Day 11

To Windjana

We’ve just travelled the Gibb River Road, one of the icons of Australian Outback Adventure Travel. 700 kilometres from Derby in the West Kimberley to Wyndham in the East Kimberley.

The Kimberley region of Western Australia was named in 1880 after Lord Kimberley, the then British Secretary of State for the Colonies. Prior to this it was part of that area known simply as North West Australia.

The Kimberley covers an area of approximately 350,000 square kilometres. It is larger than Vietnam, larger than New Zealand, and also larger than the United Kingdom.

It covers an area about the same size as Japan. It represents approximately 14% of Western Australia's area. California is 410,000 square kilometres.

The Kimberley stretches 700 kilometres from west to east (122o to 129o) and about 550 kilometres from north to south (14o to 19o30’). There are only six centres with populations in excess of 1,000 persons. These are Broome, Derby, Fitzroy Crossing, Halls Creek, Wyndham and Kununurra

The towns in closest proximity are Wyndham and Kununurra, 105 kilometres apart. The distance by road from Broome to Wyndham, via the Great Northern Highway, is 1,120 kilometres. Via the Gibb River Road it is ‘only’ 700 kilometres.

Broome is the closest Kimberley town to Perth, distant 2,200 kilometres by road and 1,650 kilometres by air. At 3,200 kilometres by road and 2,170 kilometres by air, Kununurra is the most distant town.

The population density is only 1/10th that of Western Australia as a whole (0.06 persons per square kilometre compared with 0.61).

The Kimberley climate is characterised by two seasons - the "wet" and the "dry" but such a large region obviously has a wide range of climate. The region is in the tropics and subject to monsoonal rains. The annual rainfall varies from 1400mm on the Mitchell Plateau to 400mm on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert (Perth's annual rainfall is 875mm).

This may sound difficult to believe but in this region there are only three roads. In an area that 85% the size of California.  The Great Northern Highway from Broome to Wyndham (a sealed road south of the King Leopold Ranges), the Gibb River Road (a mostly unsealed road connecting the same two points but travelling through the King Leopolds) and the Drysdale River Road from the Gibb River Road to the Mitchell Plateau. No phones, no Internet and only five places selling fuel. The last frontier, a true wilderness.

Hence the delay in updating the site.

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