triplog

The morning we left Mitchell Plateau, we had issues with the awning, so Jane did some insane rally driving down the Mitchell Falls road - we caught up with Matt and Bec down at the King Edward River campsite where we’d left the trailer, had a quick swim and continued north to the coast at Kalumburu - the very top of WA.

We picked up the permits from town (only just made it in time) and headed out to Honeymoon Bay. The campground there was a major disappointment - only a few nice beach spots (all taken) and the rest of the property looked like a tip - rusting machinery lying around etc. Don’t get me wrong the coastline was nice, but pretty mangrove-y and included a resident four metre salty. We set up camp on a freshly bulldozed bit of ground between the two beach areas - boulders and holes and tree roots everywhere. A bonus of this was we got to use the rocks to make the best camp fireplace ever - any more time there and I would have had the thing including a woodfire pizza oven

We ended up spending a few days here anyway, lazing around, going for walks around the peninsula and fishing - no luck off the beach, I think a boat is needed up here. Food was awesome as usual (we have high standards!), Bec made the best curry ever (!), I did a sambal, and Jane made an incredible camp oven apple crumble.

Camped almost next to us down on the beach were a young couple named Marcus and Yasmine, who were touring around Oz on a catamaran (that’s their cat in the photo above) with two dogs. Pretty hardcore - there’s a lot of remote coastline across the top of Australia, and these guys were extremely self-sufficient, to the point of hunting wild pig and goat with a bow. Nuts but inspiring… and using wind-power to get around is a lot cheaper than diesel.

We left Honeymoon Bay early on 03.08.2008 and had a look at the McGowans Island campsite on the way through - we definitely made the wrong call here. McGowans looked like a complete oasis - campsites nestled amongst little stands of pandanas, clean facilities, no rusting junk lying around and a beautiful bay, rocky shores and beaches.

After Honeymoon Bay and a brief free camp on the Gibb River itself, we pretty much did the last part of the Gibb River Road in one stretch, culminating in the Pentecost River crossing. It’s a pretty spectacular (and wide!) river crossing, but we got it at a time when the water level was pretty low and not running too fast. Crocs frequent this area, so walking the crossing to get a good 4WD photo is not a good idea - Jane’s photos above were taken from the safety of the troopy.