triplog

We camped at Daly Waters pub last night - its about 275kms south of Katherine. Jane and I got here late in the evening (again), we stopped off at the Katherine swimming pool for Jane to swim some laps and I went for a skate at what was a pretty well built skate bowl (but full of rubbish and leaf litter).

Daly Waters is a bit of an Aussie pub institution - established by the Pearce family in the 1920s as a rest stop for travellers on the north/south route, it experienced a boom in the 1930s when it actually became an international airport - it was used as a refuelling depot for international flights heading for the east coast via Singapore. During WWII it became an Allied airbase and was used as a staging post for American bombers. Post-WWII it entered a bit of a decline before re-emerging on the tourist and truckie routes as a nice rest spot - having cold beer on tap can’t hurt either. The current pub was built in 1930 and is now heritage listed.

The photo above shows a flock of rainbow lorikeets having a shower in the spray from the sprinkler - they were hilarious, all screeching when the sprinkler passed over them, then flying off into the trees to shake themselves off, before coming back for another round.

We stopped off for a swim and lunch at the old Victoria River crossing, on the way from Keep River NP to Flora River NP - of course, Jane was straight into the water for a dip.

Flora River National Park is a bit off the beaten track (if the road to Darwin is the beaten track), but well worth it. Very lush vegetation, a nice camping area and apparently good fishing. We caught nothing, but that’s par for the course.

We arrived in Kununurra after Matt and Bec, who’d managed to pass us after leaving the Bungles, and caught up with them for lunch. We did the usual frantic shop, resupply and refuel in the afternoon, including a late shower at the roadhouse - first one in a week!

We managed to leave Kununurra late in the evening, and crossed the border into the Northern Territory in the dark, heading about 30kms in to a campsite in the Keep River National Park.

It was Matt’s birthday, so Jane cooked chicken with green peppercorn sauce, creamy mashed potato and snow peas. Dessert was a Sara Lee cheesecake… oh yeah.

One of the last attractions on the Gibb River Road (heading west to east) is El Questro station. It’s a very commercial ‘bush experience’ - there’s a restaurant, a bar, manicured grounds, very high-end accomodation (along with the camping), tour groups galore, horse-back tours, helicopter flights, the works. But in spite of all this (and the expense), the landscape and natural attractions are magic. Zebede Springs, a cascading series of hot pools fed by a thermal spring, under a stunning orange sandstone wall and surrounded by palms and ferns, was alone worth the price of admission. And the other gorges are pretty spectacular too.

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.