Just a quick run down of Millstream first. Millstream has natural freshwater springs fed from the Fortescue river, creating an oasis in an otherwise arid country. Many plants and trees flourish giving it a real tropical feel. It has an interesting culture and was home to the yinjibarndi people and had a pastoral station from the 1860's till quite recently. The homestead/visitors centre, has been preserved and is an interesting visit.
The walk from our camp to the homestead, was really neat and took us thru many different landscapes.
We started out on a dry river bed, lots of fallen trees and stuff to climb over. Someone had made cairns (stacked rocks) to mark the way and it was very up and down till the creek crossings.
(some of these photos were taken the day before as we had walked a bit of the trek after pitching the tent, you may notice different clothes in the photos, now you know why!)
On the other side of the creek we were in rocky terrain, awesome red Pilbara rocks that looked like each one was hand cut into squares and rectangles, we had to remind Janaya to watch her step as she is very independant, won't hold hands with mum or dad and seems to be in a race to beat everyone, only a few fall ups and a big graze to her elbow but she picked herself up and continued on her race.
After a while we found ourselves walking amongst a peaceful palm grove, very pretty. One particular palm is very rare and unique to the Pilbara but thrive in abundance in Millstream, I believe its called livistona.
Before we had finished enjoying the tranquil trail thru the Palms we were suddenly thrust forth into the barren dry desert (not quite but it felt that way), no trees for shelter just barren earth and dried tufts of grass. The sun was beating down and fatigue had set in for poor Janaya who had gone from head of the pack to a trailing shuffle shuffle bringing up the rear, and the moans of can we go home yet, im sleepy. A quick sip from the camel back to quench the sudden thirst a re shuffle of whos carrying what bag and Janaya was hoist onto Seans Shoulders to enjoy the view. Walking throught this part of the trail, I kind of expected to see a snake slithering here or there or a hungry dingo lurking somewhere or even an aborigini in traditional warrior gear, but no, nothing that exciting just more and more red dust.
Up ahead we could see a forest of green and we had reached the end of the desert in no time, and walked under the canopy of tall gum trees and plenty of green vegetation and grass a bright healthy green, Kahayla remarked how she felt she was back in NZ. hmmm you only had to look at the ground to see that we weren't, yep red dust doesn't escape the greenest of forests.
We reached the homestead (no photos though) and found a picnic table to have our picnic. Then our little fantasy of being so far in the outback was quickly squashed when a big tour bus pulled up in the carpark. Sean and I quickly went inside the homestead to have a look around before the crowds arrived and left the kids outside enjoying their lunch. We managed a quick tour and got back out before most of the tourists arrived and joined the kids. We got talking to a nice ole gent for a while and discovered he was from Taranaki and most of the people on the bus were NZers, they were on a 21 day bus tour from Perth to Darwin. Interesting man and we parted and headed back along the trail to home.
When we got back we decided to brave a swim in the pool/river/watering hole (whatever takes your fancy). Our fellow campers (most from Perth area) had told us it was nice and refreshing and we had seen them spend about an hour swimming that morning. We were hot and dusty so the idea of a swim was a nice one. Sean got one of our empty water containers to use as a floaty as it was very deep and he would be able to swim with Janaya.
Sean jumped in first then Tayden need alot of coaxing as it was cold on his toes, he finally plucked up the courage to dive in a swim out to Sean, he lasted about 2.4 seconds before swimming back to the bank and getting out, he stood there shivering and I thought maybe I'd give it a miss. Then Kahayla dived in and reached Sean and came up crying and carrying on because it was too cold. Sean had to take her back to the bank. I was sure Janaya seeing all this wouldn't even try it but she too lauched herself at Sean but immediately said, I want to hop out I want to hop out. I stood at the bottom of the ladder psyching myself into it, Sean assuring me all the time that its nice once you get in. So I dived in and it felt like ice, I came up and thought I wasn't going to be able to take a breath as it was FREEZING I quickly turned back and headed for the ladder and scurried up to the warmth of my towel. Sean stayed in swimming for a while longer. Crazy man...
Check out the face on Kahayla, she was not happy...
After thawing out we hopped in the truck and went for a bit of a tiki tour. We stopped at a place called deep reach pool, it was alot cleaner that the one back at camp and more inviting but too cold for us to even consider, maybe in summer. It was here that we discovered that one of our spotlights on the truck had broken off the roo bar where it was welded on and was just dangling by the wires.
Then we stopped at Cliff Lookout which looks down on Crossing pool, a fantasic view of the river and beyond.
That night we were treated to the culinary skills of Tayden and Kahayla, mighty fine chefs in the making
Hometime the next day, Janaya was more than happy to be going home, she was filthy as you can see.
We went home a different way, on the Pilbara Iron access road, Sean had to get a permit for us to go down the road, it was a shorter distance but seemed to take us longer. We caught up to an Iron ore train and had to take a photo
We were glad to be home if only to get clean and red dust free...We are going camping again next week out at the Jump up so more photos to come.
