Category Archives: Charnley River

The Doc’s AWC adventures – a summary

4X4, Artesian Range, AWC, Bowra, Bullo River Station, Charnley River, Mornington, Newhaven, North Head, Paruna, Piligia, Pungalina-Seven Emu, Scotia

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.

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.

Derby mud flats

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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.

Charnley River Gorge, Artesian Range, The Kimberley

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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.

Patrol update

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The Doc has changed the Patrol recently. Due to a safety issue identified on the Northern Territory trip, The Doc installed a second UHF radio. The head unit is a GME XRS-330c matched to a RFI CD63 6dBi UHF antenna. All the controls are on the mic, which has a great OLED screen.

The XRS-330c is programable, allowing The Doc to customise frequencies (receive only), including police and emergency services. You can Bluetooth to the head unit making changes easy, by using the iPhone or Android app.

The combination is potent and outperforms my other UHF which is excellent. The new combination is excellent plus more. It has only been tested around Sydney and one short drive to Forster.

Next The Doc fitted Kut Snake flares to replace the OEM ones. These are a little wider and are attached with stainless screws, giving more side protection and a more aggressive look. The Doc painted the rear bumper matt black to match, using Peel Coat. The front LED bar was also painted with Peel Coat.

The last change was Australia flag number plates. To come are matching Australian flag side mirrors after The Doc visits Apex Decals. A picture of the new look, click to see full size. Remember to donate to Australian Wildlife Conservancy.

Australian Wildlife Conservancy Images indexed – huge sigh!!!!!

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The Doc has finally finished indexing 300,000 odd AWC photographs. The photographs have been sent back to the AWC head office. It will take a week or 2 to copy across the files and get them into the Daminion catalogue. It has been a huge undertaking – The Doc started in late Janaury.

The Doc would love to show you some of the images, but you’ll need to settle for his images, from AWC Sanctuaries. Enjoy.

 

AWC’s Artesian Range – Charnley River Sanctuary

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Still thinking about last years trip to the Kimberley. This time Charnley River which also contains the majestic Artesian Range. Report and photos here.

Kimberley/Pilbara Trip Trivia

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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

Charnley River – Artesian Range Sanctuary

Australia, AWC, Charnley River, Charnley River - Artesian Range, Kimberley, Landscape, river/creeks, rock, sunrise, Textures, WA

While at AWC’s Mornington Sanctuary The Doc became aware that Australian Wildlife Conservancy (“AWC”) had taken full control of Charnley River Station (formerly Beverley Springs Station). Click here for the report with pictures.