Into the NT

We had a pleasant stay at Ivanhoe Caravan Park but left early to look around the town of Kununurra.  That’s the problem with going to bed when the sun sets. Although we read for a while,  we still wake early.

We found a nice cafe in town, The Wild Mango, and enjoyed coffee. Then wandered around the few shops  there. We were back in the car and heading towards the Northern Territory before 10am.

The roads in the Kimberley and in the Northern Territory are quite badly damaged from the recent floods. There are pot holes everywhere.  In WA they have mostly been repaired or marked for repair but in the Territory so far they look like they have been filled in for a temporary fix. I did notice on the news that the NT government has set aside money for the repairs.

The drive from Kununurra to Timber Creek, where we decided to camp for the night, was a pleasant three hours. The scenery was lovely. It changed as we crossed into the Territory, as it became more rugged.

As we got closer to Timber Creek, we drove along close to the Victoria River which was very pretty, although showed evidence of recent flooding. This area is part of the Judbarra/Gregory National Park.  We stopped at Gregory’s Cairn on the side of the road. Augustus Gregory was part of a very long expedition that explored this area in 1855. I can’t imagine how those explorers survived back then. It is so hot and remote. They must have been very tough.  In case they didn’t survive the expedition,  Gregory carved the dates they were in the area into a tree along with details of where they left a letter. Unfortunately we weren’t able to check out the tree because the road was just mud. The story had a happy ending anyway because the explorers did survive and returned home safely.

Instead we dressed and walked over to the bar for a drink. Suddenly it wasn’t so quiet any more. The bar was filling up,  the music started pumping and several more  caravans arrived for the night.

When we walked back to the van, we noticed a few people looking at the river so we wandered down too to have a look. What we weren’t expecting was to see some crocodiles on the riverbank! Luckily they were fresh water crocs so not likely to eat us. Apparently it was quite normal for them to come onto the bank of the river at the caravan park.

We got to thinking that we have not seen a lot of wildlife on the trip because we are driving a lot. We have seen snakes and goannas crossing the road in front of us, wallabies, eagles, brolgas, praying mantas, frogs in one caravan park that were so big I thought they were cane toads, and, as well as the crocodiles at Timber Creek, there were dozens of fruit bats above us that squabbled all day!

So our quiet time at Timber Creek turned into party central with music and laughter coming out of the bar. It must have been the 270 residents come out to play on a Wednesday evening. But it was nice. It was so hot, we just sat back outside the van and enjoyed the atmosphere.