WESTWARD HO!

We are back in the land of technology again so we can bring you all up to date with our shenanigans since leaving Katherine last Tuesday (28/5/11).  We had a pretty long and arduous drive that day - all of 58km! We stopped at the Vince Connoly Crossing, Limestone Creek campsite and quite liked it so stayed for 2 nights. It is a fairly large free camp and we managed to find a reasonable place. By mid afternoon it was packed out! There are toilets at this camp site but they are waterless and were pretty horrible. Most of the travellers moved on Wednesday morning with most going west. We watched a large number of caravans and motorhomes travelling west and we figured by the time we got to WA they would have their FULL sign up! We had 'happy hour' with three other couples on Wednesday night and had a lot of fun. The campground wasn't as crowded Wednesday night.
On Thursday we moved on to the Gregory National Park and set up at the Sullivan Campground. This is a small campground and it is part of the Victoria River Region. There was some beautiful scenery on the drive here. We went for a walk to Sullivan Creek. It is quite a large creek but where we walked to it narrows to a bit of a trickle then widens again. We saw a small bird which we think was a young kingfisher. Look closely and you can see it in the photo.

By 5pm the campground was so packed you would be hard pressed to fit another small car in.  Unfortunately no-one told the people who drove in about 1am.  The campground is circular and they drove all the way around with their headlights and spotlights on. They then decided to come around again and stop almost opposite our caravan. I was already awake (had trouble getting to sleep) but I am sure they would have woken almost everyone in the camp site. They left very early on the Friday morning - probably to avoid a lynching!
We left the Sullivan Campground and drove to the Katherine River Roadhouse. The escarpment in this area is nothing short of breathtaking!

The picture really doesn't do it justice at all.  Look closely about centre and you can see two wallabies. A bit further on we had to pull off the road when two large 'buckets' from mining trucks were being transported by road. They took up a good 2/3rds of the road. We were lucky they came along while we were on a spillway so the road was wider there, otherwise there might have been problems getting off the road. We noticed a lot of boabs on the drive through to our next campsite at the East Baines river. Some of them are very large!

This is a medium size one near the East Baines River.

This is one side of the East Baines River, taken from the bridge. The campsite is about 500m west of the river.
On Saturday 2/7/11 we headed off to Saddle Creek campsite. Ths is only about 70km east of the NT/WA border. It is a nice campground and we were lucky to get in early and get a reasonable spot, because it filled up pretty quickly. Early in the afternoon an aboriginal (or torres strait islander) woman drove in, with another aboriginal woman and 4 children. The car had run out of the petrol and the older aboriginal woman was very unwell. I couldn't smell alcohol and from what we could gather she had an existing heart problem. She lived in Kununarra but was visiting the East Baines Community and had left her medicine behind. The younger woman was taking her to Kununarra and had run out of petrol. The majority of the vehicles in the campground were diesel but there were one or two petrol cars. One chap had some spare petrol in a container so he poured that into the car but it wouldn't start. Several guys tried to pop the bonnet but couldn't get it open. The electric fan on the car was running non stop and eventually the battery died. There was no phone service in the area but eventually someone managed to get some help via UHF radio (via Alice Springs). An ambulance arrived about 5pm and took Joy off to Kununarra Hospital. The people who used the UHF had mentioned the other woman and the 4 kids and they were supposed to arrange some sort of transport for them but this wasn't done. We spent about 4 to 5 hours fanning Joy and trying to keep her cool and calm and just monitoring her until the ambulance arrived. Some other people got some food for the kids and the other woman (I never did find our her name). Eventually one of the women at the campsite took the woman and the kids back to the East Baines Community - about 9pm!
Sunday was a bit overcast but it cleared early. We headed off to the Keep River National Park. We knew very little about this NP but some people we had met earlier in the week strongly recommended a visit. It is about 3km from the border and to get to the Gurrandalng campground you have to travel 18km on dirt road. There were some patches of rough corrugation and 2 shallow water crossings but it was worth it, as we discovered when we got to the campground.

This is the amazing view from our caravan! Unfortunately the only available spot exposed the whole of one side of the caravan to the western sun and it was very hot! We set up then drove into Kununurra to get some tourist info and do a bit of shopping to tide us over for a couple of days. There is a quarantine checkpoint at the border and everyone must stop and have vehicles checked. They are very tough and don't allow any fresh fruit or vegetables into WA and there are quite a few other things that cannot be taken in either. Because we just had the car and were only driving in to shop we didn't have to have a full check done. The quarantine officer (Chris) pointed out that when you look back at the mountains in the National park it was like a very large crocodile head. It was remarkable but unfortunately I couldn't get a photo of it because you couldn't fit it all in one shot.
On Monday we headed off in the morning to do the Gurrandalng Walk - absolutely spectacular! It was very hot but it was worth every drop of sweat!

One of the other sites had been vacated so we relocated to that site late in the morning. It was a lot better and we didn't have as much exposure to the afternoon sun. It was a pretty hot day but we got a slightly cool breeze every so often. We have red dust everywhere from the drive in to the national park but any cleaning will have to wait until we get to our next powered camp site.
On Tuesday morning we packed up - relucantly. We would have liked to stay another day but the toilet was full and the batteries were empty so we had to move on. We drove down to the Rangers Station and saw this fabulous boab tree.

We had a look around at the Cockatoo Lagoon and spotted a couple of wallabies and a brolga but they were too far away to show up properly on the camera.
We headed through the border and almost passed the quarantine check with flying colours, except that we had forgotten we had 2 onions! We decided to detour and have a look at Lake Argyle. It is 38km off the highway to Lake Argyle but we thought we shouldn't pass this way without at least having a look.  The scenery on the drive to Lake Argyle is just spectacular. Unfortunately it is a rather narrow, winding road and there is nowhere to pull over to take photos, which is pretty disappointing. We passed over Spillway Creek and were awed by the water racing through there.

When we got to Lake Argyle we decided to stay the night, so we checked in, set up then changed into bathers and went for a swim in the infinity pool. The water was 15 degrees and was pretty cold but once you got in it was lovely. I did get a bit sunburnt though! We went on the Lake Argyle Sunset Cruise in the afternoon, leaving at 2.45pm and returning after dark. We saw freshwater crocs (there are some 25,000 in the lake) and euros on one of the islands. The crocs grow roughly double the size they would normally because it is optimum conditions for them - it is one very large billabong! The lake was created by flooding Argyle Downs - a former 1 million hectare cattle station. You simply cannot believe the enormity of this lake. it is classed as an inland sea and the cruise boats have to be rated for open water because of the size of it.

The view of part of Lake Argyle from the Tanks Lookout

That is the Ord River behind Royce. This is just a few metres downstream from the outlet pipes from the lake and the water races past really fast.

The lake goes on almost to infinity!

The line across the bottom of this island (and pretty much all other islands and the mainland) shows the water level of the lake only a couple of months ago. It was the highest it has ever been and the water going through Spillway Creek was so powerful the waves were 2-3m high and they almost had the bridge washed out. When the lake is at capacity it would fill the Sydney Harbour 80 times! The amount of water coming down the Ord River into the lake in the Wet is beyond comprehension!

On the boat right at the tail end of sunset! A beautiful day and well worth the detour.