Wolf Creek Crater

Big day today. We packed up ready to leave our van somewhere overnight and camp out at the Bungle Bungles.(Later the Halls Creek information centre gave us a brochure to say the area was the home of the Bungles Bungle...) We have been carrying a tent on the roof of the car the whole trip and this was our chance to use it.  It was a bit stressful packing all that we would need for overnight into the land cruiser - a bit like the packing for the trip in the first place.  Eight sleeping bags went into the car, along with pasta, toothbrushes, dried peas, lots of water, gas stove, pot etc etc. Finally we headed just across the road from the free camping spot to the road that leads in to the bungle bungles.  It was a a dirt track with a few river crossings, hence the need to leave the van for the night.

As we turned in, we realized there was a gate across the road with a closed sign on it.  There were some people there, and they told us they had just been escorted out of the park after spending the night on the ranger's verandah while the park staff fought some bush fires.  We weren't about to be going in to the bungle bungles any time soon.

We decided to continue driving south to Halls Creek and go out to the Wolf Creek Meteorite Crater for the day instead.  so on we drove, another 108 kms, where we filled up with fuel, spoke to the lady in the visitor centre, and tried to work out where to leave our van while we drove the 112kms down the dirt on the Tanami track, and a further 23kms on a worse dirt track  out to the crater.

The police station was closed (it was Sunday, but I think they may have all been out on call), so we drove around looking for a caravan park. The one we found was just red dirt, as far as the eye could see. There was a besser block bunker, overgrown with some creeper, and a little door with an obscured sign declaring the office open, so I stepped inside to ask how much it would cost to leave our van for the day. (you don't really just want to leave the van by the side of the road for a few hours - it may not be there when you get back.)

When I went inside the office, it was like entering Alladin's cave.  There were things everywhere, crammed in from floor to ceiling, spread over about three rooms.  Food, jewellery, toys, camping gear, groceries, ear piercing ear studs, ice blocks, light bulbs - I think they had everything in there you could ever eant - at a price! It was just such a shock to walk through the door, because there was no big sign or advertising outside, or even a window,  in fact, if you weren't aware of it you'd never know it existed. I've noticed this is the same in most places out here. A tin shed with a grill over the door. Small faded sign that you probably can't read, but inside full to the brim with treasure.

Anyway, the caravan park in Halls Creek very kindly allowed us to leave our van for the day, so we set off, very hot and cranky, down the Tanami track towards the crater.

Something about corrugated dirt roads really wears me out.  You shake until your teeth rattle in your head and bits start to fall off the car.  Grant loves to speed over the top of the corrugations and then skid to a halt just before a dip in the road, to check if we will bottom out or not. After about an hour we had all had enough, but we were only half way.

The landcruiser on the Tanami Track...just after seeing the snake.

After an hour and a half of driving on the Tanami road, we turned off onto a rougher road, which we hoped wasn't someone's driveway.  The crater was a little hard to find.  A few times we stopped, scratching our heads as we tried to work out if we were going the right way.  The last confusion was caused by two gates, next to each other, with a sign right in the middle that said it was the Wolf Creek Crater National Park.  No arrow.  Nothing on the gate.  the gate on the left was rusted with two reflective triangles on it.  The gate on the right was painted white with a sign on it that said Please shut the gate.  I said it had to be the left one, because the map had a left turn on it.  Grant said right because it looked better.  In the end we took the right hand gate, but only because I told Grant to go and read  the fine print on the please shut the gate sign, and it was printed by the same people who printed the main sign to the park.  Grant was right. A male must have planned the signs for the park!

Joseph was joyful to be able to open gates for us!

We pulled up in the middle of nowhere, beside an information shelter, with a little hill to one side.  It was a bit miserable.  But, we thought we may as well head up the side of the crater since we were here.  Well actually, we thought we'd better catch up to Joseph, Dominic and Oskar who were scrambling up the side of the crater like mountain goats. It was a steep climb over loose rocks, but at the top, the view inside the crater was amazing.

The view from the rim of the Wolf Creek Meteorite Crater, WA.

 At 850m across, it is the second largest meteorite crater in the world. We followed Oskar down the side and into the bottom of the crater, where there were concentric circles of grass, trees, and white salt. The kids all tasted the salt (it was the consistency of icing sugar) until I vaguely recalled that some poisons are salty to the taste.  I'm a bit paranoid this trip.

Back up the side and out, following Oskar all the way who was making a bit of a dash for the facilities (which weren't much to dash for).

We debated camping out by the crater for the night, but it didn't really appeal to most of us, so back into Halls Creek we went, two hours on the dirt road. Sorry Grant!

It actually turned into a lovely drive.  It was cooler in the afternoon, we saw lots of wildlife, a beautiful sunset all the way home, and we knew our caravan would be waiting for us.

The sunset was beautiful on the Tanami Road

We actually saw more wildlife on this stretch of road than we've seen for a long time.  Lots of different birds; galahs, corella parrots, finches, kites, an emu that ran across the road right in front of us, and a huge black and white eagle sitting on a bit of road kill, that didn't even fly off when Grant swapped sides of the road and drove right up to it.
We saw kangaroos, several of which jumped in front of us, and a big green coloured snake that was wiggling across the road.
What we didn't see a lot of was cars. In the two hours driving in to the crater we passed two land cruisers coming the other way (that seems to be the only car our here, a land cruiser....), and othe way back we passed one car, then a petrol tanker road train who put up so much dust we had to stop for a minute before we could see where the road was. We felt very remote.

By the time we reached Halls Creek it was dark and we quickly went and picked up the van.  I didn't want to stay in the dusty caravan park, so we filled up at the petrol station, pumped up our tyres, and headed out Duncan Road, another rough, dirt track, 15kms to Caroline Pool to camp at a free camp spot for the night. The road was dark and windy, and at every curve, trees shaped like monsters and screaming heads loomed out of the darkness as they were picked out by our weak headlights. The wind picked up and we finally found a lonesome spot, on the side of an almost dried out river, with no one there but us.  At first we were a bit scared - there was a red glow on the horizon and Katie thought it might be a bushfire, but we were so tired, we cooked our spaghetti, ate it and went to bed.  Actually some of us went to bed before the spaghetti, hey Oskar.
It turned out to be a lovely day.