Travellin’ the Gibb.

Tarring the Gibb River Road?
By Matt Brann from Kununurra , WA
Monday, 08/06/2009

The Gibb River Road in far north Western Australia was built in the 1960s to help road trains truck cattle out of the isolated Kimberley pastoral stations.
But these days you're more likely to see a travelling grey nomad on the Gibb then a brahman.
Last year nearly 30,000 people took on the iconic outback track, which runs about 650km from Derby through to Wyndham.
And that number is set to increase as the Gibb continues to be upgraded.
In fact from its very dusty and bumpy beginnings, there is now over 100km of tar on the Gibb River Road.
This year has seen 2.8km of tar slapped on the Wyndham end of the road, and a further 16km will be tarred at the Derby end, near the Ellendale Diamond mine and Napier Ranges.
*****

Travellin’ the Gibb.

They’re bungin’ some tar on the
Gibb River Road
so hooray for the Nomads and their heavy load.

I travelled it once,
a fair time in the past
through Kimberly Country
with horizons so vast.
Rememberin’ Fitzroy and dry bed Halls Creek
lookin’ around needs more than a week.

Fitzroy Crossing as ol’ timers will tell,
perhaps it was spawned from spit out of hell,
bound by the Oscar and Napier Ranges
the ensuing years have rung many changes,
but still you will see - stingray, swordfish and shark –
from back in time when daytime was dark.

A Creek is a Tunnel
of dark hidden treasure,
perhaps a last remnant,
a lost barrier reef.

Make your way slowly
through stoney stilled waters
while colours cascade
to belie your belief.

Some three hundred million
of annual rotations,
was the time when these structures
were forced into relief.

Standing above an alluvial floodplain
are escarpments that rang with the voice of the law - when
Jandamarra
shot his way into this country’s history.

Now
he is recorded in
Kimberley
folklore.


©.Rimeriter.
8/7/11.