About

18 July 2026

We are in iron ore country. There are mines everywhere and everything has a red hue, the trucks, the buildings, the cars, the landscape and the people.

I am assured this red dust will remain in and on our vehicle forever. It’s just something that regardless of your efforts it will always be with you.

This is the source of Australia’s wealth. Iron ore trains 2.3 km long with 240 wagons each are running around the clock from the mines to the ports. And these trains have no driver, they are remotely controlled from Perth some 1500kms away.

Each wagon holds about 200t and there are 240 wagons per train. There are 8 trains per day. The ore sells for about $100/tonne. And this is from just one mine. You do the maths.

These estimates are for the three big miners but there are lots of smaller independents who rely on quads ie 4 trailer road trains to move their ore. In one day we must have passed a hundred trucks.

Up here everything is big, the trucks, the mines, the trains, the salaries, the value of each train load, daily fuel usage and on it goes. It’s all big.

Karijini is the local national park. It’s a good thing that this is a protected landscape otherwise it too would be an open pit. Who knows what mineral treasures are contained within the national park.

Karijini was until recently only accessible via some rough gravel roads. The roads are now all sealed and the campsites all booked out.

After more of Karijini we head back to the coast.

17 July 2026

From Broome we drove to 80 Mile Beach and whilst I didn’t measure it I did enjoy a long bike ride on the firm sand at low tide.

I have gone on about emptiness before and so it continues. The drive from Broome to 80 Mile Beach is about 382 kms and there is just one roadhouse over that whole distance. Even worse, and this might be hard to accept, they only offer instant coffee!

You drive all day and see the odd car and a few road trains and then you drive down a dirt road and there is this oasis of green, filled with campers. Where do they all come from?

From 80 Mile Beach to Marble Bar a distance of 358 kms there was again just one roadhouse. Out here you have to be mindful of the range you can cover with the fuel in your tank.

We visited Marble Bar, the town that holds the record for being the hottest town in Australia. This is a place you visit in winter and never summer. The other claim for Marble Bar is that it is the centre of the East Pilbara Shire which is the largest shire in the world. The East Pilbara Shire is larger than all of Germany but with a population of just 10,000 people, Germany 83 million.

From Marble Bar we drove to Tom Price. This was a day of 392 kms which included about 75 km of dirt road. There was again one roadhouse on this route, the Auski Roadhouse. Auski is a major stop for mining and associated vehicles so the coffee was good as was the sausage rolls. Auski is located on the Great Northern Road, a major route from the mine sites to the coast.

Next it’s Karijini National Park and Tom Price.

10 July 2026

We were encouraged to check out the dinosaur footprints which are some 130 million years old. It seems these footprints are under water and can only be seen at very low tide. I checked the tide timetable to see when low tide was to occur and got up early to see these prehistoric markers.

I checked a couple of locations with no luck. I assumed where a large number of people had gathered that would be the place to see the footprints. This was a flawed assumption. Disappointment was the universal experience. It seems the tide has to be very, very low. The nearest I got to a dinosaur was a 3 year old roaring like we all assume a dinosaur would sound.

The town of Broome is a curious oasis in the middle of nowhere. You would need to drive north for 2-3 days for the next big town or a go a similar distance to the south. Broome is miles from anywhere. It is however a town of resorts, retail outlets, hardware stores, restaurants and cafes. It’s a place to get a haircut after weeks on the road and to generally restock. This is a town big enough for rental e-scooters!

Broome’s main street is known as China Town even though it was Japanese pearling businesses that established this strip over a 100 years ago. The Chinese came later but it seems claimed naming rights. The old architecture has been retained and most buildings are made of corrugated iron.

Broome has the oldest outdoor cinema still operating. The Guinness Book of Records recognises it as such. We had to see a movie at this famous venue. The seating is canvas deck chairs and there is no roof so the stars are visible as the night gets darker.

One issue for a cinema that was built in 1916 is that it was built before commercial flights and before the Broome airport. It is now unfortunately under the flight approach for the airport. We enjoyed one helicopter and one fixed wing aircraft. These slight interruptions just added to the whole experience. Rather than offering hand sanitiser this cinema provides mosquito repellent.

Another famous drawcard is Cable beach so named after the telegraph cable that connected Broome and Australia to the rest of the world via Java. This was back in the 1880s. This beach is now the place to take a camel ride, to enjoy the sunset or to just go for a swim. Even a bike ride is possible and at times you can drive on the beach at low tide.

We both got haircuts. My barber was from Italy having moved to Australia post COVID. Barb’s hairdresser was young French woman.

And so we reluctantly continue south.

6 July 2026

We are now in Broome, WA and have decided to put down roots for a few days to explore this part of the world.

Broome’s history is marked by several notable events. From harvesting and exporting mother-of-pearl at the beginning of the 20th century, being bombed by the Japanese in WWII, the development of cultured pearls in the 1950s and 60s and now tourism. Broome is a town of memorials to pearl divers who died doing their job and to the estimated 100 who died during the WWII bombings.

Tourism of course is primarily servicing climate refugees who are escaping winter in the south and those doing the big lap around Australia.

In this town there are backpackers everywhere. Your pizza is prepared by a young lady from Italy, the guy pouring your beer is probably from the UK and the chap steering the boat on your tour of the pearl farm is from South America. The parks are full of their campers and in the early morning you can smell the coffee they are brewing in their vans. Come the wet season they will all be gone along with the tourists.

Another unique feature of Broome is their playgrounds for little kids. Anywhere else there might be unicorns, giraffes and elephant features in the playgrounds. Up here they have crocodiles!

The other major attraction is the Stairway to the Moon. This is a spectacle that only occurs with the alignment of a full moon rise and a low tide. Hundreds are down by the beach, cameras ready with a glass of wine as you hope the clouds will clear as the moon rises. It’s all over in a few minutes and by that time the wine is finished anyway.

We did a tour of a pearl farm and learned just how labour intensive is this industry. Naturally the pearl farm had a shop and in that shop they had a lovely double string of 90 pearls for the bargain price of $250,000. They also had a single massive pearl that was not for sale but with a notional price also of $250,000. Bargains!

Back in the early days the cultured pearl technicians were universally Japanese and their process for seeding a pearl oyster was hidden from prying eyes behind heavy curtains. Their secrets were managed like Cold War secrets. Now you can get the process fully explained on a tour and the technicians are local men and women. They even have a video of pearl seeding. How things change.

Tonight we off to the oldest outdoor cinema in Australia and maybe the world.

29 June 2026

We left Fitzroy Crossing and headed to Broome. This was one of the most empty landscapes we have travelled through on this trip. Not a town, house, shed or even a roadhouse for over 200 kms, and this is Highway 1. Not even a coffee stand! This was the Fitzroy River flood plain so it was flat, flat, flat, nothing to interrupt the view. We could have tried the Gibb River Road but that would have taken more time, more preparation and probably good to have a friend for backup.

Unlike the last four weeks, we had a deadline. We had made a plan and followed through with a commitment. This commitment was further consolidated with the advance payment for the overnight trip to the Horizontal Falls. We were way out of our comfort zone. Some people book this trip a year in advance. We booked our trip 3 weeks ago and lucked out that there were places available.

Pick up was at 6:20am from our campground and then a 2 hour trip back to the Derby airport for a flight to the falls. A twenty minute flight took us over the tidal mud flats of King Sound for a landing on Talbot Bay.

The next 24 hours comprised boat rides through the Horizontal Falls, a fishing adventure, some excellent food and wine and an opportunity to swim with the sharks. The sharks were actually on the other side of a mesh barrier. We also enjoyed the company of a small group of nine that were also staying overnight. Just nine of us provided a more intimate opportunity for conversation and the enjoyment of some fabulous meals and shared experiences.

This now famous tourist destination was only ‘discovered’ back in the 1980’s and only became a tourist attraction in the last 15 years or so. The ‘falls’ are the effect of some of the largest tidal ranges in the world with the resulting difference of 4-5 metres between the bays creating ‘horizontal falls’.

What I truly appreciated was that the numbers of visitors each day is limited to about 200. If this type of natural spectacle was in the northern hemisphere there would be many hundreds of people visiting along with a multitude of aircraft and water vessels powering through the falls. Ya gotta love that it’s so remote.

This experience in the Kimberley determined our timetable for the first phase of this trip, its now time to plan where to next.

25 June 2026

In my last Log I mentioned boundaries. There is one I omitted and that is termite mounds that wear tee shirts. It seems up here it is important for termite mounds to be dressed in a tee shirt, maybe a cap and in some cases a hardhat. Amazing.

We have crossed the technology Rubicon and now enjoy full mobile phone and internet access regardless of how remote we might be. We have a Starlink mini! The tipping point was when I saw NT police vehicles with Starlink on their dash. So here I am writing this epistle in a remote part of Fitzroy Crossing, WA and with fast internet speeds.

Over the last month we have enjoyed a wide range of camping facilities ranging from no facilities to everything you might need, including an onsite restaurant. Here is my summary of our camping experiences:

• Free camps – these can be close to highways or down dusty roads, crowded or empty, noisy with generators or quiet. Always safe if there are a few campers. There is never a flat camp site.
• Basic caravan parks – toilets and hot showers will be available but anything more will depend on the level of refinement of the camp and how desperate you are to find somewhere to stop. The more desperate the more likely your standards will drop. The camp kitchens at these places are always the place to meet interesting fellow travellers.
• Big name franchise camps – quality and facilities can be pretty much guaranteed. The challenge will be how big or small the sites might be and how crowded the place is.
• Resort style parks – these come with all the facilities, power, water, dump point etc and probably a swimming pool and bistro. They can be expensive. Great places to get your washing done and to enjoy local fare.

We have enjoyed all variants and at both ends of the spectrum.

Today we visited Geikie Gorge where we came across a flower that looks just like a bird. In Australia we can be very creative with names of prominent buildings or landscapes. And so we have the Snowy Mountains which are mountains often covered in snow. There is the Harbour Bridge which is a bridge over the harbour. We have Long Plain which is a long plain and of course the Great Barrier Reef which is a very long, some might say great, barrier reef. This flower that looks like a bird grows on the Green Bird Flower Tree.

I have given up on yelling at the car when it thinks I am not paying attention or whether I need to take a break. Resistance is futile.

For my European readers we have now covered a distance similar to travelling from the Mediterranean coast of Syria to the northern most tip of Scotland but with a tiny percentage of the same population.

Fuel here is $2.40 a litre; happy days.

22 June 2026

We have reached the Kimberly phase of our travels and the apogee or highest potent of our trip. That was at Katherine where we turned left and on to Western Australia.

As I have mentioned in earlier Logs up here you unknowingly cross a number of boundaries or unwritten lines.

There is the line where there are no more crows or ravens attacking the roadkill, that happens in the south. In the north there is a line whereby it’s suddenly kites and eagles feeding on roadkill and not a crow in sight.

Angus and Hereford cattle have vanished and now it’s brahman cattle. Along with vanishing cattle breeds, fences have also become less frequent and less reliable.

In regard to cattle, it must be mustering season up here. Yesterday about 10 road trains each with three trailers loaded two levels high with cattle drove past us. They were probably on their way to Darwin to join the live cattle trade and that was a lot of fresh meat.

Another unwritten line is the point where you wave to all other oncoming drivers. It’s an acknowledgement that we are all out here in the middle of nowhere.

We are now in a place where boab trees are regularly seen. They are of course related to the Baobab trees of Africa and Madagascar so Gondwana makes its presence felt yet again. Along with boab trees this is also crocodile country, both fresh and salties. Swimming up here is a questionable pastime and even standing on the banks of a creek with your toes in the water is frowned upon. As an aside boab tress live for thousands of years!

The another obvious line is the WA border. This line can’t be missed because you are facing a quarantine station and these folk don’t mess about. We had strategically consumed our lemons in various beverages and had finished our fresh fruit and vegetables. Unfortunately we forgot we had just purchased a fresh jar of honey. Bees might buzz across the border but never a jar of honey.

The WA border also means you suddenly improve your day by an hour and a half. You think you won’t get into your next campground until 3.00pm but you are already set up by 1.30pm.

It’s amazing how these lines have such an impact.

The price of diesel has risen and we expect more expensive fuel as we travel through to Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing.

17 June 2026

We are now in Katherine NT. We spent a night at the Devils Marbles and continued on to the thermal springs at Mataranka. From there is was a short day to get to Katherine. Soon it will be a left hand turn towards Western Australia and more remote driving.

The thermal springs flow through a forest of paperbark trees and pandanus palms. The water is warm and crystal clear. The current is gentle as it sweeps you along the channel for several hundred metres to the steps where you can climb out.

The springs are full of rainbow fish and the odd turtle along with feral pigs on the banks. It’s almost a scene from Jurassic Park. A wonderful way to relax, quietly floating through the forest with your noddle.

And don’t be alarmed but there is a crocodile trap at the end of the swimming area. As an aside our neighbour at the campground had been fishing for barramundi the day we arrived. His video shows his rod bending and the line going tight. He thought he had a big fish until its tail came out of the water and then its head. It was a 2 metre long fresh water croc. They say they don’t bite but just who are ‘they’ and do the crocs know they don’t bite?

Final comment, we are now in a world where diesel is below $2.00 a litre. That won’t last.

14 June 2026

I was reflecting on our passing through outback South Australia and on some of the cattle stations in those parts. We came across so many with names like Mt Eba, Welbourne Hill, Mount Willoughby, and Commonwealth Hill. Be assured these station names are not marking some distinctive geological formation. In fact they reference the merest interruption to what is otherwise flat and vast expanses of marginal agricultural land. Don’t be fooled by their names.

The McDonnell Ranges in Central Australia are in contrast striking landscapes. These ranges are intersected by numerous gaps, chasms and gorges which after a strong wet season have water. Each one is spectacular in its own way. We explored Emily and Jessie Gaps and rode our bikes to Simpson Gap. We also explored Trephina Gorge which I mistakenly recalled as having extensive rock art, mistaken memories from long ago.

We have now crossed the Topic of Capricorn which means our winter wardrobe is evolving to the back of the wardrobe. Coats, beanies, gloves and scarves have become ballast.

Those of us who have travelled around this country will have come across many ‘big’ things. There is the Big Banana, the Big Trout, the Big Spud, the big sheep, the Big Prawn, the Big Pineapple and the Big Mango. We have now discovered the person who must consume all these big food products, it’s the Big Man. I am going to refer to him as the Big Bloke.

The Big Bloke is mounted on a hill top behind the Aileron Roadhouse in the Northern Territory. He is 17m tall and that is pretty big. As an aside the homemade sausage rolls and pies at the Aileron Roadhouse are some of the best we have ever enjoyed.

In the past the mark of a true remote traveller was a 4WD vehicle fitted with an HF aerial and HF transmitter/receiver. These systems were seen on private 4wd vehicles and NT police cars and emergency vehicles. No longer, HF radio and long distance comms is now delivered by Starlink. The up to date remote vehicle now carries the Starlink system. It appears HF has gone the way of typewriters and the telegraph.

More to come…..

11 June 2026

As predicted we are now in the Northern Territory and enjoying the weather of Central Australia, cool nights and sunny days.

On our way to Uluru (Ayers Rock) we stayed at a free camp at Curtain Springs station. It’s a cattle station of about 1 million acres. We enjoyed dinner with several bike riders who had travelled through some of the more remote and isolated country to get to the Finke River Desert race. An interesting night of conversation sharing stories of remote travel and places to be explored. The conversation was of course enhanced through the imbibing of various refreshments. It’s these experiences that make remote travel so worthwhile. The next morning they packed up their swags and were back on the road seeking out challenging tracks to get them to Alice Springs via the Finke Gorge.

We have previously climbed Uluru (no longer possible), walked around the rock, flown over it and now have ridden our bikes around this massive lump of geology. Similar to natural wonders the world over, photos never do the magnitude of the monolith any justice. It’s huge which is even more awe inspiring since it rises like an island out of a vast empty plain. You have to wonder how did it get there!

What is normally best described as a desert has enjoyed several wet seasons which means the desert is green and there is water in some of the creeks and rivers. The Finke River which starts and finishes in deserts is between 300 and 400 million years old and this year it has water! It’s one of the oldest rivers in the world but you might think it’s more like than a creek than a river. The Todd River is even flowing.

We are now in the town of Alice Springs which is named after a woman, namely Alice who never lived in the area, and a spring that was actually a water hole and not a spring. So the town is named after someone who was never there and a water feature that doesn’t exist; curious.

We have done our bit to assist with reducing the number of feral camels in this country. We enjoyed camel burgers for dinner one night. They were very good. There are also lots of feral horses and donkeys up here but I don’t expect to see them on any menu.

There was a worry about fuel availability in these remote parts but that has not been an issue. However there appeared lines of 4WD vehicles at the diesel bowsers when the town’s population blew out from 30,000 to 45,000 for one weekend. That was the weekend of the Finke Desert Race. This is a competition of about 160 vehicles and over 550 motorbikes racing over two days. Each day was about 200kms of rough dirt track.

We have visited a gorge with some 3,000 unique palm trees growing in the middle of the MacDonnell Ranges. It seems incongruous to find palm trees in the middle of Australia and in the middle of a desert but they are there. Their nearest relatives are about 1000 kms away, on the coast.

The Alice Springs telegraph station is a fascinating piece of history. After 1872 with cables stretching across the world and under the oceans, a telegram to London took only 5 hours. Before the telegram a letter took three months to get to its addressee and three months for the reply. The telegram was the internet of its day but at 20 cents a word in 1872 it was not available to the common folk and you certainly didn’t sit up all night chatting with friends in far off places.

Soon we will be back on the road heading north and beyond the Tropic of Capricorn. It’s at this point that the winter weather becomes a mere memory.