Kalumburu Remote Community School Bike Camp

If you fly to Perth, hop in a car and drive for 35 hours 3000km to the northern tip of Western Australia, you’ll eventually get to Kalumburu Remote Community School. In fact, Kalumburu is the most remote permanent settlement in WA, home of the Kwini people, with around 470 residents as of 2022.

Along the banks of the King Edward River, 565km from the nearest township of Kununurra, Kalumburu Remote Community is an unlikely start point for a mountain biking adventure. 

But Kalumburu Remote Community School, has facilitated a week-long ‘Bike Camp’ for a select few students each year since 2015. Principal Simon Duncan has now managed 3 camps, with the 2024 iteration taking place a few weeks ago.

Covering around 135km over three days, their expedition tests the limits of the kids in remote and difficult terrain, building relationships and resilience while exploring their unique landscape on their journey from Kalumburu to the Mitchell Plateau; home of the Wunambal Gaambera people.

The school uses a fleet of Norco fat bikes, which are suited to the rocky, sandy and at times boggy terrain on the camp.

We spoke with Simon about the ‘Bike Camp’ initiative, and what it means to the community. 

‘It’s for kids who we think really would benefit from building their resilience. We open it up from year 4 to year 12’, explains Duncan. ‘This year, out of the 8 only two had been on a previous camp, so 6 were debuting the ride.’

‘To get on the camp we run training leading up to it. We go away in term three and we start our training halfway through term two and we keep a record of who comes, and that’s a contributing factor of who gets to come.’ 

‘We also judge “are you capable of making it?” as it’s a long way, and the third factor is who would really benefit from a camp like that’, emphasising the resilience that results from spending a week away on bikes.’

‘The kids sometimes want to give up on that first leg, in the first 5km ride. We all have to chip in and work together as a team, it’s about supporting them through that.’ 

‘Once they get through that first ride and they know they can do it, there is a real sense of accomplishment each day and a real sense of accomplishment once they get to Mitchell River.’

‘We took 8 kids and 4 staff, which sounds like a lot of staff but we need two support vehicles. We have two staff with the cars and we have two staff with the kids; one will lead the ride and one at the back. We communicate with walkie talkies. We ride for a while then swap over (front and back staff rider).’