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The Burrowing Bee of Mundatharrda
After we’d paid our camping fees to the Kennedy Range NP camp host Brett, he handed me a large insect, curled up dead in a small ball, around the size of a man’s thumb. ‘This is what we’re famous for.’ I looked back at the incredible mountain range - Mundatharrda to...
The Gondwana Relicts of Palm Valley
Watarrka National Park
After the solitude of the Great Central Road, Yulara was a shock. I've been reading on theme while in the NT and re-read Tracks by Robyn Davidson. She visited Uluru with her camels in the late 1970s and described: ... the ever-increasing number of Australia and...
Visiting an icon
I found it a strange experience to visit a place so iconic as Uluru. To have seen endless photos and video images of the rock in all its immensity, and to even wonder if having it seen it so many times, whether in fact it was even necessary to visit? We each,...
The Great Central Rd (or the importance of looking closely)
Time warped or stretched or shrunk or something, while we were out on the Great Central Rd. To get from Laverton to Yulara in 3 days, which was the condition of the permit, we had to cover about 350km per day, and it seemed to take us most of the day. We did take it...
The Goldfields – Just what it says on the tin?
There seem to be three options for naming the regions of WA. The purely geographical – South West, Mid West. Then there is the more lyrical – Pilbara, Kimberley. And then there is the Wheatbelt and the Goldfields – two very descriptive names for the dominant...
Goongarrie Station
Goongarrie Station is not far north of Rowles Lagoon but getting there involves crossing an ecological boundary. From the stately tall eucalypts of the Great Western Woodlands to the acacia and allocasuarina and mallee of the 'mulga' area. Water is scarce - the only...
Rowles Lagoon and Credo Station
Finally! Our first camping stop for this trip, and for this, we did not venture far out of Kalgoorlie, just as far as Rowles Lagoon. There's actually four wetlands in this reserve, which somehow, due to some marvellous feats of hydrology, manage to hold fresh water...
A goldminer’s curse?
This trip of ours is a part-reprisal of our long-planned trip in March 2020. We had packed and were days away from leaving before the convergence of our departure date and the date that covid became a reality in Australia. And we stayed home. Last year we’d intended...