What's New Archive
This page lists the older but still relevant changes made to the website since March 2002. Items listed in red link to the new or changed pages.
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Update Date |
New or changed item |
|---|---|
| 2 August 2007 |
Latest Newsletter Our Newsletter 30 is now on the website It includes discount offers and other information which is not available elsewhere. Our About Us page now contains a link to a brief history of the Darwin Bushwalking Club. This gives you an idea of how owner Russell Willis developed the experience which led to the founding of Willis's Walkabouts. Our Getting Here page has been updated with information about new cheap flights between Melbourne and Darwin or Alice Springs. Our Featured Trips page has been updated with new information. |
| 15 July 2007 |
2008 High Arctic Summer Walk Arctic Summer 2008. The Arctic Summer trip notes have been completely re-written with new maps, photos and links to more information. Unless you are a polar explorer, you're never going to get closer to one of the poles than this trip to 80° North on Ellesmere Island. The file is 1.1 MB so please be patient. |
| 10 February 2007 |
Arctic Spring Photo Galleries You can now get a better idea of what our March 2008 trip will be like by having a look at the two photo galleries from our March 2006 trip. Southeast Alaska Yukon Dogsled |
| 11 November 2006 |
Updated Trip Notes We have updated the background information on all our Mitchell Plateau trip notes. Mitchell Plateau No. 1: 1-14 April Mitchell Explorer: 13 May - 10 June Mitchell Plateau No. 2: 8-21 July Mitchell Plateau No. 3: 19 August - 1 September |
| 13 September 2005 |
New Photo Gallery and new trip page Kakadu & Nitmiluk Photographic Special This is a new illustrated page describing this trip which will be led by photographer Paul Benjafield and will give participants the best possible opportunity to get some excellent wet season shots. Photo Trip Gallery This gallery gives a few photo tips and shows examples of the kinds of photography which are likely to be included during the trip. When you click a photo to see a larger version, you will see the largest photos we have ever put on the website. If you think that having photos of this size is a good idea, please send us an email and let us know. |
| 10 September 2005 |
The Kimberley Our Kimberley page had been completely revised. It contains new information and new links to other sites which provide good information about the region. |
| 2 January 2005 |
New Trip Page Kimberley Highlights No. 1: 29 May - 25 June New photos and new links to help you understand what's involved in this trip. Updated Photo Gallery The Cockburn Photo Gallery has been updated for faster downloading and some new photos have been added. |
| 11 January 2005 |
We MUST change the transport arrangements on many of our trips. Just HOW we change them will be decided in consultation with any past or potential client who is interested in having a say. Click here to find out what we can and can't do and the advantages and disadvantages of each possibility. There is an online questionnaire on the page which will allow you to register your opinion. |
| 18 November 2004 |
New trip report Jawoyn Explorer 2004 Helen Dauncey has written a report about this trip and has included some of her photos. She liked it so much that she has booked on our new 2005 Aboriginal guided trip, In Leichhardt's Footsteps. |
| 6 August 2004 |
New format trip page Kakadu Circle No. 2, 2005 We are working on a new format for our website, larger photos with captions and somewhat different text. If you would like to see a possible new form for the trip page, please click the link above. Better still, click the link then send us an email with your comments. Did you know that you can change the size that web page text appears on your screen? If you use Internet Explorer, click view, then text size and choose from any one of five sizes. |
| 4 July 2004 |
Family bushwalks We now have a page on Walking with children. This links to a new photo gallery showing what our family trips are like. |
| 1 July 2004 |
New trip page Finke Gorge and Watarrka National Parks This is a new page describing the trip. New photo gallery Finke Gorge National Park Photo Gallery This is a small gallery of photos from our Finke Gorge trips. |
| 1 April 2004 |
Updated trip notes We have continued to update the terrain and difficulty sections on our trip notes. During the past ten days, we have updated the following: Kakadu Highlights No. 10: 10-23 October Kakadu Highlights No. 11: 25 October - 6 November Kimberley Highlights No. 1: 30 May - 26 June Lower Isdell Region: 4-24 July Hann-Fitzroy Explorer: 11-25 July Charnley Explorer: 25 July - 8 August Munja Track Explorer: 8-22 August Mitchell Plateau No. 4: 22 August - 4 September Kimberley Highlights No. 2: 2-18 September |
| 21 March 2004 |
Updated trip notes We have continued to update the terrain and difficulty sections on our trip notes. During the past five days, we have updated the following: Kakadu Highlights No. 6: 1-14 August Kakadu Highlights No. 7: 15-29 August Kakadu Highlights No. 8: 29 August - 11 September Kakadu Highlights No. 9: 12-25 September Macdonnell Ranges: 11-24 July Drysdale River National Park No. 1: 6-20 June Drysdale River National Park No. 2: 20 June - 4 July Mitchell Plateau No. 3: 4-17 July |
| 16 March 2004 |
Twin Falls - Kakadu Earlier this month, Parks Australia announced that the pool below Twin Falls would remain closed to swimming for the foreseeable future. Willis's Walkabouts is the only tour operator licensed to take people camping above Twin Falls so this has very little effect on our trips. Click here to read the statement issued by the Aboriginal traditional owners of the area. Click here to read the press release issued by Parks Australia. Updated trip notes We are gradually updating the terrain and difficulty sections on all our trip notes. During the past month, we have updated the following: Bungle Bungles and the Osmond Range: 18 April - 8 May Jawoyn Explorer: 16 May - 5 June Carr Boyd Explorer: 23 May - 5 June Gregory Explorer: 6-19 June Kakadu Super Circle No. 2: 6-27 June Pilbara: Karijini National Park: 20 June - 3 July Kakadu Circle No. 2: 20 June - 3 July Kakadu Highlights No. 5: 27 June - 10 July Gibb River Road Gorges: 27 June - 11 July Twin to Jim Jim Circle: 4-17 July Kakadu Circle No. 3: 19 July - 3 August |
| 8 March 2004 |
Level of difficulty The page describing the level of difficulty of our trips has been completely revised. New featured trip Pilbara: Karijini National Park: 20 June - 3 July. Cyclone Monty has dropped a lot of rain on Karijini so water supplies should be above average this year. A special web discount applies. See our Tour Availability and Specials page for details. |
| 22 February 2004 |
New Photo Gallery Motorcar and Kurrundie Creeks. These are two of the most important creeks in southern Kakadu. |
| 15 February 2004 |
New client report
Gregory Explorer 2001 Roger Sheppeard kindly offered us his diary which gives the most comprehensive picture of one of our trips that we've ever been able to put onto the website. Roger also sent us a selection of his photos from that trip which we've placed into a new Gregory Gallery. Roger Sheppeard's Gregory Photo Gallery New client report links Another one of our clients, Oskar Klooster, has descriptions of four of our trips on his website. You can link to these from our trip report page. |
| 14 February 2004 |
Free CD The large number of photos on our website make some pages slow to download. We have, therefore put the website plus several additional photo galleries onto a CD, free for the asking. Click here to send us an email to get one free. Please make sure you fill in your postal address. 680MB is far too large to email. |
| 12 February 2004 |
New type colour To make the website easier to read, most of the blue type on the website has been replaced with black. New featured trip Kakadu Super Circle No. 2, already a guaranteed departure, takes you further into the Kakadu wilderness than is possible on any shorter trip. Revised featured trip Kakadu Highlights No. 2 This page has been completely revised and many new photos have been added. A special $130 discount now applies to this trip. |
| 29 October 2003 |
New Trip Jawoyn Explorer: May 16 - June 5 We've finally got permission to go back to Arnhem Land. New trip description South Africa: September-October This new page links to several photo galleries. It will be updated at least a couple of times over the next three weeks. |
| 17 October 2003 |
New Featured Trip Kakadu Highlights No. 2: February 29 - March 13. Owner Russell Willis will be just back from chilly Patagonia and is keen to lead this one himself. |
| 13 October 2003 |
Gibb Road Photo Gallery Our Gibb Road Gorges Photo Gallery has been expanded and split into three separate sections. The beginning: Geike, Tunnel Creek, Windjana, Lennard and Bell Gorges The middle: Moll, Sir John and Dimond Gorges The end: Upper Isdell, Manning and Barnett Gorges The Gibb Road Gorges trip notes have been completely revised and now include comments from one of the participants on our last trip. New Trip The Hann-Fitzroy Explorer, 11-25 July, is a new trip we developed based on brief visits to the Hann and Fitzroy Rivers on our 2003 Gibb Road Gorges trip. |
| 8 October 2003 |
Outdoor Australia Cover Photo The cover photo on the current (October-November 2003) issue of Outdoor Australia was taken by Russell Willis on our 2003 Charnley Explorer trip. This page Old info which is no longer relevant has been deleted and many older items are now on an archive page so that this will load more quickly. The link to the archive page is at the bottom of this one. |
| 6 October 2003 |
New Trip Kakadu Family Bushwalk Special: 7-13 April 2004 Been and gone but it was a resounding success. These notes describe the trip which we hope to offer again. |
| 26 July 2003 |
Kimberley Highlights No. 1 Poem The Kimberley Highlights poem was sent to us in reponse to a newsletter request for past clients to submit things they had written about their trip. It's not exactly a trip report, but it does show the feelings some of our clients get from our trips. |
| 15 June 2003 |
Revised photo gallery The Gibb Road Gorges Photo Gallery has been expanded and revised. |
| 14 June 2003 |
Improved photo gallery The Charnley Photo Gallery has been expanded and modified for faster downloading. |
| 18 May 2003 |
New photo gallery|
| 5 May 2003 |
Crocodiles! Our Frequently Asked Questions page now tells you everything you need to know about crocodiles and why you don't have to worry about crocs on our walks. |
| 3 May 2003 |
New page. The new Getting here page gives complete information about how to get to Darwin, Kununurra and Alice Springs. It includes links to all the airline, bus and rail websites. |
| 11 April 2003 |
More photos Macdonnell Ranges This new page contains many new photos from our Macdonnell trips. |
| 13 March 2003 |
New Patagonia Photo Gallery The Patagonia photo gallery is now the largest single photo gallery on the website. Our tours are very different to any others on the market so the photos should give you a better idea of what is involved in taking part. The Photo Gallery page now contains links to our overseas Patagonia and South Africa photo galleries. |
4 March 2003
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New Home Page and updated menu You almost certainly saw the new home page on your way to this one. The changed menu is at the left. The new home page links to a special abbreviated menu for those who are new to bushwalking. This contains the absolute minimum that you need to know before booking one of our trips. |
| 1 March 2003 |
Message Board Willis's Walkabouts Message Board Please feel free to add your own questions and comments. This should be a good way for new and old clients to get unbiased information about specific trips and about Willis's Walkabouts in general. |
| 20 February 2003 |
New trip page Munja Explorer has updated information on the trip, new photos and links to two new photo galleries. Pearson River and beyond Robin Baillie and Jopie Bodegraven gave us the photos so we can show you the area before making our first visit. Bachsten Area More photos of the area where we will be doing the shorter of the two main walks on the Munja Explorer. |
| 17 February 2003
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Light-Pack Bushwalking This is probably the most important single piece of new information we've added to the website in the past two years. How heavy a pack? This page tells you or gives you links to everything you need to know to keep your pack weight to a minimum while still being comfortable. |
| 16 February 2003 |
Updated Menu The menu at the left now includes direct links to some pages that were hard to find before. Click the "+" next to "What is Bushwalking" to find our club link page. Click the "+" next to "Is it for you?" to get to pages like How hard are the trips so you can get a better idea of how difficult they are likely to be. Updated Trip Notes The South America page has been updated and contains a link to a new set of trip notes. |
| 12 February 2003 |
Updated Photo Gallery The Gibb Road Photo Gallery now has photos of Sir John and Diamond Gorges, courtesy of Daan Stegeman, one of the clients on our 1999 trip. All photos have been resized for faster downloading. |
| 23 January 2003 |
New Gallery Page Photo Gallery This page contains links to all 24 of our photo galleries. Now you have an easy way to find pictures of the areas that interest you. New Trip Report Kimberley Coast Explorer Cyclone Chloe made this the most challenging Kimberley Coast trip we have ever done. New Featured Trip Bungle Bungles and Osmond Range This is the longest walk we offer in the Bungles, the only walk which goes into the Osmond Range.> |
| 18 January 2003 | New Bird List
Mitchell Plateau Bird List
This list gives you a good idea of some of the birds you might see on our Mitchell Plateau Birdwatching Special in May. |
| 16 January 2003 | New Photo Gallery
Twin Falls Creek
This has been set up for faster loading as was the case with the Drysdale Gallery on 4 January.
Click on the photos to see larger versions. Interested in birds? New on the site -- a bird list from one of our Finke - Watarraka trips. |
| 4 January 2003 | Faster Download
Drysdale River National Park
Drysdale Photo Gallery
Almost all our photos are loaded so that you can click and see a larger image. As an experiment, we have changed the way the photos are loaded on the Drysdale and Drysdale Photo Gallery pages. This should make the pages load faster than before. Please have a look. Compare the Drysdale and Drysdale gallery pages with a similar ones like The Isdell River and Isdell River Photo Gallery Please let us know if it seems better to you. If it does work better, we'll gradually change all our photos to the new format. Many thanks to anyone who gives us a hand. |
| 30 December 2002 | New Wildlife Photo Gallery Wildlife Photo Gallery This gallery shows you many of the birds and a few of the other animals which you might see on our Kakadu and Kimberley trips. |
| 22 December 2002 | New Mitchell Plateau Photo Galleries
There is much more to the Mitchell Plateau than the area around Mitchell Falls so we have added three photo galleries to give you a taste of the different areas. Lower Mitchell and the Western Gorge This is the best known area. Donkins Creek Donkins Falls may be the tallest single drop waterfall in the Kimberley. Upper Mitchell, Camp Creek and the Route to Donkins A little known area where the maps fail to show the wonders that we find. |
| 16 December 2002 | New Website Server
Our website had been hosted on a Windows NT machine which often broke down. The new server is a UNIX machine. The change may have broken some links within the site. Please let us know if you find a link which does not work. |
| 14 December 2002 | New Photo Gallery Jim Jim and Rainforest Gorge |
| 12 December 2002 | New Featured Trip Baroalba - Hill 420 Circle |
| 10 October 2002 | Updated Cockburn Page The Cockburn Range The Cockburn page has been revised and now contains a link to a Cockburn photo gallery. |
| 5 October 2002 | Updated Nitmiluk Page Nitmiluk National Park The Nitmiluk page has been revised and now contains links to a Nitmiluk photo gallery, the Nitmiluk Park home page and a Manyallaluk Aboriginal Community page. |
| 1 October 2002 | New Photos Bungle Bungles The Bungle Bungles page has been revised and contains links to wet and dry season Bungles photo galleries. |
| 18 September 2002 | Web Magazine Issue No. 3 is now available. It contains six trip reports from our clients, information about the wet season, how to save on airfares, upcoming trips, a farewell to Kakadu's most senior traditional owner, and more. |
| 27 August 2002 | New page on how hard the trips are: How hard are the trips?. The main link to this page is on the "Is it For You?" page. This page links to a rock hopping page which includes many photos showing the different types of terrain through which you might walk. It also links to a new climate page which tells you more about what to expect from the weather. Anyone who has not done one of our trips before should look at this page before booking. | 26 August 2002 | New links: Overseas Clubs. Oops. After four months on the site, someone finally pointed out that the new links to overseas clubs in Europe, New Zealand and North America were on the wrong page. |
| 17 July 2002 | New Trip Kakadu Birdwatching Special: January 6-15 2003. This trip is a joint venture between George Swann's Kimberley Birdwatching and Willis's Walkabouts. It will be accompanied by specialist guides from both organisations. The first section is fully accommodated; the second is a long walk. There is a good chance you will see one or more of the rarest birds in Australia. |
| 14 May 2002 | Updated Pilbara page: The Pilbara There is now a link to a brand new Karijini National Park photo gallery and links to local Pilbara tourism websites. |
| 8 May 2002 | New South Africa Photos and Information: South Africa The South Africa page has been revised and new photos have been added. It now links to a special gallery page where there are many more photos and to a page where you can read the comments from the participants in our 2001 trip. The trip notes and itinerary have both been revised. Our South Africa trip is very different to any other Africa trip we have heard about. Please have a look and see if it might interest you. |
| 19 April 2002 | Updated Kimberley page:
Keep River National Park New photo gallery. |
| 15 March 2002 | New Issue:
Web Magazine No. 2
This issue contains a story about the recently completed Kakadu Light No. 1, special offers on a few trips and new information about how to get to Kununurra for our Kimberley trips. Updated Kimberley page: Carr Boyd Range New photo gallery. |
10 March 2002 | Updated Kimberley pages: Charnley River and the Munja Track Drysdale River National Park Isdell River Each of these pages has a link to a new photo gallery for the area. The tour list now contains links to these pages so that you can get a better picture of what some of the walks will be like. |
