Kununurra, WA, 26.9.09

Whoops, after my earlier promises to update more regularly here we are in WA and two weeks without an update and 100 photos to edit, sorry I’ll try to be brief (“thank God” I hear you all say).

Without further ado – Pam, Gran, Belinda’s mum however you know her, arrived in Darwin Monday two weeks ago amid much excitement in the Elliott camp kids especially. Poor lady could hardly draw breath for the first hour in town with the kids vying for her attention trying to show them every little thing (headstand, song, spin, reading, writing, you name it) they’d learnt in their life times right now, it was quite funny. “Gran, watch this.” “Gran, look at me.” “Gran, have you seen...?” Gran, did you know...?” It was all good once we settled down though.

Briefly, we did some sites with Pam, East Point for the Sunset (beautiful and got some of my best ever photos), Casino for dinner with some great people from the local Chinese/Australian community. They were a laugh and Lachlan ate with admirable restraint. We did the water park again, and again I forgot my camera so there are no photos despite my assurances, the aviation museum which was excellent, had lots of planes and displays with the crowning piece a B52 bomber that practically filled the room with all other displays underneath it, very cool. Obviously the best thing about Darwin was our last Friday night where I was privileged to watch Parra flog the Titans with Lachlan while the others went to Stokes Hill wharf. Only joking of course but you must admit it was pretty good to see and now they’re in the Grand Final and I’m searching for an NRL TV in West Australia, cruel joke.

We left Darwin on Saturday morning and went straight to Kakadu, this was not entirely with complete excitement for all parties. Lachlan was sad to leave the animals and I was not very keen because everyone I’d met on the road and said it was overpriced and overrated for the 500km drive (loop). Flies and Hot, two words to describe the last week, obviously there is much more than that but in two words, flies and hot, starting at Kakadu. We stopped for lunch at the West Alligator River, we made it short and sharp and bailed out, 20km down the road Pam realised she’d left her phone at the picnic area so we turned around and went back, once there Pam and I jumped out to search and Belinda discovered that she’d been sitting on it the whole time. It was almost funny, Pam was very sorry, I laughed and Belinda, not much reaction, not sure what she thought. Continuing on we checked out the Cultural Centre at Jabiru and had a look at some old rock art at Nourlinga, that was a really enjoyable walk with some great Kakadu views. We arrived at Cooinda (our camp spot) just on dark, Pam got a room with A/C and we set up the trailer then had a baked meal with wine for dinner. We ate the baked dinner straight from the tin, baked beans, actually I had Italian, cheesy spaghetti. Sunday morning was probably the highlight of the trip so far, the Yellow Water cruise. This is a dawn cruise through the Yellow Water Billabong and onto the East Alligator River through the Kakadu wetlands. Amazing is the only way to describe it, 40 species of birds, plant life and at least 50 croc’s, on two occasion we had a 4.5 meter croc cruising alongside the boat about 2m from me, I’ll put a separate folder for Yellow Water on Flickr, it was so cool. We were on the water for 2hrs and wasn’t bored for a minute, there was a constant stream of thousands of Magpie Geese flying over, there was Egrets, Herons, Kingfishers, Duckbills, Whistling Kite, White Bellied Sea Eagles, and even a couple of Jabiru. I don’t know how big exactly the area we were in is, but it was as big, measured in square kilometres not acres. The water was four metres deep and in the wet the whole area goes under another four metres of water, it must be incredible to see.

After the cruise was another buffet breakfast, very nice, again everyone ate sensibly and then we headed back for Darwin via Litchfield NP and Lake Bennet, a nice big lake where we stayed and swam. Back to Darwin by Monday for dinner with Ian and Meg who are such an exceptionally nice couple of people, Pam on the plane at 1.45am and out of town by lunchtime Wednesday. At this point we realised we’d overspent a little and decided to free camp our way to WA.

We took three nights to get here, our first night we spent at Copperfield Dam near Pine Creek (found out later not far from the Peter Falconio murder). Copperfield is the town water supply and safe to swim, so we did and spent a nice quiet night begging for the breeze to kick in. It’s amazing how hot the ground gets out here, it bakes all day in the sun and then when you set a tent up, generates some serious heat through the floor till well after midnight, now we always look for a spot that’s been in shade for ages. Next day we drove to Edith Falls and hung out for the day, you cannot drive past this place, it is one of my favourite places in the country (I’ve been from Port Arthur to Cooktown to Kununurra now so can say that with some authority). We just lazed about in the shade and swam and lazed and swam etc before driving 50km west of Katherine for a free camp spot at Limestone Ck. Another hot night with a mini car accident out the front at 3.00am (no injuries) and off to Saddle Creek. Saddle Creek is another free camp site about 40 minutes from the WA border and another highlight. There is nothing there but it’s the last rest area before the strict quarantine rules at the border crossing so we ended up meeting three separate groups of strangers (now friends) two from England, two from Switzerland and one from Sweden. We had a great night swapping stories and eating all our fresh fruit and veg as well as as much honey as we could so we wouldn’t have to throw it away at the border. Our free camping experience from Darwin to here has been a great experience and one of the highlights of travelling, and it’s free!

So yesterday we crossed into WA, we ducked into Lake Argyle which was absolutely spectacular, reminded me of NZ South Island only hot and dry. You travel through this amazingly arid and rugged land, through a massive towering red mountain range, you can’t go over you wind through and come out at Lake Argyle. The Lake is huge, like bigger than Sydney Harbour huge and the cliffs just drop straight into it, you can swim but you can’t get to the water, except for one dodgy spot where the boats launch from. Kids did some school work by the Ord River just below the dam (the lake is actually a dam) wall sitting down in a shady area at the bottom of the Ord Gorge, another incredibly rugged and spectacular Gorge. The river looked so inviting but of course full of big Salties so we didn’t get our feet wet. After school and lunch we headed for Kununurra we’re we are now at the beautiful Hidden Valley Caravan Park, we have a mini Bungle Bungles on our doorstep, a rodeo tonight and the anticipation of some beautiful gorges and rivers to explore over the next week. To top off an excellent week Parra won the footy and are in the Grand Final and must be a hot chance of taking out the premiership. Life’s good.

29.9.09

After further investigation, Lake Argyle at flood capacity is 2000km2, 46 times bigger than Sydney Harbour. I dont want anyone hassling me if these figures are wrong they are just whats supplied by the tourism people.

Been here a few days now and have really enjoyed ourselves. Lach & I took a stroll through the mini Bungle Bungles behind the camp site yesterday, it was quite amazing, with these incredible red cliffs rising straight from the plains. When we walked to the cliffs we dicovered that they are split into a mazreof mini canyons with lovely ghost gums and flat grassy paths in between, really cool.

All our friends that we've met on the road turned up here the day after us and so we've been having fun with them, it's always hot during the day but cools down at night. We've bought some Zebra Stone from the local gallery and toured the area a bit. Our big problem is %99 of places here are 4WD access, we of course are in our Commodore, with the assurance of our (4WDing) friends we did take the car into a nice little waterhole, the road was a track and we will never take road advice from 4WDers again, no damage but it was pretty rough and Lach was stressing out like we were all about to die the whole way. We are going to attempt to get to Emma Gorge tomorrow and then split our family into three different 4x4's to try and get to the Bungle Bungles, we'll let you now how we get on. For now it's all good and there's some new photo's on flickr.