Halls Creek is the site of a short lived goldrush in the late 1800s. In fact the town is named after Charlie Hall who found a 28 ounce nugget in 1885. It is now home to a large number of Aboriginal communities and gateway to a range of places in the Kimberley's, including the Bungle Bungles. Given its gold heritage and Greg's desire to find gold, we decided to explore the area a bit.
We visited China Wall, which is a large quartz outcrop named after the Great Wall of China.
We also visited the old Halls Creek town, which is very dilapidated and it was so hot and no one was feeling well so we looked out of the car windows and left. Not the best way to explore but about all we had in us for the day. We did decide to try fossicking... and found absolutely nothing! It was so hot and we certainly didn't feel like it, but I think Greg felt that if he didn't look, he would always wonder.
I had wanted to stay at Fitzroy Crossing and do the day trip out to Tunnel Creek (a 750m tunnel through limestone that has standing pools of water in it that you wade through, a couple of species of bats on the roof and freshies) and Windjana Gorge but it is about a 2 hour drive one way over approx 40kms highway and then 64kms corrugated dirt, and given how we were feeling, we decided to continue to push on towards Broome. The kids were great. We were in the car for around 7 hours and they travelled so well - possibly an indicator of how rotten Rory was feeling. Tilda was well after the first couple of days... the rest of us not so much.
Fitzroy River
We stayed at Willare Roadhouse for the night. $38 for power, water and a patch of dirt in the shade.... and diesel was 40c/L more than any servo either side of it! I didn't really have a problem with the accommodation cost - it seems pretty common for the north of Australia, but the fuel - ouch! We only put a bit in to be sure we could get to Broome the next day.
Distances from Willare Roadhouse
We would have liked to see the Bungle Bungles and Wolf Creek Crater.. but the immense distances over corrugated dirt and the fact we'd have to leave our van somewhere while we did it just meant it wasn't feasible this time around. Does that mean we will do this trip again? Possibly! There is so much we would have liked to see but couldn't this time. Next time we would have to be set up for much more serious off-roading so we can do all the things we've skipped this time.
Some random photos of the road west from Kununurra to Willare, just to show you the scenery of the last 800+kms
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