Tag Archives: fresh water crocodiles

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.

 

We arrived at Timber Creek around lunchtime and were glad to stay put for a relaxing afternoon. It is a very small, remote town of about 270 people and is the only settlement between the Western Australian border and Katherine,  our next stop.
The caravan park was very nice with lots of beautiful trees for shade, a small pool and a surprisingly large outdoor bistro/bar. It was very quiet with very few campers. We enjoyed a peaceful afternoon reading and catching up with laundry. We thought we’d have a quiet swim in the pool around 4pm to cool down but forgot that we had changed time zones. When I checked my phone, it was already after 5pm! So we headed over to the pool. John dived in right away but I was shocked to find the water really cold so I sat on the side dangling my feet to at least cool them. All of a sudden the gate opened and about ten large men took a run and jump into the pool without spilling a drop of the beer they were each holding! They were builders who had just knocked off work after a hot day and I guess this was what they looked forward to. They began splashing and ducking each other. That was my cue to avoid swimming in cold water so I quickly got out and grabbed my towel.  John wasn’t far behind me. The guys apologised and said they hoped they hadn’t scared us away but I told them their need was greater than ours.
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, 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.