Kimberley part 3: Bell and Windjana Gorges, and a sorry tale.

Leaving our favourite watering hole was made easier with the thought that “we will return”, and the prospect of more delights ahead. Engorgement continued as we headed back to the Gibb River Road, turned west again, and aimed for Bell Gorge, a long day at 380 kms over dirt. The journey was broken in the usual way, including a stop for fuel at Mt Barnett roadhouse, a short walk into Galvan’s Gorge (a delight with another swim and Wandjina face discovered under a rock ledge), and a stop for paddle pops at the Aboriginal community at Imintji. This is a charming roadhouse with good facilities and lots of laughter from the locals – a positively rare thing, but as almost always, a white couple running the place. Behind the scenes, a wrecked Toyota in every yard and for me, frustration and a sense of abject failure to understand how we should more properly engage. The day’s journey ended 10kms short of Bell Gorge at a magic site called “Silent Grove”.

We found plenty of space to stretch out in the “generator area” part of the park, away from families playing serious cricket and AFL (very popular throughout NT and WA). Just a few others quietly going about their chores. It had to be the couple next to us. They read all evening until well past lights out, illuminated by a single lamp mounted on the car, run by a Honda generator at full revs. We were touched by the purpose made acoustic baffle assembled around three sides of the unit; it was very effective at throwing the racket in our direction. Actually the Australian’s ability to ignore noise and make it at the same time has been much underrated.

However we were much refreshed and ready the next morning for the short drive and walk into Bell Gorge, with the now to be expected magnificent falls and swimming holes. It should be said that on the west end of the Gibb River Road, within cooee of Derby and Broome, even the smallest and difficult to reach watering holes were visited by tour groups of 15 to 20, travelling in magnificent 4WD coaches and led by drivers with extensive knowledge of the plants and animals and rock art to be seen. What a great job for the adventurous young and not so. It would test all your skills. Bell Gorge was followed with a turn off the main track, back south eastwards along the Lennard River and onto the Leopold Downs Rd that takes you eventually to Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek. Objective: Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek.

Australians didn’t learn at school of the warring that went on, much of it in the Kimberley, between white pastoralist and settler, and “the blacks” as they were called as recently as the the 20^th century. It makes a very sorry tale, typified by the story of Jandamarra of the Banuba tribe. Nicknamed “Pigeon” as a young boy at the station he worked, he was regarded at an early age as one the Kimberley’s best stockman, also being an outstanding shot and horseman. After initiation at 15 he joined his people in attempting to drive out the huge flocks of sheep destroying the lowland country. The law made even the possession of wool an offence, let alone the killing of sheep or cow. But as wool was traded within and between tribes in ignorance of white man’s law, many aborigines were arrested for possession. Jandamarra escaped a jail sentence for sheep spearing by working for the police in Derby. Banished from Bunuban society for flouting traditional laws he went to live at Lillimiloora station near Windjana Gorge, working with Constable Bill Richardson as an armed tracker. When he was sent out to run down his own tribesmen, he ran into the obvious dilemma.

In 1894 he and Richardson, by then his friend, marched 16 Bunubans, some his family, in chains to Lillimaloora, but when they “got to him” he turned. While Constable Richardson was asleep, Jandamarra shot him, released his fellow tribesmen and made for nearby Windjana Gorge. Here he and his group were able to evade the law and form an organised resistance to the invading white man. Thirty five kilometres east of the gorge is an amazing tunnel that runs right through the Napier Range, known as Tunnel Creek. Badly wounded after a battle with police, Jandamarra hid here. In 1897 after other incidents including a murder of a white stockman and attack on a station, he was shot finally at the entrance to Tunnel Creek cave by another tracker. In those days of course he was regarded as a criminal of the worst kind and punitive expeditions by police reinforcements killed many Aboriginal people; today his motives are better understood and the words “freedom fighter” are to be found scrawled on monuments. Those who have seen the movie “The tracker” with David Gulpillil, and Gary Sweet as a constable, will get a feel for the times.

Windjana Gorge is cut by the Lennard River through a wall of Devonian coral reef that rises about 80 metres vertically out of the surrounding flat grassland. The effect is striking and scale large. The 3 km walk into and through the gorge, about 80 metres wide at its opening, takes you into a cool world away from the heat of the plains. Fresh water crocodiles are many and can be seen jaws agape and static on the banks, or gently cruising the still pools. Boab trees stand unclad and somehow aloof from the rest of the very varied vegetation. Their bulb-like trunks, often siamesed in twos or even threes, carry abruptly projecting branches and outer limbs that resemble a fig, but sport pendulous seed pods the size of a large mango. We have tasted the pulp inside these hard shelled fruit, which when chewed resembles a spicy pasta that is apparently nourishing. Kapok bushes, also with leaves shed, have set large yellow, waxy stellate flowers that shout at you.

I have spent time every day trying to shell out some better design solutions for the bits of the Tvan that irritate. As time passes I keep coming back to the thing as it is and agreeing with them, that it all works, and while a bit fiddly is cost effective. When we purchased the Tvan I went to the factory in the eastern suburbs, and met with Tony the salesman, who explained the ins and outs. We saw another Tvan at the site at Windjana and parked alongside. Up popped Tony with his wife Diane, and we have had several days with them since, there and in Derby. These chance meetings are part of the pleasure of holidays taken this way, and no, I have only bent his ear a little bit – and he seems to love it anyway, being a natural and knowledgeable salesman.

Backtracking to the Gibb River road, we soon passed the surprising Blina gas fields and arrived back onto the bitumen on our way to the civic pleasures to be offered at Derby. Our Kimberley adventure is over for this year, but there will be another as soon as possible. Not to be left too long as the encroaching bitumen means more and more people in this remote area.