Friday, Oct 21, 2005 at 16:24
Hi
Cliff,
Was up there in 2001. Mixed feelings. One has to get a permit from the
Kalumburu office, and it must be approved by an elder or traditional landowner. If the right person is not around, you may have to wait. Cost was $25 for
Kalumburu and another $20 for Carson entry. This may have gone up by now.
There are a lot of conditions attached to the permit as to where you can go and what you can do.
Camping was only allowed at Carson River station (which was very run-down at the time, with only one caretaker in residence).
Camping in the NP was not allowed, which really meant that only day trips could be made out to the
Drysdale River. This meant that hiking or canoeing up the river to the falls was out of the question. The river was fairly ordinary anyway, the surrounds pretty chewed up from cattle (generally unfriendly) and the flies were in their millions. A small
bluff across the other side of the river, but otherwise unspectacular. Further north on the river, the conditions were better and fishing good, but there were too many restrictions. Around the station, the Carson river itself is quite nice in
places, both deep and wide, but it is full of snappy geckoes.
I recommend a phone call to the
Kalumburu office to check on current conditions fof entry.
The track into the NP is described in Ron Moon's
Kimberley book, but after Carson River station, the notes are pretty inaccurate, and I had a lot better luck running off OziExplorer. It's about 40km on from Carson River station.
At the time, Theda station, to the south, were not allowing people into the NP via their station, but I guess a phone call never hurts to see if the situation has changed.
Cheers,
Gerry
AnswerID:
135615
Follow Up By: Willem - Friday, Oct 21, 2005 at 19:26
Friday, Oct 21, 2005 at 19:26
Gerry,
Hmmmm..after reading your comments I am pleased we did the
Kimberley in 1987 when there were no restrictions. In fact we were welcomed by the Traditional Owners and told where the best
camp sites were. Drove across Theda Stn, with permission, to the Carson River and camped there. Then north to Carson River Stn where we were given permission to access the falls at King George River. Camped on
Drysdale River at Carson R Stn. We also drove up to Napier
Broome Bay and ate oysters off the rocks. Then the trip to
Mitchell Falls was good and so was the walk in. We had the place to ourselves and no helicopters or planes flying overhead. But that was before the masses were allowed to buy 4x4's lol
Cheers
FollowupID:
389536
Follow Up By: joc45 - Saturday, Oct 22, 2005 at 12:43
Saturday, Oct 22, 2005 at 12:43
Ahh, those were the days! First did the
Kimberley in 1990, and like you say, we had most of the
places to ourselves, few restrictions.
My worst experience with choppers was at
Mitchell Falls (Merten
Creek campsite) a couple of years later, being woken up at 6am by a nearby chopper, who then warmed his motor for the next 15 mins. And he had taken over the best
camping spot with his chopper and dozens of fuel drums. These
services are a vile blight on the tranquility of remote
camping. At least at the Bungles, the airport is
well away from the
camping sites.
I guess stations are clamping down on access, etc when a few drop-kicks leave their rubbish, cr@p right in the
campsite (seen lots of this) or pollute the
water (went down to the
creek at Merten to collect
drinking water - there was a woman washing her hair in
the pool, detergent everywhere).
Gerry
FollowupID:
389623