27/07/07
We sent our last e-mail from Katherine
library and had no intention of returning to Katherine again in this trip. Well we are back and will explain why a
little later. First, we will describe
what has been happening in the intervening period.
We left Katherine with no firm plan in
mind. Just that heading west sounded
like a good idea, as the night time temperatures seemed far too cold for us to
venture south yet.
First stop was Flora River Nature Reserve
where we intended to camp, but didn’t really like it there so continued further
down the Victoria Hwy. As we approached
Gregory River National park the scenery became quite spectacular. The mountain ranges are amazing. It never ceases to amaze us just how many
spectacular, and different landscapes Australia has to offer.
We opted to camp over night in the first
section of Gregory River NP at Sullivan’s creek. It was quite a nice camp, but a bit too close
to the highway.
The next day we visited Victoria River Road
House and did a few interesting walks in the area, again catching stunning
views of the landscape of the East Kimberley’s.
We wanted to go on a ranger guided tour of Bullita Homestead in the
second section of Gregory and perhaps checkout some 4wd tracks. We made it as far as the turn off when upon
investigating a nasty banging and clanking noise from under the car we
discovered a broken bit of suspension.
Not good for tackling dirt roads, so we turned around and headed onto
Timber Creek in the hope that they could fix it.
Not normally a place we’d stay, the wild
west looking town of Timber Creek played host to us that night. The people in the tent next to us got flooded
by the park’s sprinkler, turned out they were from Grafton. They were loaded up with beautiful home grown
oranges and mandarines, but as they were heading west they gave them all to
us. Already with a large bag of fruit of
our own to eat and now a whole lot more we set ourselves the task of eating all
of this fruit in the three days it was going to take us to reach the border.
Our car got fixed the next day and we moved
onto Keep River NP, still in NT but only just.
We visited Grergory’s camp on the
banks of the Victoria River where you can still see the carved incriptions
dated 1855 on the boab trees around the camp. Keep River treated us to views of
Bungle Bungle type sandstone formations, very impressive. We spent a few nights there doing the walks
and eating fruit, and eating fruit. No
wonder they had to pump out the pit toilets while we were there.
Fueled by scary stories about border
checkposts with surly customs officials, sniffer dogs and fine tooth combs we
tentatively made our way to the NT/WA border.
With three kids in the back of our car our back seat and carpet were a
quarantine breach just waiting to be discovered. (We were secretly hoping that they would
vacuum out our car for us). But the
border crossing was a non event with barely a look at us as we sailed through with
mouldy apple cores and fair sprinkling of raw nuts and seeds through the kids
zone in the back seat of the car. And no
we didn’t get our car fully detailed by the WA customs service, damn.
We headed straight to Kununurra where we
spent 3 nights.The caravan park where we stayed was over run with young
backpackers and movie star extra hopefuls.
The new Baz Lurman epic Australia was due to set up filmimg in Kununurra soon and a few were waiting
around in the hope of getting discovered.
One particularly unattractive man spent a lot of time in various poses,
obvioiusly trying to work out his best side.
We moved onto Wyndham for 4 nights and
watched a most amazing sunset over Cambridge Gulf. We ate the best fish and chips I have ever
tasted (fresh Barramundi) served by a tattooed man whose face was totally and
completely covered by tattooes. He was a
tourist attraction all in himself. We
visited Parry’s lagoon for some bird watching, Emma drove the Old Hall’s Creek
Road in 4wd. The road still has some of
its original stone work on it. Emma had
a hoot, Steve had very white knuckles (it’s not so much fun in the passenger
seat). Next day Steve got his go at
4wding taking us for a trip down the King River Road past a massive boab that
was still alive but could fit about a dozen people inside it, known as the
prison tree. We tackled the Kurunji
Track which traverses through El Questro on the western side of the Cockburn
range. The Cockburn range is
amazing. We came out onto the famed Gibb
River Road at the Pentecost River.
The following day we re-entered El Questro
and walked up Emma Gorge. Had to go
because of its name. Although it was
beautiful it was hard to justify the $15 it cost us for the pleasure when there
are so many other beautiful and free gorges to explore in Australia. On the way back to camp that night we got our
third flat tyre in two days. The local
servo at Wyndham loved us.
Having come this far we desperately wanted
to keep going west. But we had to bite
the bullet and turn around at some stage.
So reluctantly we decided to save Broome for another trip and turned
back towards the East.
We stopped off at Lake Argyle for a look at
the massive expanse of water (many many times the size of Sydney Harbour). It was created by damming the Ord River and
still has not realised it’s full irrigation potential. We decided against staying at the lake and
made our way back over the border to Keep River NP again. We really liked it there the first time so
decided to checkout another campsite further into the park.
After only one night we moved onto the
Bullita homestead campsite back in Gregory River. Many of the 4wd tracks that we wanted to
tackle were shut because of late unseasonal rain. But we managed to learn a bit about the
Duracks and the cattle stations in the East Kimberly region.
We had big plans to travel from Bullita to
Top Springs down some dirt roads that were actually open. However about 10 mins into our journey a rock
ricochetted off the trailer and smashed our back window. Not a good sound or look. Thinking it was more prudent to go to
Katherine to have it fixed rather than travel any further than necessary on
dirt, we taped the window as best we could and set off for Katherine.
We booked into a camp called Springvale,
that has a pool fed by beautiful warm springfed water. It had a big slide into the pool that the
kids can’t get enough of. The day after
setting up camp we discovered that we were camped next to some ex work
collegues of Steve’s from Narooma. So we
had a great couple of nights socialising and reminicing with them.
As for the smashed window we discovered the
true meaning of NT. It doesn’t mean Northern Territory at
all. It means Not Today, Not Tomorrow, Not Tuesday, Not Thursday, Not This Week........ It took 3
days for the window to be delivered and fitted.
Eager to be on our way we packed up camp, collected the repaired car,
hitched up the trailer and set off. Less
than 1 kilometre from our camp we heard that telltale sound again. Crack. Steve and Emma looked at each other....No it
couldn’t be..... We turned around and looked....yes
it was. The window had shattered again!
Bugger.
Another camp set up and another long wait
for a new window. We were getting to
know Katherine really well, wondering if we would ever leave the place.
So what can you do, but sit back and relax,
pour yourself another Gin and Tonic because we wont be leaving NT in a hurry, at least Not Today, Not Tomorrow, Not Tuesday, Not Thursday, Not This week and it even looks like Not
This Month!
That’s Emma’s version of the story! My knuckles weren’t white at all – just a
pale shade.
With all this waiting around in caravan
parks waiting for car things to get fixed I have invented a new hobby –
spotting forestry look-a-likes. So far I
have a Peter Crowe, John Murray and two Steve Dodds. I thought I had the jackpot when I got a
Graeme Riches and an Alan Douch, but it turned out they were real. I don’t think that counts. Emma thinks I must be missing work but I can
assure you I’m not. In fact last night
Graeme asked me what job I’d been doing and I couldn’t even remember the title
of my job. Just make sure you guys don’t
forget the title of my job OK. Money is
becoming scarce at this end of the trip.
See ya
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