Day 37 – 25th June – Dampier and Burrup Peninsula

Following some advice we headed to Dampier first thing for a cooked breakfast at a local café.  Not a bad way to start the day… here’s the view from the balcony where we were sitting… 

Of course, any visit to Dampier is not complete without a stop at the Red Dog Memorial. 

From there we turned into the Burrup Peninsula.  Our first stop, Deep Gorge, where we were on the hunt for ancient Aboriginal Petroglyphs (fancy name for rock carvings).  After spending the better part of a week in Karijini, we found the name “Deep Gorge” rather amusing when wandering through the gorge… it pales in comparison with the behemoths we had seen previously. 

It turns out the rock art is prolific and easy to spot… 

As we were walking, Dave and I were commenting on the surprising lack of wildlife we have seen so far on this trip, particularly kangaroos.  Admittedly, we are not driving at dusk or at night but we still expected to see a few roos.  Today we spotted the first… can you find him in the picture? 

Further up the peninsula is the North-West Shelf Gas Project tourist centre, right next door to the processing plant.  It was actually pretty interesting and the kids were given a quiz to complete which forced them to stop and actually read the information… 

A nice sculpture out the front of the visitor’s centre commemorating the lives lost throughout the project.  The sculpture was surrounded by a bed of Sturt Desert Peas.  

Now I look back, it’s funny how excited we were to spot wild budgies and Sturt Desert Peas… now we see both EVERYWHERE…

We had heard the Burrup Peninsula was a pretty spectacular place but we were a little underwhelmed.  Firstly, I wrongly assumed Burrup was some historic Aboriginal word (usually the ‘up’ means water nearby) but it turns out it is named after some white dude named Burrup who  lived in the region and was brutally murdered… Secondly, the landscape it not pretty… instead of towering cliffs and gorges there are mounds and mounds of small-ish rocks.  Have a look back at the photo with the kangaroo… that’s what this whole area looks like…