8th June 2017–Cape Crawford to Barkly Homestead

Distance:382 km
Fuel: 42 L

The scenery on Tablelands Highway south to the Barkly Homestead was a little more varied than the Carpentaria Highway. There was typical bush with some trees as well as open plains, lots of cattle on the road too but no stubborn cows that wouldn’t move.

Only one road train and a couple of smaller trucks plus the usual assortment of caravans and four wheel drives. The road was narrower in general and in poorer condition than the Carpentaria but not bad really. A section was being made two lane (for overtaking) so there was a dirt detour through the scrub, elsewhere there were a few unrepaired washouts left over from the wet which bounced you about a bit.

I say the road was ‘not bad’ but I have actually broken a piece of wood in the trailer, or rather that bane of my life the Esky has. Nothing serious or unrepairable just annoying.

Quite cold today, there is a cold wind so I had my jacket on at 2pm, it was about 25’C but felt decidedly cool because of the wind. Wind also affects my fuel economy too.

Today I had phone reception (at the Barkly Homestead) so I have booked a couple of nights at Undarra and Normanton – the latter has a rodeo on when I am there so I thought it a wise precaution; the former tell you in their advertising that it is necessary to book – I booked a tour of the lava tubes while I was at it.

Just realised it is Thursday:

Statistics

Distance Travelled: 12581 km
Fuel Used: 1271 L
Cost of Fuel: $1782
Cost of accommodation: $1583

l should be home in less than two weeks.

7th June 2017–Daly Waters to Cape Crawford

Distance: 280 km
Fuel: 34 L

Woke up this morning early had a shower and felt the need for a jacket, the first time for weeks because, at dawn, it was about 14’C.

Only travelled a few km down the Stuart Highway before turning onto the Carpentaria Highway and set off for its junction with the Tablelands Highway. Not a particularly long drive but being a single lane road most of the time had to watch out for trucks coming the other way.

Fortunately those that I did see I saw in the distance rather than just as I rounded a bend or came over a crest so I was able to slow down and get off the road with no problems. Passed three road trains of cattle and a couple of trucks; the rest of the traffic was either cars or caravans so it was just a matter of putting the left hand wheels in the dirt and passing each other in a cloud of dust.

Arrived at Heartbreak Hotel just after midday and booked in for the night (too far to the next caravan park). Fuel here is an outrageous $1.79/l but the site was only $28 – mind you the facilities are a bit crude but acceptable – the place serves food and has a bar. The sites have plenty of shade so you can’t complain too much.

There is no mobile phone/internet coverage at all (note the Telstra phone boxes in photo) so this blog will have to be posted another day when I do have coverage.

All the caravan parks are noticeably busier since the beginning of June; April and May were much better months to travel.

Oh yes, it has been pointed out that on a few recent posts I have entered May instead of June – Oooops! – I will correct this as soon as possible.

6th June 2017–Katherine to Daly Waters

Distance: 295 km
Fuel: 33 L

Left the caravan park at about 8.30am and headed straight down the Stuart Highway to Daly Waters, very much in familiar territory now. Didn’t stop at any of the many ‘historic’ WWII airfields or hospitals because I did so last time I was down this way. Anyway most of the airfields have just been reclaimed by the bush and are barely visible

Last time I was here I stayed at the Hi-Way Motel so this time decided to stay at the Daly Waters Pub Caravan Park. I thought it would be quieter than the roadhouse. Nope! from when I arrived at about midday there was a continuous stream of campers and vans filling the place up. The pub was doing a roaring trade.

Revisited the Stuart Tree – you can just vaguely make out the ‘S’ carved in it.

Also had a look at the Daly Waters Airstrip once a fairly busy hub, it claims to have been a ‘complex’ especially leading up to and during WWII but now just another bush landing strip though with a tarmac surface.

Am stopped here because I have decided to get off the Stuart Highway and take a detour to the Barkly Highway via the Carpentaria and Tablelands Highways instead of continuing down to the Threeways Roadhouse and getting on the Barkly there.

I had a couple of beers or six at the pub ($8 a schooner!) but they have a happy hour at 5pm to 6pm which I tested – $4 midis. Afterwards I ordered their kangaroo steak which was surprisingly good and well priced.

Tomorrow I plan to stop at Cape Crawford and this journey is about 100km longer than staying on the Stuart but I have never been there before (road less travelled and that).These highways are sealed but a single lane so oncoming trucks have to be treated with a lot of respect (ie you take to the dirt). BTW ‘Cape Crawford’ sounds nautical but it is actually about 140km inland from the Gulf of Carpentaria.

5th June 2017–Katherine Day One

Distance: 23 km

Had a change of heart and decided to stay in Katherine for an extra day so I did some laundry then rolled up at the office when it opened to pay for the extra day and buy a bag of ice.

Almost immediately took off to go to the Katherine School of the Air which I had passed on the way to the caravan park. Annoyingly it took me ages to find it because the sign faced the town and there was no sign facing the other way.

It was very interesting it is claimed to be the largest classroom in the world because it covers the northern part of the NT from Tennant Creek to Darwin (Alice Springs serves the southern half of the territory). While I was there a teacher gave the pre-schoolers their lesson. Each child has to have a governess (govi) to supervise their study, sometimes it is an employee sometimes the child’s mother. It is a really good education system and the results exceed those of the rest of the system.

They still had the original short wave radios that they used until they got the satellite. Now the children can see their teacher and each other, though the video is under the control of the teacher.

Following that I went to the Katherine Museum which was moderately interesting with information about the growth of Katherine (basically started with the Telegraph Station at Knotts Crossing but expanded massively during WWII), the development of transport, railway and a whole room devoted to the flying doctor – not the RFDS but a local doctor who flew his own plane to treat people in remote areas. He sounded like one of these disastrous adventurers who was a danger to themselves and everyone around them but he was obviously well respected (he crashed at least four planes).

After lunch went to Knotts Crossing where there is a weir and shallow crossing across the Katherine River used before the low level bridge was built. It was also the original site of the settlement.

Finally Dogs Head Rock(?)

4th June 2017–Timber Creek to Katherine

Distance: 321 km
Fuel: 35 L

Another easy drive through varied scenery but a lot skirting or cutting through ranges. Ignored the 130kph speed limit and stuck to my now self imposed 100kph limit. Only overtaken half a dozen times and most of them were not travelling at 130kph judging by the time it took them to pull ahead (one maybe).

Stopped several times during the trip otherwise I would have arrived at some ridiculous hour; as it was I still arrived at a caravan park about 1pm. The park I chose was about 5km outside town which might have been fortunate because one I passed one near the centre of town had a queue of five caravans outside waiting to check in.

I was in Katherine only last year on my Darwin trip and spent several days looking at the sights so am probably only staying one night.

Spend a lot of the afternoon trying to work out rough distances I need to travel each day to see what I want to see and still get back home within the approximate deadline I have set for myself. I want to revisit the Undarra Lava tubes but from now on I am largely in familiar territory. I am only allowing two days to get from the Qld border to home which should be do-able but it is a long drive each day. I just don’t fancy sitting outside in the NSW winter.

The temperature at the moment is just over 30’C during the day and about 20’C at night – it suits me perfectly.

3rd June 2017–Kununurra to Timber Creek

Distance: 281 km
Fuel: 27.93 L

After 20 minutes driving from Kununurra crossed into the NT and lost 1.5 hours of my life.

Note the sign telling you that the maximum speed limit in the Northern Territory is 110kph – about 200 metres down the road was a 130kph speed limit sign (someone must have forgotten to remove the first sign when the NT went back to its old limits).

Driving was easy on a fairly good road through undulating bush. I made a few stops at things that interested me.

Was undecided whether to stop at Timber Creek or push on another 90km to Victoria River. I stopped for a few sights along the way and it was after 1pm by the time I arrived at Timber Creek so I booked a night.

While I waited to book in I enjoyed a bloke going rabid about paying $1.70 for a two day old copy of the NT News (paper) the girl behind the counter was trying to explain that this was a remote location and the newspapers were always a couple of days old. He only wanted to pay $1.40 for it – how he arrived at that figure I don’t know but he was very insistent. He eventually flounced out but rather spoilt the flounce by having to come back to get his money back.

Unhooked my trailer in a nice shady spot and went to see the local sights having seen a couple of signs indicating lookouts as I drove in.

The road in the last picture is the highway from Timber Creek to Katherine (only 290km away).

In the creek and bush at the bottom of the caravan park were some freshwater crocs, turtles, kites and bats. Actually there was a two metre croc (as big as the males get) on the bank when I first walked down but I thought it was a fibreglass garden ornament and walked within a metre of it, it didn’t move. It was only later when I went back and found it gone that I realised it was the real thing.

Power for this town is generated locally at a small diesel power station.

I could do without the power I suppose except I like a cup of tea and some toast, videos and my music (am listening to Captain Beefheart as I type).

2nd June 2017–The Bungle Bungles

Distance: 1.5 km

Another brilliant day… Was standing outside the caravan park at 8.10pm when the little bus picked me up to go to Kununurra airport. At the airport we were briefed on where we would be flying and the day’s schedule. The flight was due to leave at 9am so we didn’t have long to wait before we board.

The flight to the Bungle Bungles airstrip at Bellburn took about one hour and flew down the western side of Lake Argyle (the lake is far more impressive from the air than from a boat), over a couple of cattle station homesteads before reaching the Bungle Bungles.

Those rectangles (above) are the tailings dams from an abandoned alluvial diamond mine. It took this mine a year to produce the amount of diamond that the Argyle Diamond Mine produces in a week.

At the airstrip we were met by a 4 wheel drive truck to take us the 10km drive to Piccaninny Creek Carpark and the start of the walk into Cathedral Gorge.

The beehive shaped mountains have red and black stripes where the blonde coloured sandstone has either reacted with algae to form the dark colour or the iron has oxidised to form the red. When you find a flake of the surface rock the colour is only as thick as a fingernail over the underlying yellow sandstone. This coating protects the rock and slows down erosion.

Millions of years ago these northern ranges were as high as the Himalayas, in 30 million more years they will be gone and northern Australia will be a coastal plain.

The guide took us on a slight detour to see where the Qantas ad was filmed in Piccaninny Creek.

The walk is only about 1.5km to get to the gorge but the path is very uneven and is often just soft, dry sand (it was hard to walk on).

The Cathedral Gorge is immense and the acoustics are unbelievable. It was so cool and an incredible place to sit, relax and have the packed lunch provided for us.

After hiking back to the carpark we were driven to the company’s Savannah Lodge for afternoon tea.

After cake, biscuits and tea it was time to return to the airstrip for the flight back to Kununurra which included passing over the massive Argyle Diamond Mine.

The plane landed at about 5pm so it was a pretty full day.

BTW I remembered to count the seats on this plane – there are 12 plus the seat beside the pilot.

1st June 2017–Kununurra Day One

Distance: 4 km
Fuel: 33 L

Up before 6am presumably because, being on the edge of a time zone, the sun rises unreasonably early. Anyway I showered, washed yesterday’s clothes, had brekkie etc while most people were still asleep.

At a far more reasonable hour drove into town to the Visitor’s Centre where a helpful lady booked me on a flight to the Bungle Bungles with a walking tour of Cathedral Gorge. Pretty pleased with that, there is also a chance of a helicopter ride when I get there (hoping and clutching my credit card). Actually I thought it was another seaplane ride but reading the brochure it is a normal plane and we land on a dirt airstrip in the National Park.

While I was in the shopping centre I also bought, wrote and sent postcards to all the usual suspects as I had a coffee and a vanilla slice (haven’t had a vanilla slice for years).

As I will be away all day tomorrow filled the car up with fuel too.

The main event today was a cruise on Lake Argyle; the bus picked me up at 1pm and drove half a dozen of us to the lake. On the way it stopped for 15 minutes at the Argyle Downs homestead. This was the original house built by the Durack family when they first started grazing in the region in the mid 1800s. It was dismantled when the property was to be flooded by the dam and rebuilt on higher ground.

The cruise itself was so so. Everybody else seemed to enjoy it but personally I thought it was a bit dull, no dolphins just a few freshwater crocs, some short eared wallabies, the odd wallaroo and lots of water. The dam wall itself is made of locally quarried rocks and clay there is no concrete except in the pump towers.

Just before sunset some of the passengers went swimming in the lake, the water temperature is 26’C.

There was one redeeming feature – two cans of free beer. Yes, I know it is me but cruises and water don’t excite me much.

Statistics

It has been six weeks since I started on this trip so time for some statistics (you know… those things made up on the spur of the moment) rounded to the nearest whole number.

Total Distance travelled: 10995 km
Fuel Used: 1099 litres
Fuel Cost: $1510
Accommodation Cost: $1384

31st May 2017–Warmun to Kununurra

Distance: 332 km

Was in two minds whether to go to Wyndham or Kununurra today but I was ready to leave very early (7.30am) so decided to go to Wyndham for a look then continue on to Kununurra.

The journey to Wyndham was through a series of interesting ranges and winding passes.

Just outside Wyndham is an area called The Grotto which is a hole in the ground with very dodgy looking stairs.

Wyndham has a Big Croc…

I did want to go to the Five Rivers Lookout BUT there was a sign which said, “No Caravans” so that was that.

Kununurra is only 70km from Wyndham so it was an easy drive. Found a caravan park right in the centre of town where I booked in for a few nights and also booked a cruise on Lake Argyle for tomorrow arvo. There is a dinner cruise on Lake Kununurra but I think I have eaten enough Barramundi for a while.

After setting up my camp including my gazebo and doing my laundry I went for a drive. First stop the Kellys Knob Lookout with its views over town.

Then it was down to Celebrity Park and Lake Kununurra.

Lake Argyle and Lake Kununurra are part of the failed Ord River scheme. I have read the signs but still have only the vaguest notion of why the scheme needed two separate dams so you will have to Google it.

When the sun went down I was feeling pretty hungry so I wandered into the town centre looking for a restaurant and eventually found an Asian one opposite a Subway when I had almost given up. The meal wasn’t bad at all but I think I need to do better preparation in future; wandering about in strange towns is not the best way to find a feed.

Kununurra is only about 40km from the WA/NT border. The next town is Katherine on the Stuart Highway 500km and a time zone away.

30th May 2017–Fitzroy Crossing to Warmun

Distance: 468 km
Fuel: 55 L

This morning, before packing up, I went for a drive to the old Fitzroy Crossing. It is still there but the river silt either side has effectively blocked it off. There were some tyre tracks but they had come from the river sand flats. It is still only a metre above the water line now so one can understand why it was replaced by a higher level bridge.

The drive to Halls Creek where I had originally intended to stay was pretty straight forward though there were many single lane bridges on the way which had to be approached with some caution.

At Halls Creek I filled up with fuel but because it was only 10.30am decided to press on to Warmun (Turkey Creek) Roadhouse only another 160km further on. Warmun is a small Aborigine community who own and run the roadhouse.

At Warmun I enquired about a site and was told to take one and come back to tell them which site it was – it was $35 for a powered site. Once I had set up I wandered over to the Helicopter Flight office and asked if there were anybody who wanted a flight but needed another to make up the numbers. Oh dear, nothing looking likely and at $400 per person I wasn’t going to pay for two seats. Will try again in the morning because Kununurra is only 200km away.

What was an almost empty caravan park was nearly full by the time 6pm came round.