getting a feed, Spinifex pigeons & Zebra Finches in large numbers, a few Painted Finches, plenty of White Plumed Honeyeaters, & a single Princess (Alexandra’s) Parrot has been spotted (our first ever). Lots more birdsong, but as yet not identified.
We have been talking between ourselves & with one or two other campers we’ve met about ‘remoteness’. Here we are, a thousand kilometres of dirt roads & slow tracks, several days worth of driving at least, from the nearest ‘help’ should medical or mechanical assistance be required, & yet despite the ‘desert experience’ it doesn’t feel especially remote. Contributing to this is that most days we see other people.
Of course the reality is that ‘remote’ only really becomes remote if & when those services are required, then the picture changes dramatically. This was brought home to us a couple of days ago when we heard of a recent story. An elderly chap on a ‘Tag along tour’ at Desert Queen Baths who was sun affected & had a suspected stroke. He was transported to Telfer mine by road, several hours of slow 4 wheel driving, & airlifted from the mine to Port Hedland on the coast. The mine has an airstrip, the closest. We understand that we are beyond the fuel capacity of medivac helicopters unless fuel dumps are pre-arranged at stations where they able to land. I guess the bottom line is one of ‘managed risk’. Most activities carry some sort of risk, & we all have varying tolerances of the risk levels we are willing to accommodate. We (all of us) do what we can to mitigate risk, but have to either be fatalistic about dealing with what unexpectedly arises or to play it safe to the extent that we wrap ourselves in cotton wool & miss out on life. Most of us find a path which suits, if we don’t our lives might be led by fear. All pretty obvious really, only mentioned as having put ourselves into the position we are currently enjoying has caused us to focus a little more clearly. The more we do, the more confident we become. The trick, I guess, is not to become ‘over-confident’. 🙂
I’m envious! Despite the several visits to the Pilbara, we never did get out to Rudall River NP. Or across the Gary Junction road. When we worked at the Pilbara rail construction camps, that was the direct route for people coming from head office in Alice Springs. Were going to head home that way at end of contract, but it was near Xmas and too stinking hot to tackle it. So pleased for you that this rig lets you get right off the beaten tracks.