Happy New Year from the Middle of NOWHERE!

You heard me...THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.  I kid you not. 

That little cluster to the left is Kalumburu, Australia: a remote, aboriginal settlement some 350 kilometers from any nearest city or town.  That's the King Edward River nearby and the Timor Sea just 26 kilometers off in the distance.  Only 400 people live here.  It is only accessible by plane.  It has one road connecting it to the nearest town, only open 6 months out of the year. 

This place is REMOTE. 

So what are we doing?  There is a community store that services the whole settlement -- anything from toys, vehicle parts, food, you name it.  We are doing just about everything in the store, which ranges from being a cashier to preparing take-away meals to a full-day's work unloading a barge in 100+ Fahrenheit weather. 

We arrived here in the middle of December from Perth.  Our journey was a 2-day affair.  The picture you see above was from the small, 4-seater propeller plane we took to get here.  We took 3 different planes, each progressively smaller the closer we got.

From Perth.

From Broome to Kununurra.

From Kununurra to Kalumburu, with our pilot Chris. 

The flight from Kunururra to Kalumuburu was about 75 minutes.  I spent most of the time chatting with our pilot.  Having never flown in such a small plane, sitting across from the pilot was quite a rush. You feel each gust of air hit the plane and you get a wonderful view in front and to the left and right of you.  You see all the gauges and hear the air traffic communication.  It's pretty cool. 

I mistakenly deleted the videos of us taking off and landing, but here are some shots from the air and inside the plane. 

Going through the take-off checklist. 

The vast Kimberley.  Part of the movie "Australia" (starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman) was shot here.

The Drysdale River, flowing from the Timor Sea. 

Some low lying land near Kalumburu with the Uraro hill in the background. 

And the welcome sign.

Kalumburu's exact location is in a region called the Kimberley, which covers the northern part of the state of Western Australia.  Kalumburu specifically is the northernmost inhabited settlement in Western Australia.  The "A" gives you an idea. 

So yes, we are OUT there in the Australia Outback, "The Bush".  

There is quite an impressive history to both The Kimberley and Kalumburu itself.  The settlement consists of indigenous, aboriginal people primarily of the Kuini (pronounced "Queeny") and Kulari (Koo-lar-i) tribes, which have literally THOUSANDS of years of history in this area.  I will be writing separate posts about these people and the history of Kalumburu, both of which are fascinating.

So, HAPPY NEW YEAR to you and your kin!

I'll leave you with some shots of the beautiful sunsets we see here daily.  I am certain that 2012 will be the best year of my life.  I hope this blog has encouraged you to do some traveling, if only just for a few weeks.  My experiences in 2011 through my travels have been incontrovertibly the best of my life.  The people I've met, the cultures, the stories and the inspiration: it's what life's all about.

...and there's plenty more to come :)