Australia, the return, part 3

Broome is at the base of the Dampier Peninsula and is the home of the famous (if you're a birder) Broome Bird Observatory so i was really quite excited to finally arrive.

We stopped in at the observatory on the way in and booked a birding for trip later in our stay.

The next morning we strolled along Simpson Beach, being watched by this Osprey:

The colours in Broome are unforgettable, the sand white, the seas that special shade of blue when there's white sand underneath it, the soil bright orange to red in places:

We booked ourselves on a boat trip to see the dinosaur footprints, a strange trip but one that didn't disappoint:

The compressed footprints are the last things to break down as the sedmentary layers of rock are eroded by the sea, the wind and the sun leaving unexpected prominances that are very definitely dinosaur footprints, with traceable tracks:

Some footprints from the predator species are present too:

The boat also took us into Dampier Creek, apparently a large salty had been seen there recently so definitely no swimming!

Another morning we went out to Streeters Jetty, at low tide, to see what looks like a ninja crab, one of literally thousands coming out of their mud holes to feed:

The bird observatory trip was somewhat mixed in results, we did see a Yellow Chat, albeit somewhat distant, however as we were waiting for night to fall to look for owls, a small storm blew-in and started pouring rain, and being then on a very thin salt crust layer we had the strange experience of being driven in a 4x4 and then sliding at right angles to the road with no grip or traction whatsoever while making a hasty retreat to more solid dirt to then drive out.   So we didn't see any of the three owl species we'd been hoping for.  Hey ho, watching the storm blow over the salt flats and seeing the sun set through the rain clouds was still a spectacular, and highly unusual for the time of year, sight to see.

From Broome further West along the '1' for Port Hedland,or Dante's Inferno as i think it should actually be named, leaving the Kimberley and entering the Pilbara.  It is a huge industrial port with train lines stretching inland and all manner of Australian 'produce', from live and dead cattle to 2km long iron ore and coal trains, going into the harbour onto boats and off, mostly, to China.  The scale was breathtaking, as was the fine iron ore dust coating everything an eery shade of burnt red.  Also weird was the gourmet restaurant we ate at in our motel, the best food we've enjoyed down-under outside of Sydney.  Weird.

Moving on we headed inland past some of the mining operations to Tom Price and Karijini National Park, the 'home of the gorge' (I made that bit up), stopping on the way at a roadhouse which had kept some of the older equipement to one side:

Karijini literally is gorge-ous, with swimming holes, hard to get to gorges, open gorges, walking tracks around gorges, etc:

A fascinating spot that is well worth a visit.  The red dust from the proximate mining operations did get everywhere however, so while we enjoyed our visit it was a relief, especially for my lungs, to be heading out and back to the coast and to our next stop in Exmouth.

Exmouth was our last stop in tropical West Australia before we headed firmly South and the to-be depature point of Cath and Nortbert as they flew via Perth to the Christmas and Cocos Islands.

We headed out very early one morning to Yardie Creek, the furthest accessible point on land of Cape Range National Park.  Early enough to see the Short-eared Rock-wallaby in its natural habitat (they are endangered by habitat loss, hunting, disturbance, etc., the usual human stuff):  It's a beautiful setting for a beautiful animal:

If you've been watching Channel 4 and Bill Bailey's Aussie stuff he paddled boarded here, though by the looks of the programme he did it earlier in the year when it was cooler and so later in the day.  It was going to get to 38c+ for us as the day drew on...

Another beach, another tide, another cool looking crab:

The morning after we'd had to drop our roadmates off at the airport for their onward journey, we strted early again, this time to visit Charles Knife Canyon (ditto Bill Bailey)

The sunrise was beautiful:

The vegetation on the canyon typical with small trees, fire killed husks, spinifex grasses:

I'm really quite pleased with this landscape taken on my phone, they are getting better and better as time goes on:

The gorge is very serrated in terms of peaks and troughs, with paths on quite inaccessible looking ridges:

Another morning (we tended to hide from the heat in the afternoons) we went back into Cape Range and found these turtles relaxing in the surf, some pairs were breeding offshore and some were laying eggs higher up the beach with much swishing of sand as they did so:

A pair of Greater Crested Terns were conducting the same pair bonding ritual we can see in Sandwich Terns back at home:

Crested Pigeons look magnificent with the crests, eye and plumage colours:

Back in town, exploring the mangroves and the adjacent waterfront we saw this little beastie sunning itself:

From Exmouth we headed south staying in Carnarvon (the Space Museum is unexpectedly great and well worth a visit!) and then detoured, en route to Geraldton, via Kalbarri National Park with its iconic views over the Murchison River.  The colours!

Then it was on to Perth, to meet up with some family for dinner, to meet-up with friends up from Albany, to do a bit of shopping, and of course to pop over again to Rottnest to see our friends the Quokkas:

A few of them were on-and-off awake (being a nocturnal species by nature):

We explored as much of the island on foot as possible, seeing areas we'd missed the first time and making use of the hop-on, hop-off bus service.  The geology and colours are outstanding:

So that was the end of our mammoth journey around the edge of North and West of West Australia, next stop, South Australia!