Episode 4 ended in camp on the Berkeley River. I think it's day nine now. And fortunately, after nine days, the Fuso is leaving two hours earlier, at 6:00. We're leaving at 8, so that they get a bit of a head start, because the two or three hours we wait every day is exactly the time we don't have in camp.
These camp spots are beautiful, and there's hardly enough time to really enjoy them, unfortunately. I definitely enjoy the driving, that's great. But I don't enjoy standing around for hours waiting. Obviously, with a mixed group, you always have people who need more help and some who need less. It's okay within reason.
I don't know what it is, but I really enjoy getting the fire going again in the morning from the embers of last night. It's a bit of a challenge for me, and I find it very satisfying.
A small burn and a rag on the air intake
A little burn, nothing big, tiny, but I just don't want to get it infected out here, so I always carry my first aid kit. For years now I've been using the Survival first aid kit. There are some wound closure strips in there, extra good to have, and everything is labelled. I purchased the first one myself, but they have provided me a few kits since. Usually I like to leave a burn in the air, but given that I'm dealing with a lot of dirt, I put a plaster on.
We were just about to leave when Matt remembered he'd left a rag at the air intake pipe to protect it. Personally, I don't tend to service air filters in the bush. They're there to filter the air, and I leave them to do their job unless I really feel the performance suffer, which I never have. I think opening the air filter introduces more issues than it solves.
It was held up by the airflow sensor in there, so nothing was destroyed.
Washouts and wheelbase
One thing you really got to be aware of on the Oombi track, and I guess that's why I wouldn't necessarily want to drive it at night, is that you have a lot of horizontal washouts in the road. They can be from 30 centimetres to a metre deep, and one to two metres wide. Some are very narrow, so if you hit them at speed, it's very easy to really damage your front end.
It's interesting here with the wheelbase. A lot of these washouts actually favour a long wheelbase, because your front is already up and a bit further, so your departure angle at the rear is a bit shallower. With my shorter wheelbase, I reasonably often connect with my tow bar. But I also have the recovery hook hanging down, and that usually makes first contact, then comes the tow bar. The tow bar is pretty solid and would have taken quite a few hits over time.
A much better driving day
In today's drive the terrain changed quite a bit. We were in a lot more open country, not that many rocky sections or hill climbs and no real obstacles.
Today's a much better day. Unfortunately it took nine days to get to that. The Fuso left two hours earlier at 6:00, and now it's 10:43 and I haven't caught up with him yet. That is much better driving. We have a decent speed and it's a much more pleasant drive without the constant stops.
After pretty much no wet creek crossings all day, we came to one that looked fairly deep. Everyone else in the group had already gathered on the other side to watch, so I assumed it would be an interesting one. It was 35-inch tyre deep. The ground underneath was fairly hard with good traction, so it was an easy crossing.
Here comes the mud
Here we are at the first of the big mud puddles. Nick drove straight through the first one. Devo got stuck only a few metres in and needed a gentle snatch to get through.
I certainly enjoy watching this, especially the V8s going full throttle through the mud. It's just not my cup of tea. I've done plenty of mud driving in my early days, but I know the mess it makes, the damage it can do, and the effort to clean the car afterwards. So these days I avoid mud whenever I can and have no problem taking the sensible line.
I've developed a bit of a different approach to mud driving. I don't just put the right foot down anymore, because in my experience, while you do need some wheel spin to clean the tyre tread, too much wheel spin, similar to a drift car, achieves the opposite and prevents traction.
So I throttle the power on and off, keeping just enough momentum to have forward motion, with short throttle bursts to clean the tyres in between. I find that creates the least mud splatter and makes the clean-up afterwards the easiest, and it allows me most of the time reasonable control over the car.
GME
I want to thank GME for sponsoring this episode. I've been relying on GME gear for over a decade now. My first PLB from GME I bought over 12 years ago. These days I use their newer PLBs, and I actually have three of them: one in each vehicle and one in my hiking backpack. To be honest, I wouldn't go anywhere remote without a PLB.
In my Land Cruiser I run two fixed GME UHF radios, one for our group channel and one for the designated area channel. The handheld units are equally essential. During technical driving we're constantly using them for spotting, and when my kids were younger they always had a handheld with them at camp.
A patch of rainforest
Quite a change of scenery. All of a sudden there's a piece of, I don't know, rainforest, but very green, with palms scraping the rear. It's just a short little piece, because most of the other stuff is open bush and not as green.
Interesting things we heard here: 4WD Action was here a little while ago and apparently made quite a bit of a mess. We saw some tracks pushed where you're not supposed to push tracks, and it created a lot of animosity between the different groups, from what I heard. Unfortunately, now you can't camp on top of the falls anymore.
Oomarri
Our next stop was something I was really looking forward to: the visit to Oomarri. I do have quite an interest in the Indigenous history of Australia, even more so after I met my wife, who has several generations of Bardi mob ancestry, which obviously also reflects on my kids. So I was glad we could visit Oomarri with Warwick on our own trip.
Oomarri is a significant Gwion Gwion site on the King George River. It was a substantial living area, a cultural landscape, and a large archaeological occupational complex. It was the birthplace and ancestral country of the late Kwini Elder Ambrose Mungala Chalarimeri, who came back and relocated the place again in 1998, after being removed from it as a child.
The paintings here are extremely fine Gwion Gwion figures with elegant limbs and detailed adornments. They typically show ceremonial dancers wearing tassels, sashes and headdresses, ancestral beings connected to the Kimberley creation stories, and social scenes, not hunting scenes. You see the movement in the elongated limbs and flowing garments.
This location on the King George River really looked like paradise, and it's easy to see how it would have been a favourite area for the Indigenous people back in the day. Like with so many places here, I would have loved to spend more time listening, learning and simply being present. We spent around an hour and a half at Oomarri. I could have stayed there half a day at least, I have to say.
The old airport and camp before the falls
We had a quick stop at the old airport, and there were still quite a few full kerosene drums lying around. This gave the Canter a chance to catch up with us. The truck's tyres have suffered a bit more.
By this time it was again around 6:30, and we were still easy two hours away from King George Falls, so Nick found us a nice open plain for the night's camp, about 25 kilometres before the falls.
Dinner was something quick. I tried the red curry chicken. I really like the Campers Pantry stuff: five-year shelf life, only good ingredients. Obviously it's a freeze-dried meal, but of all these meals that's probably my favourite taste-wise. That's an affiliate link.
Today was another very long day, but driving versus standing-wise it was actually quite good. We spent an hour and a half at Oomarri, then had probably 45 minutes for lunch, which gave the Canter a chance to catch up, and we didn't have to wait to get to camp, as the Canter arrived an hour after us and camps at its own pace. Albeit long, we didn't waste half the day standing around waiting. It worked quite well for the Canter to leave two hours earlier.
Morning, and a light bar that tilts
Another early morning, camping here a few kilometres from King George Falls. I probably should have put my fly on, because it was a bit dewy, but I have an oiled wool blanket on top, and that means my sleeping bag is dry. It's a nice camp, there's a little creek there, and I wouldn't have minded a wash either. Unfortunately we arrived in camp again very late, so I hardly had time to set up. That seems to be happening often on this trip. Not much time in these beautiful camps.
Unfortunately, the brackets of my Lazer Glide light bar simply do not hold up with the corrugations. I've already tightened them galore, but they have no grooves. They only have one resting screw, and that means with heavy corrugation the light bar constantly tilts down, which is a bit of a bummer.
This light bar is designed more for road cars really. It was meant originally for the Porsche, but it's too much hassle to fit it there, so I thought I'd try it here. I think I'm going to change it back to the Linear Elite and not the Glide Elite. Otherwise, they all work well.
Big shout out to my sponsor, Kilos. Without them this trip wouldn't be happening. Oombi is a very expensive one. I bought the first Kilos chair myself before any sponsorship. Now they support me with chairs and the Rover Camp Light X. Sponsored or not, at present it's my preferred lightweight chair and camp light, and I use them every day on this trip. That's an affiliate link, and I have a full review of the Kilos camp chair and the Rover Light X.
The road into King George Falls
The road into King George Falls is probably the worst piece of the whole track. I got caught out three times now by ant mounds or rocks you hardly see, because they're covered in grass. It's so windy, and then you have stretches where you can actually pick up speed, so you've got to be damn careful.
Nothing dramatic, but harder hits than I like. One was wedged into the slider. So I'm driving even a bit slower now and watching more carefully. I watch carefully anyway, but they sit into the road half hidden by the grass, and it's super easy to miss them.
King George Falls
We walked down to the top of King George Falls. The river was named in 1911 by Charles Conigrave, after King George V, and the twin falls drop over the sandstone into tidal water. They're actually Western Australia's highest twin waterfall.
Down the bottom you can see boats. Those are Kimberley cruise boats coming in from the sea, from Broome or Wyndham, and they come up the gorge from the mouth of the ocean when the tide is high. It's very touristy down there, but up here it's like two different worlds, just separated by a cliff. Here it's only us, and the only way to the top by land is the Oombi track.
We went for a good swim and spent around two hours here. Bryce was having some power steering issues, but fortunately the mobile mechanic sorted it.
The Fuso's tyre
We were on the track again, driving towards the Drysdale River, but it wasn't long before we had another stop because of a tyre issue.
The Fuso had a flat a day and a half ago, and it was fixed with Glue Thread, which I also carry in my car. However, the tyre was prepped with a grinder, which we now know isn't the right way, as it creates too much heat. Glue Thread actually provides a drill-type wire brush for the preparation, but it wasn't at hand. Still, the patch lasted a day and a half, so it definitely got him out of trouble.
But now it gave up, so it was time for a tyre change. I didn't really check how old the tyres were, but one of the spares also bulged and didn't look really serviceable. Fortunately there were two spares, so the second one was used. Nick and Devo were on the tools within minutes, and the tyre change happened fairly quickly.
The Drysdale River
So we finally made it to the Drysdale River, which would be the last camp for us on the track. We arrived at the golden hour with excellent light, but unfortunately had to wait another 35 minutes for the Canter to catch up with the rest of the group.
The Drysdale River crossing turned out to be long but easy. Today's camp was right next to the river on the large sandbanks, again an absolutely stunning camp with some beautiful swimming spots, but by the time we were in camp and had set up, the light was already gone.
I noticed it got way colder, and that was the coldest night we had. I even had to get my jumper out.
Next episode: we finish the official Oombi track, Nick shares some secret swimming holes, we visit Mertens Falls and Mitchell Falls, and Nick tries to tow a semi up the hill. The series is on YouTube.
