Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Bike trip From Kununurra to Broome in 2015

Back in Jun 2015 I went on a bike trip with 15 other riders, one whose husband came along to drive a 4WD with trailer with our camping gear and food for the whole 20 day trip. I had not met any of the other riders but am still good friends with about 5 of them. I rode on a FAT bike with 4 inch tyres and had no issues at all with the bike. I flew to Kununurra and spent 4 days looking around before we all headed off to Derby and 5 of us rode on to Broome, the rest got a lift in a car. Here is a bit of a summary of the trip.







Day one – a great ride doing about 70km’s along dirt tracks, finishing at a camp ground called Mambi Island Boat Ramp. When we got there I walked down to the river with the idea of cooling off but saw what looked like a crocodile and as you can see from the photo it was and it caught a Wallaby. After watching it fight another croc off while a huge Eagle tried to get a bit for himself we decided to not camp under the trees near the boat ramp but about 400 metres away in a cow paddock. It was quite horrible, no shade at all so 16 of us sitting on the side of the car trying to keep out of the sun all afternoon. That night first my cheap Aldi torch that seemed perfect at home died – I think the heat killed it, then my air mattress went down as my sons friends had played with it and my Bengal cat must had got his claw into it. I lay on the hard ground in my tent at 2am in 40 degree heat covered in sweat and dirt with a very sore bum from riding a new bike with new seat thinking what have I got myself in for - I have another 20 days of this.







Day two – a nice ride for about 50km’s into Wyndam. We were staying in a Caravan park with a pool. The only issue was I was one of the first to arrive and the backup car was a long way behind and I didn’t have swimmers with me so had to wait. Once it arrived I had a shower and got into the pool with my mattress and found and fixed the puncture, then walked into town (one petrol station, supermarket and a takeaway shop run out of a house garage for two hours a day) to buy a new torch. That night we rode to the wharf and had dinner in the only other business which was a restaurant with only one thing on the menu – fish and chips and two drinks – Ginger Beer and Mango Smoothie – however the Mango smoothie had won awards and I bought one – it was great. I slept my better without a hole in my mattress but my new torch died after about 10 minutes – I nearly missed out on breakfast the next morning.

Day Three – a nice ride out of town – I left later than everyone else as first I was late packing up my tent after sleeping in and I also waited until 6:00am for the petrol station to open and I bought a different torch. (all up now that place had got over $60 out of me in torches and batteries), We Rode to Diggers Rest along salt flats which was very hot but nice to see. Spent all afternoon fixing a ladies bike. Diggers Rest is where the film Australia was filmed. Bum sore again – so I learnt to carry both swimmers and shorts with me and as soon as possible change out of cycling shorts into something else depending on whether we could swim or not.



Day four – Rode along the Kurunji Track, across the Pentecost river and into Home Valley – a high cost caravan park that had a nice pool. Unfortunately it took a long time to get there as it was a long day so only spent a few minutes in the pool before having to set up my tent before dark. The Pentecost river is full of crocs but the tide was low and we found a pool near the crossing that looked safe so swam there for about an hour waiting for the car to finally turn up.



Day five – Rode to a place called Gregory’s Jump up – basically a patch of dirt at the top of a hill for trucks to pull into, very hot, dusty with no shade. Not a nice place and if the other riders were faster we probably would have gone on further looking for somewhere nicer.

Day six – Rode to a place called Eliingbrae. Has a reputation for Scones with Jam and they were nice but at $8.00 I only had one. We camped there and I was hoping with Scones it would be a bit of luxury but no it had a pit toilet with a heat your own water shower (you light a fire behind the shower block and the water pipe runs through it) and the advertised pool is a very dark dirty water creek that I went in with the others but it didn’t feel safe.

Day seven – rode to another dirt truck turning area that had a no camping sign so we camped 500 metres up the road in the bush.

Day eight – rode to a river 50km’s away which was OK but thought might as well try get to a gorge we were told is very nice. I got there first and some 4WD driving out told me there is no water around here, I was very dirty and hot so not happy but went for a look and found the most beautiful gorge, so went back to find the others and tell them, we went there and a lady in blue dived in just as we saw a croc swimming downstream so she got out straight away and we left, about 500metres away there was another pool with no crocs so we all had a swim – however it had leaches, I found a bit where the water was running faster than the others that had less leaches so cooled off there.