Driving the Oombi Track – Days 3 & 4

I was thinking about whether to start this blog with “We set the country alight today”, or “Fuck this is rocky country”, or even “The temperature range here is phenomenal”.

All those statements are true, and I’ll get back to them, but I think my best starting line is:

I just lost my phone out the door of the helicopter while flying over the Kimberley

I’d like to feel sorry for myself, but fuck there’s a lot of privilege in that sentence!

First of all, I’m in the Kimberley in an area that very few people get to see. And I was in a helicopter flying over it. It’s not cheap or easy to get here, and I nearly didn’t make it. Fortunately I know some very good people, who all did things to make sure I did. And I am very grateful. It is an amazing experience.

But to go back to the beginning.

After a day spent at the Durack River swimming (or at least sitting in the rock pools at the edge of the river), relaxing, fixing cars and set ups, everyone was keen to get on the road again. Everyone was up, breakfasted, packed up and ready to go by 8.30, which given it’s light by 5.30 isn’t really that early, but nobody’s in a hurry here. It’s Kimberley time.

We took off in convoy, and set the country alight. Literally.

As we drove out of the campsite, Ronnie, whose country this is, gave the instructions “Can whoever is last out throw a match out the window please?”

A few of the blokes were fighting to be last in the convoy.

Our guide, Ronnie, is a local elder, and now is burning time. When it’s not too hot and the growth is still green enough to keep the fires from burning too long and too hot, it’s time to burn the dry undergrowth to allow for new growth and prevent wildfires from being able to take control. And to get rid of the spear grass and spinifex!

Every so often another instruction would come through the comms “Whoever’s last, when you pass the [identifying landmark] can you light it up again please?”

Of course, the pyromaniacs among us were only too happy to oblige.

And it literally is that easy. Throw a match out the window and it takes immediate hold in the dry grasses. You can hear it crackling as the fire spreads. It’s a definite skill, learned through tens of thousands of years of practice, to know when and where to light that fire so it does what it’s supposed and burns out when and where it should. Because they do burn out. We must have lit 5-6 fires, and they were all out by evening.

Though the one that started getting close to us while we were stopped for lunch was a bit of a worry. Except for Ronnie. He shrugged his shoulders and said “nah, that won’t come over here.” And it didn’t.

Which leads on to – fuck this is rocky country. Very rocky.

The Suzuki somehow got the nickname The Dusty Washing Machine. I won’t say it was entirely unearned. In the Suzi you feel every bump. Even when driving on highways! In the outback, on dirt roads you get tossed around like you’re in a washing machine, and the soft top really isn’t very efficient at keeping dust out. But I love it.

I’m in a much more comfortable car this time, but driving this rocky track we’re getting tossed around a lot more. It’s not the vibrations like when you’re going over corrugations. This is just back and forth from one side to the next as the car tips first one way then the next over the rocks. You have to protect your head from hitting the window all the time.

It’s very slow going. We’d been on the road for an hour this morning and had only gone 8k. Most of the time the speedo doesn’t even register the speed.

But that means I have a lot more time to look out the window at the scenery. And it is magnificent. That’s the main reason I wanted to do this trip. To get into country you can’t get to any other way.

There are not enough superlatives to describe it.

We’ve already been swimming at 3 places inaccessible otherwise, and watched the sun rise and set over places nobody else sees. And we’re only on day 4.

I’ve swum in waterholes surrounded by waterlilies and the red Kimberley rocks. With crocodiles swimming in there along with me. Freshies of course. I wouldn’t swim with salties. Well, except for sitting in the rock pools on the edge of the Durack. There was definitely a 4 ½ metre croc in there, we’d seen it hanging around. But we trusted the general knowledge that “crocs don’t cross rocks”.

We all got out safely, so I guess it’s true.

So onto my third proposed opening line – the temperature range here is phenomenal. Over 30^o during the day and down to 15 at night. I’ve had to get the doona out to keep us warm. The fleecy blanket I brought for the tropics just isn’t cutting it.

I woke up this morning to an amazing sunrise over the red rocks and the rock pool we’re camped by. I even took a video of it, with the sound of the birds welcoming the morning.

But I lost it all when my phone flew out the door of the helicopter.

First thing this morning we had a helicopter fly in from a nearby station to give us tours of the area.

Of course, that’s something I can’t knock back, so I did a helicopter flight over the Kimberley. A very remote part of the Kimberley. I was on the first flight.

Of course, we had the general safety briefing “don’t put anything outside the helicopter or you might lose it.

I listened. Honestly I did. And honest to god, I wasn’t holding the phone outside the door. But I was just inside it and trying to take a photo behind us. I guess it was just at that angle where the wind got in behind the phone, took it out of my hands, and took it away to … somewhere.

When I got back and was telling the story a couple of people said, quite seriously, do you have “find my phone app?”. As if we could just go out and pick it up after it fell from 1,800 feet. Or that the helicopter pilot would stop and pick it up on one of his other trips.

But it’s gone, c’est la vie. Shit happens. When I get back to Katherine I’ll get another one and hopefully find out that my footage has uploaded to the cloud and I still have all my contact numbers. If not, bad luck.

Now it’s time for a glass of champagne and another swim in the rock pool. With the fresh water crocodiles that live in there.