Perth & Western Australia - Australia 2004 - page 466

town to enjoy a drink, which explains its popularity with locals. The restaurant
is scant on atmosphere but has a long menu, good food, and a nice wine list.
There's a seafood buffet on Friday and Saturday nights. The brick motel rooms
are cool and spacious; the homestead rooms are smaller, older, and more basic.
There are two-bedroom apartments, and across the road are newer three-bed-
room apartments, some with Jacuzzis.
Murat Rd., Exmouth, WA 6707. & 08/9949 1200. Fax [phone]. www.potshotresort.com. 97 units (all
with shower only). A$85 (US$55) double homestead room; A$118-A$129 (US$77-US$84) resort studio room
(sleeps 4); A$139-A$175 (US$90-US$114) 2-bedroom apt; A$195-A$205 (US$127-US$133) 3-bedroom apt.
Maid service in apts A$22-A$33 (US$14-US$21) per day. AE, DC, MC, V. Amenities: 2 restaurants; 4 bars;
3 small outdoor pools; coin-op laundry; hair dryers; irons. In room:A/C, TV, fridge, coffeemaker; no phone in
Homestead rooms only.
IN CORAL BAY
Ningaloo Reef Resort This low-rise complex of motel rooms, studios, and
apartments stands out as the best place to stay among Coral Bay's profusion of
backpacker hostels. Located on a blissfully green lawn with a swimming pool
overlooking the bay, the rooms are nothing fancy or new, but they're clean, with
views toward the bay and the pool. The place has a nice communal air, thanks
to the bar doubling as the local pub.
At the end of Robinson St., Coral Bay, WA 6701. & 08/9942 5934. Fax [phone]. www.coralbay.org/
resort.htm. 34 units, all with bathroom (shower only). A$138-A$143 (US$90-US$93) double; A$175-A$285
(US$114-US$185) apt. Extra person A$11 (US$7.15) adults, A$5.50-A$11 (US$3.60-US$7.15) children. Weekly
rates available. MC, V. Amenities: Restaurant; bar; outdoor pool; coin-op laundry; hair dryers; irons. In room:
A/C, TV, no phone.
6 The Kimberley: A Far-Flung Wilderness ¡
Most Aussies would be hard put to name a single settlement, river, or mountain
within the Kimberley, so rarely visited and sparsely inhabited is this wilderness. This
is an ancient land of red, rocky plateaus stretching for thousands of miles, jungly
ravines, endless bush, crocodile-infested wetlands, surreal-looking boab trees with
trunks shaped like bottles, lily-filled rock pools, lonely island-strewn coastline,
droughts in winter, and floods in summer. The dry, spreading scenery might call to
mind Africa or India. In the dry seadon (the Dry), the area's biggest river, the
Fitzroy, is empty, but in the wet season (the Wet), its swollen banks are second only
to the Amazon in the volume of water that surges to the sea. Aqua and scarlet are
two colors that will hit you in the eye in the Kimberley—a luminous aqua for the
sea and the fiery scarlet of the fine soil hereabouts called “pindan.” The area is
famous for Wandjina-style Aboriginal rock art depicting people with circular hair-
dos that look more than a little like beings from outer space. It is also known for
another kind of rock art known as “Bradshaw figures,” sticklike representations of
human forms, which may be the oldest art on earth. A mere 25,000 people live in
the Kimberley's 420,000 sq. km (1,638,000 sq. miles). That's three times the size
of England.
The unofficial capital of the East Kimberley is Kununurra. It's a small
agricultural town that serves as the gateway to wildlife river cruises; the Bungle
Bungles , a massive labyrinth of beehive-shaped rock formations; and El Que-
stro , a million-acre cattle ranch where you can hike, fish, and cruise palm-
filled gorges by day and sleep in comfy permanent safari tents or glamorous
homestead rooms by night (it's open from Apr to early Nov). The main town in
the West Kimberley is the Outback port of Broome whose waters give up the
world's biggest and best South Sea pearls. Linking Kununurra and Derby, near