Somewhere we wanted to go , but never made it , was out to another Prison Boab Tree . It's about 30klms out from Wyndham , so that's where we headed today . Getting to the turnoff , we headed across the mud flats , but first there was the Kapok flowers again .
This is the road across the mudflats
This is looking back to the Bastion Range - the buildings are the airport , and Wyndham town is more to the left .
Boabs grow very well up here , they are everywhere .
We finally got far enough away from the airport to get these aerial shots of King River as it winds it's way through the tidal mudflats . Wyndham is in the top middle .
This is looking south to the Coburn Range over King River .
A little further up the track , we came across a concrete causeway - we thought , how good would this look with water coming over it - turns out ( as we discovered a bit further along the road ) it is actually the spillway for the Mochalabra Dam which supplies Wyndham's fresh water !
We turned in toward the dam , crossed a dry creek twice and found this picnic ground with the compulsory Boab .
Then we got to the dam wall , and some views from above . Again , this is looking straight back toward Wyndham .
This is the access road to the dam wall . There's also some rock art in the cliffs middle left .
And here's that spillway from above , and the King River Rd .
Back down the track and a bit of a scramble over some rocks , we found a rock art site , ripple stone also very prominent here .
Here's some of the art work .
And some more .
We had what looked like a moth fly around us , until it landed beside me . Everytime I took a photo , it tilted it's wings toward me - must have wanted me to photograph it .
Peaceful doves were coming in for a drink in the creek .
Another 4 kms up a rocky & corrugated section of road , we found the Prison Boab .
And from above with the Coburn Range in the background .
Apparently the police used to ride their horses up this way and arrest people along the way , overnight before their arrival into Wyndham , they would place the prisoners in the tree . The tree is hollow , but I wouldn't like to be inside it with 4 or 5 others for a night - it would be cosy !
This is also the King River - the freshwater section
The landscape up here is extreme - the flat area's are dusty with fine silt washed down the rivers from the hills . The hills , as you can see , are basically rocks and lots of them .
The Coburn Range are so impressive , we've seen them from the air , and from the Gib River Rd on the other side , and we're still amazed .
On the way back to town , we took the short cut across the mudflats - just like all the locals obviously do !!
This is back at the old Townsite at the port - all the old shops out here are closed & are empty , with a couple that have some people living in them . The old hospital is on the right just past the 2nd Boab .
About 1klm up the road is the gazetted Wyndham Townsite , it was done in 1886 . The town plan was elaborate , and this was the first and only building that was commenced . The walls are still there , but it's only about one third of the full house . Windows and doors were never fitted and the town never took off - this is all that remains . The 5 Rivers Lookout is on the mountain behind .
We followed an old track that took us to a navigation marker and would have taken us around the ranges & back to the Great Northern Hwy if we'd have continued on it - we didn't , it was way too rough . But before we left I got got some aerial shots of the tidal flats .
Nearly looks like coming from Albion Park toward the escarpment up to Robertson in NSW , but it's not 😃 , it's Coburn Ranges again .
Back up to the lookout for sunset - not too bad either !!
