Gibb River Trip 2025 Blog #8

THE LAST LEG

Well I should probably rename this trip as Jack and I have decided to can the GRR and Arneham Land part of the journey. The Kimberly region of WA has had a late monsoon season and a lot of rain has been dumped on the Gibb River Road making it a mess with swollen creek crossings and churned up road. In reality we could probably still manage it but because of some closures a lot of people have delayed their trip along it and are now flocking to the area. Eeek, we’re not interested in cueing up to visit the stations and gorges, maybe another time.

The Arnhem Land part of the trip was always an add-on but is booked out and because it would be impossible for us to give an exact date to arrive there is no way we could guarantee our arrival for the booked dates. Plus an explosion in the fees we decided to give the GRR & that part of the trip a miss.

That means that we no longer have to travel further north than we are and can make our way back across the bottom half of the country. We’ll save the GRR for another day, probably attack it from the north as the south can consider itself well and truly done, which was the main focus of the trip anyway.

Last Night we stayed at Paynes Find (another gold mining town) and drove further north this morning. This was the Moon early this morning.

Truck spare parts.

The Roadhouse at Payne’s Find.

Have a look at this truck Luke, how many wheels can you count, I reckon there’s 108. These trucks are even longer than the maximum allowed here at 60 metres (with a special permit). There are quite a few.

Currently we are in a little Aboriginal Boarding School called Karalundi, about 50Kms north of Meekatharra. The school has set up a camping ground at the front to get some extra revenue. This is a school started by the 7th Day Adventists to assist these kids that come from turbulent homes. 

Meek has a reputation of lawlessness and vandalism. Itinerant aboriginal kids stealing and causing mischief. Reading reviews from fellow campers has put us off staying in town and driving through you can see the evidence of this. During school hours there was a gang of kids loitering around the town and although they weren’t causing a problem this was probably because there was a police car parked on the other side of the road.

Karalundi is a nice quiet Christian school and alcohol and smoking is not allowed, so I’m drinking inside the van watching the test cricket and Jackie is outside writhing with withdrawal symptoms because she’s not allowed to smoke. This is a very stressful time for me, mainly because Australia just lost their 4th wicket for 70-odd runs, I mean why OH WHY did they pick Khawaja in the team, and then to pick Green who hasn’t played in 2 years! This is the World Championship! Lucky I have plenty of beers to watch it with.

Plus Jack looks like she needs to be put into a straight jacket. I might buy her some nicotine patches tomorrow.

Tomorrow we head back south through Meekatharra again, dodging the hail of rocks thrown at us and we’ll move on to Wiluna, another Outback town. We will have to retrace our steps back though Kalgoorlie (YIPEE another peek at the SuperPit) but there is an abandoned mining town that is supposed to be pretty good, called Gwalia, so we’ll have to explore that one.

Meekatharra to Wiluna 180Kms of dirt road. 

2 trucks pulling this train engine.

Meekatharra picture theatre.

There is going to be some serious car and van cleaning when we get home. Update: I spent 3 days cleaning the car and 2 cleaning the van. Still not done.

A mini-superpit at Leonora. This is the backyard of the mine manager’s cottage. You wouldn’t want to kick your footy over the fence, it’s about a kilometre to the bottom.

Some of the abandoned cottages at Gwalia ghost town.

This is what’s left of the p[ublic swimming pool at Gwalia. Closed in the 50’s due to contaminated water (poliomyelitis).

The original mine head at Gwalia.

The old pub at Gwalia. In the 60’s they closed the gold mine and everyone just jumped onto the train, left their stuff in the houses and went south tp Kalgoorlie. It’s sort of spooky.

This is the mine manager’s cottage at Gwalia where Herbert Hoover was working in his 20’s. He went on to become the president of USA.

Leonora (Gwalia) mini SuperPit.

Another shot of the windmills at Penong on the way home,

I couldn’t resist another peek at the SuperPit at Kalgoorlie. It truly is breathtaking.

This is what y one of these dumpsters looks like if it was on the road.

that’s the bucket of one of the loaders, worth well over a million $$$

Well we made it home, albeit a bit earlier than we had anticipated but that’s OK, I’m already planning the next big one. This time we’ll go from the north, book Arneham Land well in advance and try to beat the monsoons on the GRR.

We’ve been home for a few days now and have spent the time cleaning and unpacking. When we left Perth we covered 4,500 Kms in 8 days, 13,363 Kms all up in 6 weeks. Not our biggest road trip but it’s up there.

I did some fairly long drives to get home in that time, early morning and nights are definitely the worst as the kangaroos are everywhere. We were lucky that we didn’t hit any this time but it was close a few times.