2016 Tour – Part 5 – Punmu to Marble Bar

Heading west from Punmu after refuelling we found a fabulous camp spot on the edge of Lake Dora, thanks to the guidance of a well travelled ex work colleague. Thanks Mike.

Camped on Lake Dora west of Punmu

Exploring Lake Dora in the evening light

We had asked in Punmu the viability of us driving into Desert Queen Baths in Rudall River NP and received conflicting information. One of the Aboriginal Elders advised us not to go in with our rigs but the White guy, who seems to manage the Store and Fuel plus administration of the community, spoke to us on the side and said we should drive in and that it would not be much of a problem. Added to this we had run into a convoy of 4 vehicles with off road trailers who told us that they had driven in to the Queen Baths a year ago and left their trailers at the turn off to the Baths. Their advise was to not drive in with our campers. Knowing that the difficulty of a track is very subjective we decided to throw caution to the wind and head in to the baths with our campers. So after breaking camp at Lake Dora we headed past the Newcrest gold mine at Telfer and then directly south into the park.

It was now Wednesday the 29^th and we reflected that except for a few local community vehicles we had only seen one convoy of 4 travellers and one other single tourist vehicle in six days. One stretch of 48 hours we had seen no vehicles at all.

The drive into Rudall River NP was very scenic and the road into the Desert Queen baths was sensational.

The track was a little testing especially for our Quantum Camper as there were bushes and trees encroaching on the track scratching both car and camper. But hey! We bought the fleet we have to go to these places and getting upset with a few scratches on the car and camper is not on the agenda.

While it was far too cold to consider swimming in the baths the walk up the gorge to the upper pools was fabulous.

After 2 nights we set off back out of the park and headed for Carawine Gorge.

It would have been nice to explore the southern end of the park but we were keen to spend some time at Carawine Gorge and Upper Carawine Gorge.

As luck would have it the Camp spot at Carawine that Chris and I had enjoyed in 2014 was again vacant and a fair distance from other campers. Sensational!

It was such a fabulous spot we decided to chill out for 3 days and 4 nights.

Camped at Carawine Gorge

Di and Chris enjoy the solitude

Evening view from our Carawine Camp

We had found out from a fellow traveller that water was no longer running at Upper Carawine Pool (the result of Woodie Woodie mine no longer pumping pristine water into the Oakover River) and so decided that instead of camping at Upper Carawine, we would do a day trip to Skull Springs, Running Waters (including the Eel Pool) and Upper Carawine. The photos and video are pretty much all that is needed to describe the days events.

After our 4 nights at Carawine we headed for Marble Bar. Marble Bar is not a very large town but it is quite unique. We stayed in the towns camp ground for 2 nights. Visited the “Marble Bar” which is actually a bar of Jasper but was originally thought to be marble.

Lunch on the Nullagine River while headed for Marble Bar

Visited the disused Comet Gold Mine museum and filled up with fuel and a few meager supplies. Next stop, Newman via Nullagine.