The longest report The Doc has done for an AWC Supporter’s Event. Lots of photos and an amazing experiences here.
Bullo River Station Report finished
The Mighty Joab
At Bullo River Station we got to see the Mighty Joab, the largest boab The Doc has seen in Australia. More coming in the full Bullo River Station Report.
The Doc’s AWC adventures – a summary
The Doc has drafted a page about his AWC adventures over the last 15 years. Over 30 sanctuary visits to volunteer, visit or take part in Supporter’s Events. Over 20 different sanctuaries visited all over Australia.
Plus, other AWC activities, like scanning slides, getting stickers on The Doc’s car and meets ups in the field. Still a work in progress, but lots of links and images here.
Bullo River Station report still being worked on. It will be added when complete. Some amazing images from that trip.
Location of images taken on Bullo River Station
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.
Bullo River Cruise
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.
Corroboree Billabong – the Sony A9III in the field
The Doc took the Sony A9III out into the field for its first use. A few test photos on the ground at Bullo River Station, but the first proper test was the helicopter trip around the property. Report coming, with images, in due course.
With any new camera there is learning curve concerning how to best set it up and use it. A few mistakes were made and a few images lost, but no disaster. The Doc was worried at setting the frames per second (fps) too low in the helicopter, but the culling of images showed that not to be the case.
The camera can go up to 120 fps in High Plus speed mode. 120 fps was not used on the helicopter, but it was on the Corroboree Billabong cruise, when The Doc had limited time to get images, including the old saltwater crocodile. The camera was amazing and this feature will come in useful for action shots. You must use it sparingly and cull images cull images, hard.
Having visited Corroboree Billabong before with Wetland Cruises, The Doc knew it would be a good day trip out of Darwin. Corroboree Billabong has the highest concentration of crocs in the world. It has both fresh water and salt water crocodiles. Corroboree Billabong is located on the Mary River floodplain.
The landscape images were being taken by the Sony P&S, not the A9III, as the A9III was fitted with a 135mm lens.
The harsh light in the middle of the day meant no brilliant images from the billabong.
The roadtrains and billabong images first, followed by the crocs close ups.
Now the croc images. The croc was getting close to 5 metres in length, so very dangerous to the stupid and unwary.
Bullo River Gorge – lots of bull
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.
Bullo River Station: slight change of plans
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.
Exploring Bullo River Station: a journey to the Victoria Bonaparte Bio Region
The Doc is flying out to Darwin today. Next stop Bullo River Station, where Australian Wildlife Conservancy is hosting a Supporter’s Event, starting Wednesday. Thankfully AWC provides a high level of support, if needed.
Bullo River Station is near the headwaters of the Victoria River close to the Northern Territory and Western Australian border, sometimes called the Eastern Kimberleys. More accurately it is the Victoria Bonaparte Bio Region (named after the Victoria River and the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, into which the Victoria River flows).
The Gulf is part of the larger Timor Sea. The Doc has not been this close to the coast in this part of Australia before, another first. He has only ever been well south around Timber Creek, Kununurra and Wyndham.
The Victoria River flows into the eastern side of the little-known Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, while the 5 Rivers up Wyndham way feed into the Cambridge Gulf on the western side of the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf.
Joseph Bonaparte was the older brother of the more famous Bonaparte.
Looking at satellite maps, there are many mud flats in this area, like Derby. Plenty of water in the wet season, plenty of mud down the river systems and mud flats everywhere! Plus, gorges, crocs and vegetation like the Kimberley.
It is nice to finally get away from all the intense rehab and treatment over the last 9 months. Upon my return The Doc needs to pick up the Vista RV Crossover hybrid van. Then more visits to Specialists and then, he hopes, to start traveling more widely again.
The above image was generated using AI, but The Doc hopes to make his own images during the visit.
EDIT: Now in Darwin and ready to fly out to Bulloo River Station tomorrow morning.
Derby helicopter trip – medium format style
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.
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