The Doc just mapped the images he took on Bullo River Station, as he selects some images for the forthcoming Bullo River Station Report. The very rough figure 8 was the helicopter trip. The big muddy river on the top right is the Victoria River. The Bullo River is covered by pink picture makers coming out of the Victoria River, top right also.
At the recent AWC Supporter Event at Bullo River Station we had small groups doing guided tours along the Bullo River, with a cold breakfast supplied (fresh fruit, quiche, yogurt, nuts, freshly squeezed OJ and muffins).
A few images are below. Click on an image to see a slideshow at full size. Enjoy the beauty of God’s creation.
The Doc is still writing the longer Bullo report.
The Doc is back in Darwin, sorting and culling images from the trip. He will spend a week here exploring, after a rest day.
If Bullo River Station sounds familiar it was made famous by Sarah Henderson’s book From Strength to Strength.
A superb all round experience. Amazing accommodation, great facilities, great food and support from both AWC Guides and Bullo River staff. The trip included bird watching, a morning river cruise, a guided helicopter trip, road trips around the Station and a last minute change in our arrival because of rain washing out the airstrip. We landed in Kununurra and were driven into Bullo River Station, down the Bullo River Access Road.
One place The Doc visited, on a helicopter trip around Bullo River Station, was Bullo River Gorge. More precisely, the part of the gorge known as Bull River Sands.
Earlier that morning, we had flown around the Bullo River and along the Victoria River to visit an AWC science team in the field, then we flew onto to Bullo River Gorge for breakfast.
The Bullo River starts and finishes on Bullo River Station, hence the Station’s name.
AWC runs the best supporter events, made even better when the Bull River Tourism team was involved.
A taste of what is coming. Enjoy.
We were delivered in the bush taxi, a Robinson R44 helicopter landing in the gorge.
There was rain overnight at Bullo River Station, so planes cannot land on the unsealed air strip. Guests are leaving earlier from Darwin and being taken to a nearby air strip – that would be a country “nearby”. Kununurra has the nearest sealed airstrip.
Then Guests have a 3 hour drive into Bullo River Station, which has the longest driveway in the Northern Territory. The driveway is the hard left off the Victoria Highway on the map below. All part of the adventure, for me. Plus The Doc knows how to drive into Bullo River Station in the Grenadier!
AWC just works around the challenges to get us there. Thank you AWC.
The Doc also took his Pentax medium format camera on the helicopter. A selection of a few images from that camera are below.
The original images are massive in size (around 250 megs), and have stunning details even when heavily cropped. Not an easy camera to use in a helicopter because of its size and its slow autofocus. Plus you do not want to take too many images with large file sizes, which are slow and hard to work with. But the images, when they work out, are just gorgeous.
Click on an image to see the slideshow. It is worth it. Enjoy.
Plus some assorted images from Yampi Sound Training Ground, Charnley River Gorge up in The Artesian Range and the Buccaneer Archipelago.
The massive tidal changes in King Sound reveals extensive mud flats across the southern part of the Sound, around Derby.
Derby township itself is surrounded by mud flats which The Doc drove on several times (being careful not to break through the dried surface). These mud flats are not fully tidal every day, probably only on King tides. However, anytime The Doc felt the surface get soft he headed back to drier parts.
After taking off, in the helicopter, the first place we see is the big house, the Derby Prison. The Prison inmates look after the graves at the nearby Leper Colony, aka the old Bungarun Leprosarium, just north of Derby (Blog report here). The Doc drove up to Bungarun using the mud flats, not the road.
The mud flats reveal one of nature’s fractals, the repeating patterns you see when water is draining away on the mud flats (what The Doc calls the recurring tree pattern). To be precise “Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales.” If you look carefully, you will see the same pattern repeating itself. Admittedly it is more obvious in the helicopter where you better appreciate the scale of these fractals.
There is endless variety in the mud flats, including their shapes, colour and textures. While they are many images, the total was culled hard to give a good cross section.
The Doc finds the mud flats fascinating. Enjoy.
When posting some Kimberley images recently The Doc realised he has not posted images from his 2-day helicopter trip out of Derby in 2015 (better late than never!) – except 2 or 3 images.
Starting with Day 2, here are images from flying along the Charnley River Gorge, Artesian Range, The Kimberley, Western Australia. It was a thrill of a lifetime, breathtakingly beautiful place. We had permission from Australian Wildlife Conservancy to do the trip over their property and land. With both the pilot and the passenger being AWC supporters helps!
The Artesian Range is the only part of Australia that has not suffered any mammal extinctions since European settlement, but the cane toads got into the area in the last few years. So that may change.
Where the river bed is a muddy light grey, the river is tidal. The clearer water is beyond the tidal zone and is fresh water coming down the river.
We landed and took pictures of Aboriginal art, which had some very rare figures. The Doc may post one or two later.
Make sure you click on the image to see the full size slide show.
Some images from Ballina NSW, including some roadkill. Back in the day when you could travel in Glady’s Gulag.
The Doc is still making his way through images from the Excellent Adventure. This time we visit AWC’s Piccaninny Plains Station (Ranch) up in Cape York. These are giant tree frogs from our night wildlife spotting. It is the biggest species of tree frog in the world (shared with a frog from Cuba). Click to see full size image.
Working through some images during lockdown. Some rare photos of the endangered Bridled Nail Tail Wallaby from AWC’s Scotia Sanctuary. Click on the image to see full size.
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