Western Australia Start 21.06.2017

If you imagine remote land nests and fishing villages, kilometers of sandy beaches without a single person, lonely roadhouses, a consistently barren landscape, waterfalls and gorges, and boabtrees 'bottle trees' as the "real Australia", you will find all of this in Western Australia and that's why Western Australia is the true Australia for us. 😍

Along the long journey between Darwin and Perth (4040 km), there are overwhelming scenic highlights that are far apart and in between there is simply nothing. And I mean really nothing except endless plains with spinifex grass and shrubs. With such a route, careful trip planning was and is really important. The questions: Where can we shop? Where can we fill up water? How many hundreds of kilometers until the next gas station? Where can we shower 😂? Are constant companions 🍕⛽️ 🚿 🛒.

In order to drive to Western Australia, we had to drive to Katherine again. There we replenished all supplies, stayed overnight in a nice caravan park (after that we had 5 nights in rest areas), and the next day we set off for the untouched west!

Western Australia is free from numerous animal and plant pests and protects its agriculture from pests through a quarantine. There are strict import regulations, and we experienced this firsthand before the town of Kununurra🙈. We knew about the quarantine, but somehow forgot about it while shopping 🛒. Rafiki was inspected and a drug detection dog was involved. We had to give away carrots 🥕, apples 🍎 (delicious Pink Lady apples 😭), and onions. The police officers 👮 were very friendly and of course the dog didn't find anything 😅.

The first town in Western Australia from Darwin is Kunurrura. A cute little town but not really much to see, okay see but nothing that interested us. Except for the baby kangaroo rearing station 'Kangaroohaven'. A dream, there were many babies there and we were allowed to feed them with a bottle, hold them in our arms, stroke them, and learn a lot about them. Did you know that kangaroos are lactose intolerant? 😂 I've always said lactose is evil 😭! For them, it's so severe that they can even go blind from consuming cow's milk 😱.

A very nice woman runs the rearing station and is dedicated to her work wholeheartedly. In order to maintain the station, she still works full-time as a teacher, as the food for the little ones is very expensive. She started taking care of the babies about 10 years ago. She and her late husband hit a kangaroo mother with their car and she had a joey in her pouch. The mother was instantly killed, so they took the joey in and cared for it until it was old enough to fend for itself. Since that time, she has housed countless baby kangaroos who have to cope without a mother. Whether due to a car accident or hunters.

The joey can stay in her care for about 2 years (until it reaches sexual maturity) and is then released into the wild. It was a beautiful day and definitely one of the highlights of our trip so far 😍.

We continued our drive towards Broome, passing through the small towns of Fitzroy Crossing (population 1450) and Halls Creek (population 1250). It was clear here that social integration of Australia's indigenous people has not been successful everywhere. The history of local cattle farms speaks of exploitation, abuse, and mass layoffs, and the wounds are still visible here. The towns give off a neglected atmosphere. Alcohol problems and violence in recent years have led to visitors being advised against staying for extended periods in these towns. So we only made a quick stop for refueling and quickly continued on our way. If you ever feel like it and have the time, watch the movie 'Australia' with Nicole Kidman and Wolverine. It reflects the problems of the history quite well. The anger that has accumulated over the centuries among the indigenous people, the confiscation of their culture, and the treatment as subhumans is really very sad. I mean, it wasn't until 1961 that they were granted rights such as voting. Concessions for England's misconduct were made, but it happened really late. We feel very sorry for the Aborigines... of course, everyone is the architect of their own fortune, but under such circumstances... torn from their culture, many cannot find their way anymore. They receive a relatively large amount of money, more than regular unemployed people (compensation, etc.), and therefore don't have to work. You see many of them hanging around in front of supermarkets... and then walking drunk on the streets in the evening. Of course, there are exceptions, but that's how we perceived it in some towns.

One of the most beautiful cities in the west is Broome. It is a vibrant town with around 14,400 inhabitants. It is located in the midst of a colorful landscape and has an inviting city center, which is rather atypical for the north of Western Australia, with its Chinatown, open-air cinema, cafes, and shops. Additionally, there is the incredibly beautiful Cable Beach. Where there are stunning sunsets 🌅. The beach was so named because the telephone cable to Java in Indonesia was laid here. The open-air cinema is very old and quaint. On the evening we visited, the new part of Pirates of the Caribbean was playing. The movie is really good and even though we didn't understand every joke because Captain Jack Sparrow mumbles a lot, it was easy to follow the movie in English 😅. We had really nice days in Broome and were able to relax a bit. The campsite had a pool and was right on the beach 😊👍.

The next stop was the dreamy 80 Mile Beach along the coast... There we could go for walks, collect large seashells, and saw 100 anglers. Due to several factors, swimming is not recommended (sharks, jellyfish, rays), so we didn't go into the water either. The drive is worth it despite the bad road, because we saw about 10 kangaroos on the way back, all standing still like petrified and just observing 😅. Not far from the beach, we stayed overnight at a rest area. There was nobody around, a starry sky 🌌 ✨ and we were in the middle of it. Early in the morning, we set off to reach Karijini National Park as quickly as possible, but because the journey was so long, we had to spend another night at a rest area. Not far away, just before entering the national park, a major accident happened. Although we heard the sirens 🚨, without a radio, we were not aware of the extent of the accident. The next morning, before we wanted to leave, a woman told us that a road train, which is a huge truck with three trailers, crashed into a caravan and then collided with the next one. 2 dead and several seriously injured... really terrible... the road was closed for at least 2 days. So we had to turn around, drive back to the coast, and take a long detour. We had two options. 650 km detour on a paved road or 250 km unpaved road with potholes and everything that goes with it. We opted for the off-road route and had quite a few experiences on the 250 km 😂. We needed permission to drive this route because it is only passable for 4x4 cars. In order to get it, we had to watch a 20-minute video at the visitor center in Karratha on how to behave correctly. Although we followed everything, we still arrived in Tom Price with two flat tires 😅. More on that in the next post.