a three wheeled motor tricycle I call a "Shuriken".
You can find it here
That's life ...
I pressed the wrong button on the GPS sometime today and lost the track but it goes between the two overnight stops for Day 20 and Day 21 . . . the yellow bit and part of the grey bit.
This is the park at the end of the main street in Kununurra.
I can’t believe Kununurra has the second most expensive fuel I have come across $1.70/l!!
But I really don’t have a choice so $350 later I head off to El Questro.
I’m told that the area around there is as good as anything down the Gibb River Road but that’s a big call. Never the less it’s about 60km off the main Gibb River Road and 50% is bitumen so I’ll take it quietly and see how we go.
Some great views in this part of the country but hard to photograph at 11am with pretty bright skies.
It’s not a bad place but of course they get you in subtle ways. The $20 park pass so you can wander around plus the $20 camping fee (unpowered).
It’s only just after lunch by the time I get there as the road is pretty easy so I get the bike down and have a blast to all the 4wd lookouts and tracks. For some reason despite the light I quite like these couple of images.
In fact by tea time I manage to cover everything but the gorge walks which I am told are really best done in May. That’s a good reason to go back!
A quick blast out about 20km to the boating jetty produced this just before it was time to return for the evening.
Day 19
Well no breeze but plenty of lightning and at some time 20mins of what sounds like heavy rain. You know that stuff that comes down in drops the size of golf balls but no wind at all. Still it does cool things down a little and I have worked out how to make the roof fan draw in outside air through the windows at each end of the bed so it does get a little cooler. But the vent opening handle has broken so I am going to have to fix that tomorrow or the fan/venting system is not going to work properly.
Packed up at dawn but it’s pretty uninteresting light wise so try to creep the truck out of camp without waking everybody. I think the reason people are relaxed about travelling is they sleep a lot and every time they do anything it’s a great accomplishment.
There is not really a lot to see until the Victoria River area, part of Gregory National Park which is in several chunks along this road. It’s quite a large area but I’m pretty sure it’s for those serious off-road people and their tricked out 4WD so I am not inclined to get too far off road in this part of the world.
The Victoria River is quite large and meets and/or crosses the highway at a number of places for the next 100km or so. It is of course very seasonal but like all these northern rivers when they flow they flood. I’m standing here on the old bridge, which replaced the “crossing”, and looking at the new bridge which now does away with the annual week or two wait during the rainy season while the water flooded over the bridge.
There is still quite a lot of water around and they run cruises up and down the river, billed as the last of the true “wild water” tours. I’m pretty sure it’s not actually during the wild season that they run the tours however.
A little further on I stopped for lunch at this bridge to nowhere. There are locked gates on the other end and the sign says “Defense Department” , never heard of it!!
River is still pretty big at that point.
After chatting with a bloke I had met before in Katherine and Kakadu who was sitting in a roadside stop i.e. parking bay, at least with trees and BBq’s and even toilets if you’re game, for the second day and night in a row while waiting for mail to catch up in Kununurra I decided to go on a bit further. The guy at the quarantine station at the WA border recommended a few stops down the road and a caravan park in Kununurra but the turn of to the Ord River Dam appeared and I decided to turn that way instead. It’s quite a spectacular area in many ways. The caravan park offers $20 powered sites with all the facilities and is actually quite nice and I do like to be able to run the air con all night in this weather so here I am. It’s only 4pm (we are back on WA time I realise) so I take the bike off and go for a ride around the dam area while I still have time. It’s absolutely beautiful but they kick you out at 5pm and won’t let you back in until 7am tomorrow.
But I’ll be waiting at the gate . . .
(This is my favourite photo so far.)Day 18
100% Humidity is not my idea of fun.
I have had two cold showers while packing up this morning.
I drive down to the end of the bitumen just to have a look at the “Safari Camp”, a strange place which is a mixture of permanent tent on raised floors and other odd scattered tents around the place and a couple of converted containers for an office and a shop. It really does somehow remind me of those big safari camps you see in movies. Hatari or something??
Here I have to decide whether to complete the loop back into Darwin via 50km of gravel or turn around and go out the way I came in via Batchelor. I can’t see the point in looping back to Darwin and I quite like the road through the park so it’s back the way I came. Only a quick look at the attractions which are on the main road none of the 20-30 km side tracks this time and before you know it I am back out on the main highway. This time I am filling in the bit I missed by going through Kakadu and get to see Adelaide River on the way. Railway Museum or War Memorial ?? Should have gone to the War Memorial. Nuff said!
This way is much shorter to Katherine, where I have to go to turn off to Kununurra. I really need to do a load of washing but I cannot find a laundomat that is not in a caravan park, and I refuse to pay $25 so I can pay $8 to do a load of washing. It will have to wait, I still have clean clothes and the old ones can go in a sealed bin for a day or two.
Today I am determined to stop before it gets too late but 3-30pm is just too early and all the rest stops are grotty. About 4-30 I spot one with toilets and tanks and shelters and BBQ’s etc and just one little Toyota van parked up the far end. I pull into the near end about 60metres or so from the van because I intend using the generator to keep the air conditioning going for a while tonight. I decide to go and say “Hello”, as there appears to be somebody sitting in a deck chair in the shade near the van, and to explain why I pulled up so far away, and I think it is less scary for other people when you say hello in day light rather than just wandering around at various times. It’s a lady about 50+ something who has spent the last 5 months getting from somewhere in Qld to here and thinks it will take several more months to get to Perth. She is giving herself a year to see how she likes it . . . well that’s the story. Must have nerves of steel I think to just be out in the boonies by herself. I know that’s a bit sexist but I do think it’s different for guys.
So we’re both settled in at opposite ends of the park for about ¾ of an hour and someone else with a motorhome arrives and pulls up about 10metres away from this lady right alongside her and proceeds to set up camp. What is wrong with these people?? Eventually over the next hour or so there are another 6 vans and cars etc. and then for some reason the dickheads with the motorhome decide to move it another 10 metres away. At least now it’s not right in her face.
I start the generator up about 6pm and go for a walk. It’s funny but the sound of the air conditioner is louder away from the truck than the generator. I deliberately have the generator side away from the camp and that seems to be working. For some reason however it all then goes haywire. The charging system keeps tripping over the air conditioning or vice versa and keeps overloading the generator so it shuts down. It takes the next two hours of reprogramming re-routing cables etc. to make sure what is working and what is not. It appears the air conditioning start up is confusing the charging system so I reprogram the charger to less than it’s rated capacity then start up the air conditioner and then gradually increase the charge load to what it should be. It’s been running now for an hour so it’s time to turn it all off and open up the windows and let the heat in . . .
I hope there is a breeze out there tonight.