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Kimberley and NT News: An important video, guide book updates and some predictions! (Not.) June 12, 2026

12 June 2026, Special Issue Please do not reply to this message. To unsubscribe or change your address please use the links at the bottom of this message. To contact me please use the contact page. To sign up for this newsletter and receive the free Kimberley Pocket Guide go here. Hi! The WA government made a tourism ad for the Kimberley, and it's surprisingly honest and informative! A warning to those not familiar with the YouTube channel "Honest Government Ads": The videos always contain plenty of swearing. (I think I may have shared one of their ads in an older newsletter, just before the last federal election.) Anyway, watch the ad and sign the letter! Guide Book Updates The tourist season in the Kimberley is well under way. I had hoped to write much sooner, but the universe had other ideas. Of course things did not progress as smoothly as I had envisioned. I don't want to talk about my health (see the last newsletter for the big picture). Let's just say things went well for a while, then they didn't at all, and now they are getting better again. Not only did the planned newsletters not happen, my big plan to have at least Destination Kimberley fully up to date by Easter did also not pan out. Like, at all. (I should probably finally learn to make more realistic plans.) Still, many obvious details have been updated, things like event calendars, national park entry and camping prices and similar. Other updates I made: (Actually, all I did in most cases was change 2024 to 2026 when saying "as of xxxx we don't know if and when...) There still are no Geikie Gorge boat tours. The park is open for visitors with basic facilities, other visitor infrastructure is still in the planning and building stage. Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary and Charnely River Station are still closed. At least conservation work has restarted at Morningtom, so there is hope that tourist facilities will return as well. Munja Track and Bachsten Camp are still closed, no information regarding reopening. Also still closed is Kooljaman at Cape Leveque and here, too, it is impossible to find any definitive information. Major renovations are required but nobody seems to know if the work has started or is still in the planning stage. Apart from many isolated updates like these (just mentioning the well known places here) I did manage to go through the whole Gibb River Road and Mitchell Plateau chapter. I started there because I felt it was the most important. One change that may be important and beneficial for some people: Shoal Air now offer their Mitchell Falls flights from Ellenbrae Station rather than Drysdale! So if you want to take a scenic flight or an air & ground or even overnight tour to the Mitchell Falls, you don't have to detour to Drysdale Station any more. You can even fly over the Bungles from Ellenbrae. (Flights from Drysdale are still available, now operated by Air Kimberley.) Anyway, the main thing: The Gibb River Road and Mitchell Plateau chapter is fully up to date for 2026. Next I'll probably look at Purnululu and the Duncan and Tanami roads. Then Cape Leveque. And then everything else. I added a note to one of the first pages of Destination Kimberley that lets you know which parts of the version you downloaded have already been updated. The other information is two years old, so also not exactly out of date. It's just that I always had very high standards in that regard and now I had no choice but to lower them a bit. As you know, you can request a fresh download of the latest version of your purchase whenever you like. So if you intend to make a purchase, there is never any point in waiting. One of my readers responded to my last newsletter saying: "Your guide is amazing. Thank you for the hard work. The guide will help many into the future as is. Many others wrote saying similar things and I thank you all. Really, thank you so, so much for all the kind messages you sent, all the well wishes, and especially the oft repeated message that it's ok to prioritise my health and take it easier for a while and that the guide books are great and super helpful as they are. I always put way too much pressure on myself and have impossible to meet standards. (Just like my mum. Why do we always turn out exactly like our parents even though it's the last thing we want?) If I want to recover, which I do, then I do need to change. I am working on it and you are helping a lot. So thank you again. Your guide Destination Kimberley is still the most comprehensive and best advice for independent travellers to the Kimberley and I hope it continues! We recommend it to everyone … and it is still compulsory reading for our new tour pilots every year. (Steve Irvine, Managing Director of Shoal Air, on Jan 19, 2019. Read many more, and more recent, testimonials and reviews here.) Predictions! This heading is tongue in cheek because often readers ask me for exactly that, and I STILL don't have a crystal ball! Anyway, several people have contacted me to ask about fuel availability and how much of a concern it may become as a result of the Straight of Hormuz situation. The good news is that the current Middle East tension has not (yet) translated into a physical fuel shortage across the Kimberley though isolated shortages have occurred. And the vulnerability is clearly there. WA has experienced regional fuel shortages earlier this year. This led to mandatory fuel reporting (outlets have to report not just prices but also availability) and the creation of a strategic diesel stockpile. Compared to for example the Great Central Road (which had much bigger shortages in May) the Kimberley is at an advantage. The WA government has placed a strategic stockpile at Wyndham, and Kimberley communities, remote pastoral stations, and agricultural and resource sectors are the priority users. Will it be enough? Look, I don't know what the idiot in the White House will do. Nobody can predict that. What we can predict is that a Kimberley holiday this year will be hundreds of dollars more expensive than last. If you are planning a holiday in the Kimberley, your best bet is to keep an eye on the FuelWatch website. Since May 2026, fuel retailers across WA have to report not only prices but also when they run out of a fuel type. The FuelWatch website now shows both fuel prices and fuel unavailability and it updates frequently. So you can always check whether a roadhouse still has diesel before putting yourself in a situation where you have to rely on it. (Just as I was ready to send this newsletter and testing the links, the website showed the Halls Creek service station had run out of diesel. So there you go.) Taking a few extra jerry cans is a good idea. Filling them in a metro area doesn't hurt either. In the Kimberley you are doubly hit with price increases because a lot of fuel was required to deliver your fuel to the roadhouse. Other sources to watch for the bigger picture are the WA Government Fuel Security Updates and the WA Government Weekly Fuel Update. (While being aware that these tend to be a tad too, let's say, optimistic.) And last but not least, don't forget the old-fashioned approach: call them and ask! (I mean, a day ahead. Don't ask them if they think you'll be fine in August like you ask me.) FuelWatch is much better than it used to be but in places like Drysdale or Kalumburu I'd still prefer a direct confirmation. So much for fuel predictions. Let's now get to the always popular weather predicitions. There is an increasing probability that a strong or very strong El Nino ("Super El Nino") will develop and persist through the second half of 2026. What does this mean? The main take away for you is that the temperatures later in the season will likely be higher than usual. September and October tend to be uncomfortably hot even in average years. This year it will be even hotter. El Nino years also tend to be drier. That's not much of a concern for the dry season of course. In fact, it could be a positive with roads remaining accessible much later into the season due to fewer early storms and a later wet season onset. (Then again, they could get closed due to more likely bush fires.) For next year a drier wet season can mean lower humidity in spring, roads opening earlier, rivers dropping sooner, but also waterfalls drying up sooner. However, while we can be fairly certain of higher temperatures, increased fire risk and late wet season onset, we can't say much about wet season rain fall totals. One or two cyclones can easily deliver a whole wet season's worth of rain to parts or all of the Kimberley. El Nino means a higher probability of overall drier conditions, not a certainty! Still, keep all the above in mind if you are still in the early planning stages. And that's it for today! I'll likely be quiet for the next time. Rest assured though that updates to the books will relentlessly progress at a snails pace. :) Take care, Birgit Destination Kimberley, Destination Top End and Destination Red Centre have all the information you need to put together your dream trip. To sign up for this newsletter and receive the free Kimberley Pocket Guide go here. Feedback? Found some out of date info in one of my guides? Let me know via https://www.kimberleyaustralia.com/contact.html (c) 2026, Birgit Bradtke. All rights reserved.

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