McGowan Island or Honeymoon Bay camp grounds

satyed at Honeymoon Bay in 2002 dry season.
Still very primitive if that's what you mean but we loved it

Honeymoon bay is the one to go to. Still primitive despite the aboriginal owners getting 100s of thousands of dollars for a business grant and waisting it. If it's not waisted I'll be interested as to where they've used it.
Toilets are unisex though which I didn't agree with.
I'll go back again but more self sufficient in the showering department. We went in July '03. Don't expect to run too many appliances off the mains as there were something like 20 plugs running off one outlet.

Was at McGowan's Is. back in the early 90's, before Johnno died, and loved it. Pretty basic, but a magic location and nice people running the place.
Last time ('01) went to Honeymoon. Spoilt by the general junk around the camping area, and the kids playing continous music which could be heard all across the camping area. No one was collecting rubbish or delivering firewood (supposed to be part of the deal). Cut our stay short. The bay was nice, let down by disorganisation.
Wished I'd checked out McGowan's again, tho.
Gerry

Hi Sandie,
That was a good question and I was reading the responses to see if anything cropped up that I could use as an update.

Do you realise that the Trek Notes are the offical area where we keep the current information? I update stuff in there, but of course the diary is a record of actual events so it stays put. There are also updates by other site users in the Trek Feedback section in all trek notes too.

I get input from Anne from Drysdale reguarly to help keep the trek notes for the Kimberley uptodate and also I contact the actual community at Kalumburu directly to ensure we are on top of major changes, however your question was a good one and if things had changed in that regard, we probably wouldn't get that info from the community.

Hi Sandi,
When you say stay nearer the Falls, you mean just go there instead ? The thing is that the disatance between on the map is not much but the time to drive it is, so they are sort of two different runs.
Make sure you go see Father Anscar's museam while there, it is fantastic and if Father does the tour one of the most enjoyable things you will do up here. He has the greatest personality. Normally 10 am weekdays and not expensive at all for the 1.5 hours of guided tour you get.
There have been problems with some of the coast camps but have you considered staying in at the Mission and just drive out the 20/ 30 km to the beaches. I just rang to check for latest with the mission at Kalumburu and got an update about their camp ground.
It isn't at the beach it's at the Mission but as they said , it is clean & green, they even have powered sites now. I personally haven't seen the set up but being the Mission it will be clean and it is amazing that they tell me that they have green grass in the camp ground during the 'dry' . This takes a huge effort and cost.

Per night

Adult $10
child 6 / 15 years =$4
child under 6 = free
Family rate ( Mum Dad & unlimited kids) =$25

They do take bookings ( which we don't)
ph (08) 91 614 333
They also have e-mail, you can get address if you wish to when you phone.
cheers, Anne

Hi Sandi,
I must not have been very clear in my direct reply to you ! If you go to the Mitchell Falls you really can't stay at the Kalumburu Mission they are about a 6 hour or more (each way ) drive apart from each other and that isn't allowing for time required to walk in to the Mitchell Falls. As I said two seperate destinations really.
We do NOT offer heli flights from here they are at the Mitchell Falls Car park ( and very good to) what we have is an aeroplane which belongs to Alligator Airways doing plane flights from here.
Did you have a good read of our web site yet ?
I guess you do realise you need an advance permit for Kalumburu entry and then on arrival have to pay a $30 per vehicle entry fee to the community ( not to the Mission).
Hope this info helps you,
cheers, Anne