Category Archives: WA

AWC’s Mornington – Revisited – Part 2

4X4, Australia, AWC, Broome, Kimberley, Landscape, Mornington, Mornington, ocean, plains, Plant, river/creeks, sunset, trees, WA

The Point and Shoot images from the Supporters Event at AWC’s Mornington Sanctuary.

Broome to Mornington
Images flying into Mornington and around the main camp.

Sir John Gorge
Then off to Sir John Gorge for afternoon tea, overlooking the Fitzroy River. A stunning location.

A talk that night, from memory, about Mornington Sanctuary.

Rosie’s Pool
Breakfast at the basecamp and then a helicopter ride over the Sanctuary to Rosie’s Pool for morning tea. Back to Basecamp for lunch and a shower. I think we then had some free time to explore.

Bluff Breakfast
Then a Bluff Breakfast early the next morning, which has actually located on the adjoining Glenroy Station. Did The Doc mention we were flown up via helicopter?

Canoes
Later that day we went back to the Sir John Gorge and the Fitzroy River for canoeing.

Sunset dinner overlooking Fitzroy Bluff
At sunset we had dinner overlooking Fitzroy Bluff. What an amazing day!

Back to Broome
Finally, back to Broome via a Charter Flight over adjoining cattle stations and out across the mudflats and ocean.

Viva Cristo Rey.

AWC’s Mornington – Revisited – Part 1

4X4, Australia, AWC, camera, Derby, Kimberley, Landscape, landscape, Mornington, Mornington, mountains, river/creeks, WA

The Doc reprocessed some images from his first visit to AWC’s Mornington Sanctuary in 2014. It was a Supporter’s Event and it was the second Sanctuary he ever visited. The first was Scotia.

All the buildings were destroyed in massive floods in 2023. The buildings appear in Part 2.

Viva Cristo Rey.

The Bungle Bungles revisited from the air

4X4, Australia, Bungle Bungles, Kimberley, Landscape, landscape, Purnululu National Park, rock, WA, WA

Next The Doc jumped into a helicopter and had a short flight over the Bungles. You take off and 30 seconds later you are over the bee hives and from this perspective you begin to understand how the “bee hive” formations were eroded from the surrounding plateau. In fact, the Bungles are still slowly being formed today. Viva Cristo Rey.

The Bungle Bungles from the ground

4X4, Australia, Bungle Bungles, Landscape, Purnululu National Park, river/creeks, sunrise, sunset, WA, WA

The Doc is reprocessing images from the Bungle Bungles in Purnululu (Per-na-lew-lew) National Park in Western Australia, the original images were posted here. First up it is the reprocessed ground images, with the aerial images to follow.

Images are from Gorge Road, Spring Creek Track and Piccaninnny Creek. Viva Cristo Rey.

Sunrise and sunset images below.

One night at camp The Doc thought he was being watched, he turned on the torch to see a Tawny Frogmouth 2.5 metres away. They are silent on the wing and The Doc never heard it fly in and land, nor do their prey.

Plus a bonus image from Panikin Lookout, Lake Argyle Road, Lake Argyle (the last image).

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.

Bullo River Gorge – lots of bull

Australia, AWC, Bullo River Station, camera, Kimberley, lakes, landscape, Landscape, mountains, NT, plains, river/creeks, Uncategorised

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.

Bullo River Sands, Bullo River Gorge, Bullo River Station

We were delivered in the bush taxi, a Robinson R44 helicopter landing in the gorge.

Exploring Bullo River Station: a journey to the Victoria Bonaparte Bio Region

Australia, Bullo River Station, Kimberley, landscape, NT, Uncategorised

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

4X4, Artesian Range, Australia, AWC, Charnley River, Charnley River - Artesian Range, coastal, Derby, Kimberley, Kimberley, Landscape, ocean, Plant, river/creeks, trees, Uncategorised, WA, WA

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.