I always try to take the road less travelled, and preferably one that I’ve not driven before. I was recently driving north to Wooleen Station and chose to take the route via Dalwallinu through to Mullewa…

It’s promoted as a rodeo, music and camping festival and it more than lived up to its name, and its reputation for being a great weekend!

As we strolled into the iconic outback hotel, Steve was telling me that the last time he was there was 30 years ago. He was playing pool when there was suddenly an almighty crash behind him - he turned round to see a donkey in the bar. With perfect timing, just as he finished his story, Bella appeared behind the bar…she’s a five year old great dane cross with excellent hospitality skills.

In 2003, to mark the Perth International Arts Festival’s 50th anniversary, renowned artist Antony Gormley created 51 sculptures which were installed on Lake Ballard. I’d read a lot about it at the time and dreamt of seeing them for myself, but an hour or two north of Kalgoorlie, Lake Ballard isn’t really on the way to anywhere else…you really have to make an effort to get there.

I finally got to Lake Ballard in 2010 and walking out onto the salt lake, I had that feeling that I was meeting people for the first time that I’d heard so much about from a mutual friend.

Walga Rock lies 48 kilometres west of Cue in WA’s Goldfields. It’s one of Australia’s largest granite monoliths Of huge cultural and spiritual significance, the rock faces feature incredible, well-preserved Aboriginal art. Strangely amongst the art is a depiction of a sailing boat, drawn in white ochre. Its origins remain a mystery but there’s stories that it may have been drawn by a shipwreck survivor who had ended up a few hundred kilometres from the coast…or perhaps it was created by an Afghan cameleer who was showing his Wajarri friends what he had seen.

Nallan Station was the perfect base when we explored Cue and the surrounding district in early September. While we were there we took photographs for Cath and Dave for their website, social media and printed material, creating their very own unique stock library of images…

Realising we were heading south into Western Australia’s wildflower season was fantastic! Add abundant birdlife and the odd bungarra (aka racehorse goanna) into the mix and I was in heaven…

As far as possible on our meander around Western Australia, we’ve chosen to take the unsealed backroads and have discovered so many amazing spots along the way. When I mentioned on social media where we were and where we were heading next, I got a couple of messages from friends telling us how to find the most beautiful little swimming spot.

Marble Bar is officially Australia’s hottest town, holding the record with 161 consecutive days over 37.8C (100F). Fortunately it was a very manageable 32 degrees when we were there recently. This outback town is named for its jasper which the early explorers believed to be marble. There’s more photos of the jasper patterns and colours in an earlier blog post.

With a rich history of gold mining, Marble Bar still draws gold prospectors from far and wide, hoping to find their fortune.

Early explorers in the Pilbara mistook the jasper outcrops for marble, and called the new town Marble Bar. The colours in the rocks around Marble Bar Pool are unbelievable, especially if you pour a little water over them to bring out their vibrancy.

When we were up in Wyndham I photographed some beautiful gouldian finches. That sparked a passion for bird photography so finding this little bush camp beside a billabong near Marble Bar was a real treat…the birdlife was phenomenal. I spent the late afternoon and early morning, standing as still as possible, observing and occasionally photographing the rainbow bee-eaters, white-plumed honeyeaters and the tiny black-fronted dotterels. It’s a steep learning curve photographing birds - and a big lesson in patience - but I’m loving it!

…As a portrait photographer it was always going to be about the people. What the rodeo was also about was vibrant shirts and fancy belt buckles and, more importantly, family and community. Families had travelled into Broome especially from remote stations and communities for miles around - they set up their chairs and rugs, and settled in for the evening…

Exploring the far north-east of Western Australia was always in our minds when we left our home in Denmark on the south coast of WA back in March…

…Parts of the Kimberley may have their resorts and wealth, diamonds and pearls, but Wyndham is the hidden gem. 

We spent a few days camping at Port Smith on our way up to Broome. A time of mud maps in red dust, and footprints on pristine white beaches; lagoons and mangroves and the feeling that we'd arrived in crocodile country; low, low tides and sand patterns; and so many brolgas.

To stand in Deep Gorge, surrounded by deep red boulders etched with the world’s largest and most important collection of petroglyphs (Aboriginal rock carvings) dating back half to one million years, is breathtaking. It’s a quick-fire way to make you feel insignificant in the big picture. To turn 180 degrees and be confronted by millions of tons of metal structured into a huge industrial plant just a few hundred metres away is heartbreaking.