A Pilbara Trip that Stood Out From the Rest.

[Niall]

Hi Everyone.
For the past 10 days I and 3 others have been on a trip throughout the Pilbara.
First up was the big drive from Perth to Robe River, Pannawonica and was expected to arrive at 8:30pm.
As most would know not all plans go the way you want them to and this one didn’t, just before the Murchison River there had been a chemical spill on the main high way heading north.
The chemical spill ended up knocking us back 3 hours since the police show us an inland route that will get us just north of the spill.


Central Netted Dragon Ctenophorus nuchalis we found along the dirt track we took.

Next up just after we left overlander roadhouse, the left back wheel popped and came off the rim.
Being in a rental car you would think the company would check that there was a Jack and a wrench in the car, but we were the ‘lucky’ ones not to have them in the car.
We ended up getting help from a guy who pulled over that was on his way back to Perth with his family after a fishing trip in Exmouth,
funny enough he ended up being a member on the WA reptile forum (Cheers Hatch!). After finally getting the rim off and getting the spare tyre on, we set off again hoping nothing else would go wrong.


On the way into Carnarvon we found a Thorny Devil sitting in the middle of the road.




We ended up arriving at Robe River at 1:30am (4 extra hours later).
Next day we headed into Pannawonica to get a spare wheel, but needed to drive into Karratha since the Pannawonica shop didn’t have the wheel we needed.

After getting into Karratha and getting the spare wheel and KFC , we headed to Millstream.

Water hole on the side of the road.


Landscape at Millstream NP.


Main water hole at Millstream.

After Millstream, we headed back down to Pannawonica on a inland route, hoping to come across a good amount of reptiles since it was around 7pm when we left Millstream.
Ended up only seeing a couple of Stimson’s.
Stimson’s Pythons Antaresia stimsoni






The next day we heading into Port Hedland and caught up with Andrew and Dave.
We ended up setting up camp at the De Grey River and caught up with Dave to go spotting.

Unfortunately we went up when the moon was at its strongest and only ended up seeing a few Flat Shell Turtles crossing the roads where a thunderstorm hit an hour before we got there.

The next night we just did a bit of local herping around the De Grey.

Desert Death Adder Acanthophis Pyrrhus


Fat Tailed Gecko Diplodactylus conspicillatus


Giant Frog Cyclorana australis


Stimson’s Python Antaresia stimsoni


Rosen’s Snake Suta fasciata


Desert Spadefoot Notaden nichollsi


Baby Pygmy spiny tailed Skink Egerina epsisolus


The next area we headed to was Dooleni Gorge just before Marble Bar, the weather was **** the next day so headed back into town for supplies, we were grateful that Dave allowed us to use his shower since some of us started to smell. We ended up finding out that the tropical low off the coast had turned into a Cat2 Cyclone, since we were camping in tents we thought it was best to bail from the storm and head back to Pannawonica since Karijini was closed because of flooding.

After setting up camp at Robe River once again, the sky looked threatening for most of the day


Mark and Mike at Robe River.


The night was looking good with high humidity and high temps

Sunset a Robe River.


The rain ended up holding off and the temps kept high and was the first night of the trip that we had good success.

Rosen’s Snake Suta fasciata




Burton’s snake lizard Lialis burtonis


King Brown Pseudechis australis


Moon Snake Furina ornate




Monk Snake Parasuta monachus


Pygmy Python Antaresia perthensis
Came across this one on the road eating a road kill Ring Tail Dragon.





Pilbara Death Adder Acanthophis wellsi
Ended up finding 7 of these little beauties on that night.











Cheers,
Niall

[Red-Ink]

Great finds mate... specially the depressa and the perthensis. Jealous would be an understatement on my part...

[Mayo]

Where was my invite on this trip, I always miss out on the good ones

[Vincey]

Awesome pics mate. Love the pygmy spiny tail

[snakes123]

Every time i see a thread by you i get excited. Great pics and amazing finds! Love the adders and the pygmy python eating! Thanks for sharing.

[GeckPhotographer]

Yeah not a bad thread, awesome animals, great photography and an interesting part of the world, what does it need? More geckos....

[waruikazi]

Great stuff mate thanks for sharing.

[Umbral]

You just have to loca Australia's diversity! Fantastic photos

[Snowman]

Where was my invite on this trip, I always miss out on the good ones

Agreed! Where was mine Not that I could have gone...

Niall what did the car hire cost you for 10 days??? I've often thought of doing that since I don't own a 4x4.

[saratoga]

Seems like you had a great trip. Thanks for sharing all your finds and the great images.

[Niall]

Agreed! Where was mine Not that I could have gone...

Niall what did the car hire cost you for 10 days??? I've often thought of doing that since I don't own a 4x4.

I was going to give you a call to see if you would want to come but the last seat got taken just before I was going to call you.

It cost $625 each for the car.
I am planning on doing the trip again soon but might do it for 2 weeks since we were moving to a different area every 2 days and it got a bit much.

[Snowman]

I was going to give you a call to see if you would want to come but the last seat got taken just before I was going to call you.

It cost $625 each for the car.
I am planning on doing the trip again soon but might do it for 2 weeks since we were moving to a different area every 2 days and it got a bit much.

Cheers

I'm saving all my annuall leave for when the Mr's drops our little sprog middle of the year.
$625 x 3 sounds reasonable. Though I'll definitely look for a jack and spanner now if I ever hire one!
Super jealous of the Thornie Devil... It's top of my list!!!

Keen to see some of the other photo's your holding back. You always have a million

[Sock Puppet]

Great pics, that Egernia (however the classification is now) & the dark wellsi are unreal!

[Niall]

Yes thats true, i do have too many photos.
Here are another few photos.

More wellsi photos.






Niall

[thals]

Oh my, what a sensational trip!! You guys did very well, all those wellsi and pyrrhus, that perthensis is amazing! Love the epsisolus too