Category Archives: Pilbara

Amazing Pilbara images P&S – Part 2

4X4, Australia, desert, Landscape, Pilbara, river/creeks, States, Textures, trees, WA,

Part 2 of the Point & Shoot images from places like Munjina Lookout Road, Albert Tognolini Lookout, Karajini NP Visitor Centre, Warlu Way, Kalamina Gorge Trail, Hamersley Gorge Road, the Roebourne – Wittenoom Road at Chichester, Deep Reach Picnic Area on the Barrimirndi Trail,  Panorama Lookout at Roebourne, Python Pool Trail at Millstream, Miliyanha Campground at Kanjenjie, Snappy Gum Drive and the Tom Price-Karratha Road. Lots of panoramas this time around.

How does The Doc know these names years later? All his images have GPS co-ordinates put into them, plus he adds keywords. However another source is using those GPS co-ordinates to Reverse GeoCode the images, this process puts location data into the photo. The Doc just copied some of that information from the images into the blog post.

Viva Cristo Rey.

Amazing Pilbara images P&S – Part 1

4X4, Australia, camera, desert, Landscape, Pilbara, Plant, river/creeks, trees, WA

The Doc also carries around a Point & Shoot camera and these images are from that camera. They are what The Doc calls “explorer images”, but they also have some memorising panorama images.

From places like Juna Downs, Great Northern Highway, Karijini Drive, Joffre Lookout, Kalamina Gorge Waterfall, Kalamina Gorge Lookout and Banjima Road Karijini.

Viva Cristo Rey. Click on image to see full size slideshow.

Amazing Pilbara images

4X4, Australia, desert, Landscape, Pilbara, river/creeks, rock, Textures, WA

Reading older blog posts The Doc noticed he has said there are lots of Pilbara images, but had not posted them. That is now remedied, here is a selection. Images from Karijini National Park, it surrounds, Millstream Chichester National Park and surrounding areas. Viva Cristo Rey, enjoy.

Stunning Sturt Desert Pea

4X4, Australia, desert, flowers, Landscape, landscape, macro, NT, Pilbara, Plant, The Red Centre, Uncategorised, WA, Wildflowers

Commonly known as the Sturt Desert Pea, floral emblem of South Australia. The dark eye version is from South Australia, the lighter coloured eye is the northern or WA form found in the Northern Territory and WA.

It is known by some other names as well including: Swainsona formosa, Showy Donia (G. Don 1832), Beautiful Donia (G. Don 1832), Dampier’s clianth (Veitch 1850), Dampier’s Clianthus (Hooker 1858), Sturt’s pea (Adelaide Advertiser 1858), Sturt pea (de Mole 1861), Captain Sturt’s desert pea (Aspinall 1862), Desert pea (Anon 1864), Sturt’s desert pea (Tenison-Woods 1865), Glory flower (Bailey 1883), Glory pea (Bailey 1883), Sturt’s glory pea (Anon 1886), Lobster claws (The Garden 1890), Blood flower (Parker 1898), Dampier’s glory pea (Guilfoyle 1911), Australian glory pea (Guilfoyle 1911), Dampier pea (Harris 1980).

Pilbara textures

Australia, bark, desert, Landscape, other, Pilbara, rock, Textures, WA, WA

The trip to The Kimberley also included The Pilbara, where iron ore mining occurs on an industrial scale. At Port Headland, 6 bulk ore carriers are loaded at once (more now as the terminal has expanded) and over 20 ore carriers are moored off the port awaiting their turn. Trains bring the iron ore to the port – trains 495 carriages long!

Port Dampier near Karratha is the other large port. It is not as big as Port Headland but impressive nonetheless.

The Pilbara has amazing textures, heavily influenced by the abundant iron in the rocks. So many things are red, the rocks, the sand, the dust and the visitors. The red is caused by the oxidation of the iron in the rocks. Who said you cannot bend rock?

The Pilbara also had some interesting barks, distinctly different from the Kimberley. Enjoy.

Kimberley/Pilbara Trip Trivia

Artesian Range, Australia, AWC, Bowra, Broome, Charnley River, Charnley River - Artesian Range, Derby, desert, flowers, Kimberley, landscape, Landscape, Mornington, Mornington, Newhaven, NT, Pilbara, plains, river/creeks, Textures, trees, WA, WA

The Doc decided to put some trivia together about the longest trip so far. Enjoy.

Time, distances and economy

  • the Kimberley/Pilbara Trip lasted 108 days;
  • total distance travelled was 27,000 kilometres exactly (what a coincidence!). The Patrol has now driven over 70,000 kilometres on The Excellent Adventure;
  • most kilometres travelled in one day, 1,032 kilometres;
  • average kilometres travelled each day was 250kms. In reality the figure was less, as 9,000kms was driven to and from the Kimberley which were concentrated days of driving;
  • best fuel economy was 12.4 litres per 100 kilometres. In 2WD, not towing, driving on the bitumen;
  • worst economy 15.1 litres per 100 kilometres. In 4WD, towing the trailer in sand at Cape Peron National Park;
  • average for the trip 14.4 litres per 100 kilometres, which makes sense as the trailer was attached for much of the trip. So the Pod Trailer adds about 2 litres per 100 kilometres, a modest increase compared to towing heavy trailers or caravans;
  • most expensive diesel was $2.50 a litre at Mt Barnett Station Roadhouse, Gibb River Road; and
  • total fuel bill, decided not to add it up!

Flights

Several flights were taken on the trip including:

Corrugations

Over 60% of the trip was offroad. On badly corrugated roads, you can hit over 10 corrugations every metre (the four wheels do). A very, very conservative figure would be the car, trailer and driver went over 20 billion corrugations!!!! No wonder things break and get damaged.

Breakages

The breakages included:

  • hub cover on Patrol, it fell off and was lost on Charnley River Station;
  • broken wire on coolant alarm (it has broken twice before). Field repair that is still working;
  • striped thread on a shock absorber. The front shock was replaced (The Doc was carrying spares). No dramas as the damage was detected early;
  • after a car service an ignition fuse started to blow. It turned out to be a bare wire shorting on the rear towbar and nothing to do with the service;
  • front control arm bushes needed replacement;
  • a broken windscreen 3 days before the trip finished. Thanks to the driver who did not slow down properly on the Plenty Highway. The Doc got more stone hits on the windscreen that morning than the rest of the trip combined;
  • rivets on an awning came out, thanks to the corrugations on the Plenty Highway on the return trip.

Tucker

Best meal, no contest, Restaurant at Mornington Wilderness Camp. Drysdale River Station also put on a good meal.

Cadjeput Waterhole
Murchinson River, Kalbarri National Park
ASCII

Photo competitions

Australia, AWC, Bowra, Bowra, Flinders Ranges, Kangaroo Island, Kimberley, landscape, Landscape, Mornington, Mornington, Pilbara, Qld, river/creeks, SA, Scotia, sunrise, WA

The Doc has been a bit quite because he has been indexing 300,000 images for AWC and also preparing some images for photo competitions.

Here is a selection of the images The Doc will shortly enter into an Australian competition (you get the low res versions, some images are over 350 megapxiels). Click on each images to see the correct size.

Wildlife

White tern

Landscapes

Cadjeput Waterhole