The real Wolfe Creek- a big crater…not the home of a homicidal maniac (thankfully)

Wolfe Creek Crater, WA

Friday 9th September

When I hear 'Wolfe Creek', my brain immediately jumps to the 2005 horror film and this man (how do you go from Play School to slaying unwary backpackers???).

Thankfully though, we did not encounter 'Mick Taylor', star of Wolf Creek, whilst we were at Wolfe Creek National Park.

What we did encounter was something very impressive. A huge crater (the second largest in the world where meteorite fragments have been discovered) formed by a meteorite, travelling at 15km per second, crashing to Earth about 300,000 years ago. The crater is 880 metres in diameter and the depth is now about 20 metres (it used to be about 120m deep but has been filled in with desert sand over millions of years).

It is a 130km rough road into Wolfe Creek National Park, so we left the van at Halls Creek Caravan Park. We securely locked it and left the lights on as there is a crime spree against travellers at the moment in Halls Creek, driven by opportunistic young (around 10 year old) locals who are currently competing with each other for the most high stakes 'steal'. We were told of a recent theft of a campervan that was then taken for a joyride! As the kids are so young the Police don't have many choices for 'consequences' and many of the parents don't have the skills to know what to do with their unruly kids.

Anyway back to our adventures. We arrived about 3pm (as the weather was so hot we had only planned to spend the late afternoon, night and early morning out at the crater) and as we set up we discovered that we had forgotten the kids' bedding! We had both thought the other was packing it and hadn't checked. We had to improvise and use the picnic rug and the car window shade blinds for mattresses, then we shared the sleeping bags! Although we all had a rough sleep, it was well worth coming out to see.

We did the crater rim walk at about 5pm, so we could watch the sunset over the desert from up on the crater. Thankfully it was nearly a full moon as it was basically dark by the time we made it around the rim, and the moonlight was all we had to help us navigate the rocky track! We were up early in the morning (due to the bright, hot sun streaming into our tent from 5am!!) but this was the perfect time to climb down into the crater and walk to the centre. After spending some time wandering around marvelling at the uniqueness of this place, we had a basic breakfast, packed up and headed back to the van.

It was predicted to get to 37 degrees so, after collecting the van (that had thankfully not been broken in to), we drove out to Palm Springs, a swimming hole we remembered from our last trip. We spent most of the afternoon cooling off in the water before retreating early to our comfortable beds!

Admiring the crater on the afternoon we arrived (it was too hot to do the walk at this stage).

Climbing up ready to do the rim walk

Playing with the moon!

The light was gorgeous for the crater rim walk

Looking down into the crater, there is a circle of green vegetation that thrives due to the mineral rich soil down there.

It was a hot walk (even though we started at 5pm)

The pretty lilac flowers of the native cotton were in abundance in the National Park

We were about halfway around by this point, the sun had set about 15 minutes ago so the light was lovely

By the time we got 3/4 of the way around the light was fading- still beautiful but it was getting harder to navigate the rocky crater rim.

Nearing the end of the walk - quite dark now! Thankfully it was a full moon.

We slept with the fly off to enjoy the night sky- which then meant we were up with the sun!

Looking out to the crater wall from the middle.

The low sun gave us some cool shadows!

Climbing up the crater wall.

Last view from the top- although it was only 7am it was already VERY hot.

A quick bush shower before we left for the 2 hour drive back to Hall's Creek (and the van).

PALM SPRINGS

Jackson and the fish he caught in his net in the creek at Palm Springs (he let them all go after giving them a thorough examination).

Enjoying the swimming hole at Palm Springs (you can see our caravan over the back, it was a dusty spot but we were lucky to be able to camp so close to the water).

Relaxing with a drink and watching the rock change colour as the sun set.

We had the place to ourselves by late afternoon.

Jackson practised his howling as the full moon rose!