Halls Creek

Halls Creek

Isobel told the lady filling up our car (no self service in these parts) that we owned this town because we were Halls. The lady thought this was really funny (thankfully).  We’ve got the obligatory photo of the four Halls in front of ‘their’ town sign!

We got to Halls Creek by lunch and went straight to the art gallery where we knew they were having an open day with a  free lunch!  Lunch was a choice of BBQ roo tail, kangaroo kebabs and kangaroo stew with rice. I had the stew and it was delicious.  I didn’t really like the roo tail but Simon enjoyed it. 

In our short visit, we even managed to catch up with Lew Morris (Uncle Stu’s dad) which was lovely.  We got to see photos of Hamish and swap stories. He’s in Halls Creek for 6 weeks doing some GP locum work.

Some of the local kids were painting on canvases and I asked about it.  Yes, our kids to join in too because it’s all about sharing culture and stories. Our kids had a great afternoon painting on canvas and boab nuts. Fortunately we’d only just decided when we arrived in town rather than hurtling through to get to the Bungle Bungle that afternoon we thought we’d freecamp out of town to give the kids a chance to make some craft for the Kununurra Show.  And because of this decision, we were free to be able to make the most of being at Halls Creek, during NAIDOC week, and joining in such a great day.  

It's a nice little town - it even has a bakery!  I was amazed to see one of supermarkets (it had more than one!) sold squid ink linguine.  Extraordinary.  Most people say to avoid it if you can, but we enjoyed our visit here.  

We camped about 100 km north of Halls Creek beside a dry creek next to the highway.  The scenery around here is just beautiful. And we had mobile reception which was bizarre.  We stayed here two nights and that’s where Simon began to feel unwell.  Packing up this tent is hard work on your own and I can’t do it all on my own either. I convinced Simon to stay in bed and did as much as I  could but need him to help actually fold the roof over and lock it in.  It’s a big, heavy thing and this is it’s biggest drawback.

I drove to Lake Argyle, the other side of Kununurra and I reckon it’s one of the best drives we’ve done on this trip. The scenery and the ranges were just breathtaking.  This East Kimberley, for me at least, is much more stunning than the West Kimberley.  The King Leopold Ranges might be part of a conservation park but the Carr Boyd Ranges and others were just staggering.  My opinion of the Kimberley is changing because of this area – it’s now on a par with the Pilbara!