Wilsons on the road: Wednesday 12 June 2013 - McGowan Island Beach (Kalumburu)

Wednesday 12 June 2013 - McGowan Island Beach (Kalumburu)

We packed up in a leisurely state yesterday morning and set off for Kalumburu. Just before crossing the King Edward River, there’s another little turn-off to some more Aboriginal rock art, so we made a quick stop, had a look and were back on the Kalumburu Road by 9:30am. This leg is much slower going than the Drysdale to Mitchell River turn-off, but wasn’t as corrugated so a bit gentler on the rig. It took us about four hours to get to Kalumburu town itself, travelling about 100km. We had a couple of brief stops, with a lunch break at the Carson River crossing to allow the car to cool down before pushing through the water. The grader driver (who came through just after we pulled up) said it had been much higher a few weeks earlier and had sent his ute a few metres downstream when he’d been testing the water level (he didn’t lose it though).

It was actually quite fortunate that we didn’t arrive in Kalumburu any sooner, because a permit needed to be purchased before we could go anywhere and the shop that sells them doesn’t open until 2pm (they close for a lunchtime siesta)! So we had a little drive around town, then called into the store and grabbed a few groceries and our $50 piece of paper, then hit the dirt for another 25km out to McGowan’s Beach campground, a ‘family-owned’ facility. There are some really good shady spots here, but they were already taken, so we found the best we could get and set up. Then it was time to watch a magnificent sunset on the beach, whilst chatting to the other campers about how good the fishing had been.

Saturday 15 June 2013 - McGowan Island

This place is really starting to grow on us. We moved camp on the second day here (Thursday) after some other people left, but we’re still in the same area. Our original spot was quite sunny and hot, but the one we nabbed has heaps of shade, is closer to the water and a tiny bit closer to the toilet block too.

Glenn’s caught fish to eat every day except today (although he reckons he threw out about 30 trevally and other ‘junk’ this afternoon) and the girls have been out for lots of little boat trips as well. We’ve met some really lovely people here and last night we had a seafood feast with them – oysters kilpatrick for starters (the oysters here are massive!), calamari entree followed by foil-steamed fish (cooked on the fire) for mains, with a few salads and foil-fired spuds on the side. A pretty hard life.

The girls are having an absolute ball here as well, latching onto our new friends with no hesitation (Yasmin is at times a little too intimate). The only drawback is they can’t swim in the water. Stingers are a mild threat, but the real concern is the dirty great big croc we’ve seen cruising around (twice!). The beach is quite steep so they can’t even paddle in the shallows at low tide, unlike some of the other beaches around here. But if they’re hot, there’s a couple of sprinklers to cool off in, plus we can fill an esky with water if they need it. Today was pretty cool all morning though, with a fairly brisk breeze blowing.

The other bonus of our relocated camp is that being right near the water, all the little hermit crabs come out at night and cruise around on our floor mat. The girls love collecting them in a bucket (then releasing them a few minutes later). There’s also a few dingoes nearby, nothing to worry about though, and some other guys said there was a bull traipsing through their site the night before we arrived!

In the water, apart from the snappy lizard mentioned above, Glenn, Yasmin and Nathan, one of the other campers, had a little altercation with an 8 foot tiger shark. Fortunately it didn’t actually get into the boat and the only casualty was the bent hook Nathan caught it on. We’ve also seen lots of fluffy pink jellyfish and Nathan’s wife Mel saw tiny little pulsing jellies in the rock pools – about as big as her thumbnail she said – which to me sound a lot like irikandji.