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Sunday 17/8/2014 We left Daly Waters 8.30am heading for Katherine, then onto Lake Argyle Resort to catch up with the others, another clear blue sunny sky.
Came across a lot of dead cattle on the road side, in various stages of decay. Their skin stays intact and slowly dries so you end up with the skin still resembling the beast but only a skeleton inside.
Stopped and checked the oil in Mataranka another 1.1/2ltr used, everyone scratching their heads. Decided we may need to go to Darwin to get engine checked out. From Mataranka dropped the speed down to 90, got to Katherine and checked again, surprise surprise hadn't used any, more scratching of heads. Murray rang the guy who fitted the turbo, he advised us to carry on as going to Darwin wasn't going to be a quick fix. Advised him to put Moreys oil in and just keep an eye. End result is if we stay round 90k, it's all good.
Had to cross the border into WA, oh dear we had to stop at the inspection point, not allowed any fruit, vegetables, or honey. Had to open up the truck and trailer so they could check, something about short fat people that wear a uniform. So he took our potatoes, onions, bananas, garlic, tomatoes, lettuce, and the jar of honey we hadn't even opened! Then he informed me there was a Coles in town, a bit ridiculous really. It was all food bought from Coles originally.
Arrived into Lake Argyle in the dark, 776k for the day. Dawi had cooked tea for us so we all sat down to a feast, excellent. Sat around and had a few beers and a catch up. It's definitely warming up, temp 30o in the car with windows open.
Lake Argyle Resort is a beautiful place, green grass, flowering shrubs, up high overlooking this huge lake, if you look on a map it takes up a very big area. It has a dam on it to generate electricity and provide irrigation for the Ord River Scheme.
Monday 18/8/2014 We were up early, 6.00am as we are now on Western Australia time, another lovely clear blue sunny sky. Heading onto the Gibb River Road but alas the boys have no beer and guess what the bottle shop doesn't open till 12.00pm, so had a bit of time to fill in as couldn't possibly continue with no beer. We got a few supplies, fuelled up, organised our Horizontal Falls trip and checked out the Argyle Diamonds. They have the pink diamonds, stunning. There was one in the case, not in a setting just the bare diamond $86000.00! There was a ring which had a pink diamond surrounded by white diamonds $360,000. I thought it would be a nice memento of our trip, however Murray was not in agreement. The mine is closing in 2020, so they are only going to increase in value. Apparently pink is the top of the chain when talking diamonds.
We were at the bottle store when it opened and got our supplies for the next three days and off we went.
Hit the Gibb River Road, sealed for a bit then onto the dirt. Had to cross the Pentecost River, nothing to dramatic, water didn't go over the wheels. I was talking to a local lady at the crossing and she told us we should not miss Home Valley Station, only about 10k further on, probably wouldn't have called in as we had only come 126k, but on the locals advice we did go check it out. So glad we did it was another amazing place, we had a beer in the bar, then the boys went and checked out the fishing, came back and said we ain't moving, this is us for the night. We set up camp down by the river, care to be taken as crocs in the area. We saw some sign on the river bank where there were slide marks but didn't actually see one.
The station had an organised fishing group down at the river and they had caught some big fish, dew, salmon, and barramundi, 10 to 12lb. Three fish basically filled a 20ltr esky, that included ice as well.
The station is 3.5 million acres, 7000 to 10,000 cattle. We passed some of the cattle on the way to our camp and they were fine looking specimens with huge horns. The station is owned by the indigenous land corporation, and combines a working cattle station and indigenous training facility and during the season, obviously tourists are another part of the business. There were toilets and showers down at our river side camping area, great to get up in the morning and be able to have a shower. There were lots of bats in the trees near where we were camped, made a bit of a racket during the night, but it was quite cool to watch them chase the insects that were attracted to our lights.
We had amazing views of the Cockburn Ranges from our camp site, hope the photos do them justice.
Tuesday 19/8/2014 Left at 7.15am not sure where we would end up as lots of places to look at on the way down the road. Drove into Barnett River Gorge but the water was almost dried up, it certainly wasn't flowing and it was around 30o, we could have walked for a k but because of the lack of water decided against it.
Carried on down the road, it was very picturesque through the King Leopold Ranges, red rock everywhere you look.
Pulled into our camp site at 4.45pm, Windjana Gorge. The gorge here has these vertical sides and they are a charcoal grey colour. $12.00 per person for the camp fees and also toilets and showers. If you want to come for a day visit it is $12.00 per vehicle. Apparently there are lots of freshwater crocs in the Gorge so we are going to check them out in the morning.
Wednesday 20/8/2014 Packed up camp and headed down the road 35k to Tunnel Creek, this is cave which goes from one side of the range to the other, clambered over these big rocks at the entrance which were like marble. There was water flowing through which we had to cross a few times, the deepest being just past my knees, wasn't that warm either. We had to take torches as was pitch black once you got into it, about a km to get through to the other side. There were bats in one section but they didn't bother us, apparently fresh water crocs as well but didn't see any. Mostly walked on white sand through the cave.
After we left there we went back to our camp sight and walked into the Windjara Gorge, the ranger told us it was better to go mid morning if we wanted to see the crocs. He was right, we didn't have to walk in very far and came across this big pool and the crocs were all around the edge, also some floating in the water. The walls of the gorge were vertical and just looked like chocolate sponge fingers on there ends, jagged on the top, not sure how high they were but you had to stop and look up. The ground was sandy, just like at the beach.
Left there around 11am to head to Broome, about 40km more dirt then we were onto the seal again, yahoo.
Arrived into Broome around 4.00pm and found a caravan park very near to Cable Beach, didn't worry about setting up straight away, headed down to the beach and couldn't wait to bathe our dusty feet in the sea, and watch the amazing sunset. Because of all the burn offs that were being done in the area, the sunset was really red.
We drove through a lot of burning areas today, flames really close to the road, with heaps of birds circling above the cloud to feast on the insects that are trying to flee the flames.
Broome seems to be a nice town with what we have seen so far.
Brisbane to Broome, what a drive!
- comments
Anne and Kelvin sounds fantastic even if we don't envy you the driving. The scenery is amazing from the photos you have posted. Hope the 4wd behaves itself or it will end up drinking more oil than Murrays is drinking beer!! :)
Nicola I like how beer gets prioritised over a pink diamond... Good work on the posting and the photos Mum. So much to see and do, even Chris is saying that we should do it with the boys. Given they struggled on a six hour drive from Cornwall to London, I would think a trip from Brisbane to Broome is a fair way in the offing!