Day 53-56 - The Overlander's Way

We left Katherine and everyone was feeling a bit tired and sick. Liv had a bad case of gastro and needed the bucket close by. Henry was coming down with a sore throat. It was a car full of unhappy campers.

We decided to cut straight for the East coast as quickly as possible. First night we stayed at the roadhouse in Renner Springs. Second day we drove to Mt Isa which was a long way - our biggest drive of the trip. It seemed like we were in the car for days. On the way to Mt Isa we had to stop on the road while some cattle were herded across a bridge. We saw the cattlemen driving the cattle on horses. Luckily we arrived in Mt Isa just before the caravan park closed. Mum was getting a bit worried.

We saw the big mine at Mt Isa but didn't have time to tour around. Dad said they mine copper, lead, zinc and silver. They have problems with lead dust from the mine.

The next day (Liv's birthday!) we drove to Hughenden and stopped off at Kronosaurus Korner in Richmond on the way. A long time ago the ocean covered big parts of inland Australia including where Richmond is today. Some of the local farmers have discovered lots of fossils of dinosaurs that lived in the ocean about 100 million years ago. The museum at Richmond has some of the best preserved fossils of these animals, called Pliosaurs, in the world. Kronosaurus was the biggest one - it grew up to about 10 metres long - and it ate other animals in the sea (it was a carnivore). We had special talking phones which told us facts about the dinosaurs and how they found the dinosaurs.

That night we celebrated Liv's birthday with a special dinner at the Royal hotel in Hughenden. Henry had dinosaur nuggets.

On the fourth day we drove to Townsville and stopped for lunch at Charters Towers. Charters Towers was famous for a gold rush in the late 19th century when an aboriginal boy called Jupiter discovered a nugget in a nearby creek. Charters Towers was nicknamed "the world" because people said there was no better place to live and you could get everything you wanted there. We walked around to look at some of the old buildings and visited the information centre where they showed us a video about the history of the town.

Day 50-52 - Victoria River and Katherine

We crossed the WA/NT border and stopped overnight at the hot and dusty Victoria River roadhouse on the way to Katherine. We went for a walk down to the river and over the bridge. Victoria river is the longest river in the Northern Territory.

At Katherine we went to the hot springs for a swim. The water was clear and warm (about 32 degrees). There were lots of aboriginal boys playing in the water. There were also some little waterfalls (which we used as slides) and the water was very deep in some places with sand and rocks on the bottom.

We also went for a cruise up Katherine gorge. There were lots of people in canoes paddling up the gorge. The guide showed us how high the water was in the floods of 1998 - very high! He also showed us the traps where they catch any saltwater crocodiles that come into the gorge during the wet season.

We had dinner one night at the Katherine Country Club where there was a jumping pillow.

On our our last day in Katherine we said goodbye to Granny and Poppy who were heading to Darwin. Will was very sad to see the Maui go! (This was the name of Granny and Poppy's motor home).

Day 48, 49 - Lake Argyle

Arrived at Lake Argyle after a short drive from Kununurra to 40 degree temperatures. A dip in the infinity pool overlooking the lake was definitely needed! Fantastic views.

Lake Argyle is a dam that was built in the early 1970s and flooded much of the old Argyle station. It is huge and has a volume of water equivalent to around 16 Sydney harbours. The water is used for irrigation downstream in the Ord river valley near Kununurra. When the lake flooded the old Argyle homestead was moved near the dam wall and made into a museum (which we visited).

We also saw the dam wall which is about 100m high and 300m wide. Pretty big but only small for a lake as huge as Lake Argyle.

The next day we went for a boat cruise on the lake with Granny and Poppy. It was amazing to see how big the lake is, in some parts it stretched over the horizon. In the middle of the lake we went for a swim off the boat and Poppy, Dad, Liv and Henry jumped off the roof of the boat. Henry and Liv jumped off the roof 6 times! Will jumped off the steps at the back of the boat.

They say the lake has about 30,000 freshwater crocodiles in it, but no saltwater crocodiles!

We also did some fish feeding (mostly catfish) and saw some wallaroos (called Euros) on one of the islands in the lake. They have tried to introduce Barramundi into the lake but they can't breed in the lake - all Barramundi are born male and many change to female during their lives but they can only do this in saltwater.

The Lake Argyle boat trip was unanimously voted the most fun experience of the holiday (so far)!

Day 43-47 - Kununurra

We spent 5 nights at Kununurra, a good base for exploring the east Kimberley. Good to stay in one place for a few days and relax. We enjoyed the "moonlight cinema" on the outdoor TV at the caravan.

The heatwave continued (36-38 degrees) and we spent a lot of time at the pool. As you can see above we had a nice site next to Lake Kununurra.

We did a day trip out to Emma gorge and El Questro station. This was a highlight with some very spectacular scenery. The walk to the gorge was difficult and we scrambled over rocks and boulders for nearly an hour, but it was worth it. At the end was a large pool with a raindrop waterfall and a hot spring coming out of the rock on one side. We went for a swim to cool off.

At El Questro station we stopped for lunch and splashed around the waterhole. Henry and Will found a box with some cane toads in it. The toads are a poisonous pest which have recently arrived in the Kimberley from Queensland and are a threat to some of the native animals like freshwater crocs and monitors that may try to eat them. Some people are trying to teach these animals not to eat the toads so that they can survive.

After lunch we followed a rough and steep 4wd track up to Saddleback Ridge for an amazing view. Dad was very excited, Mum was terrified.

Day 40-42 - Fitzroy Crossing and Bungle Bungles

We stayed overnight at Fitzroy Crossing on the way to the Bungle Bungles. Great big grassy sites and the Bombers had a fantastic (but meaningless) win over the Blues. Still, always good to beat the old enemy.

Bungle Bungles caravan park was pretty basic, all temporary buildings, but we were looking forward to the tour of the Bungle Bungles the next day.

At the start of the tour we were told that the road was in good condition and it would only take us 1 and a half hours to travel the 50km to the Bungle Bungles (instead of the normal 2 hours). The road was still terrible with corrugations most of the way.

The pictures above are of Cathedral Gorge and Echidna Chasm. These two gorges were cut deep into the sandstone by the streams of water in the wet season. The walls of the gorges rise up about 200-300 metres and Echidna Chasm is so narrow in some places that we needed to walk single file.

We also learnt that the Bungle Bungles are about 350 million years old and were originally formed when sediment from nearby older mountains was deposited in a deep trench in an inland sea. This is why the rock at the northern end of the Bungle Bungles is different from the rock at the southern end. The larger heavier pebbles were deposited first in the north and the finer sediments last in the south.

The beehive domes are only found in the south. The stripes are formed because the more porous rock layers retain moisture which allow Cyanobacteria (of stromatolite fame) to form a grey layer on the surface. The other rock layers are red as a result of the rusting of iron in the rock.

Day 35-39 Derby, Windjana Gorge, Tunnel Creek and Bell Gorge

We left the caravan in Derby and camped for 3 nights at Windjana Gorge and Bell Gorge along the Gibb River Road in the West Kimberley. The days were hot - about 36-38 degrees. The kids had to put their heads under a tap and wet their t-shirts to keep cool.

At Windjana Gorge we walked along the trail past pools of freshwater crocs. We stopped to have a drink near one of our new "friends" - see Henry above. We did a 2 hour tour of Tunnel Creek with an Aboriginal guide who showed us through the cave and old aboriginal rock art. We waded through knee to hip deep water in our runners and we told about the story of Jandamarra, an aboriginal rebel who hid from the white authorities in the late 1800s. We needed our torches because the cave was very dark and we saw heaps of bats.

The next day we went to Bell Gorge. We were very hot, so scrambled down the rocks to have a swim in the large pool under the waterfall. Even though this is the middle of the dry season there is still water cascading over the falls. The rocks in the pool were very slippery so you had to carefully edge in on your bottom. The gorge and falls were very beautiful and the swim was refreshing after a long hard walk. After the walk back to the car park Dad opened up the "car bar" for a cold Solo - see us above sitting at the "car bar".

Back at camp we toasted marshmallows on the open fire.

We drove back to Derby the next day very dirty and dusty and had dinner at the Spinifex Hotel to celebrate our return from the wilderness.

Day 32-34 Cape Leveque

We drove to Cape Leveque from Broome. The road was red dirt and sand for most of the way and very bumpy. Dad looked like Ace Ventura because he was bumping up and down.

We stayed in our tents and Geoff, Penne and the kids stayed in a "deluxe" safari tent.

One day we went out on a boat to do some fishing and snorkelling. We saw some whales and a sea snake. The sea snake was venomous and pretty scary. One whale had just given birth to a baby calf and the calf was suckling next to the mother.

Dad caught a fish called a Mac Tuna. It is a strong fish and Dad had to fight pretty hard to get it in. We threw it back afterwards.

Henry caught 3 fish and Olivia caught 2 fish. Henry's fish were all Spanish Flags (stripy sea perch), one small, one medium and one big. We took the big one home and put it on the BBQ to eat. It was pretty good. Olivia caught a scarlet sea perch and a yellow tailed fusilier but they were too small so we had to throw them back.

Gigi also caught 3 Spanish Flags and Claudia caught a scarlet sea perch.

Henry and Olivia both think fishing is really fun and can't wait to go fishing again!