Katherine to Kununurra

On Wednesday the 20^th May it was time to leave Katherine and head west. This was exciting for us as we were now heading into areas we have never been. We said goodbye to new friends Ray and Vicki who we were camped beside at Katherine for three days and headed off.

We were not planning on taking much time to get to Kununurra because we are deliberately getting to the Kimberleys early in the dry season hoping to be able to take the van on the Gibb River Road. We reached the Victoria River Road House which was a great stop for morning tea. The ranges around the Victoria River are gorgeous.

We had only just pulled in and a lady and her little boy pulled in. She was driving a big horse float truck with six horses and towing a huge mobile home trailer. I thought I recognized the name on the trailer, ‘Coolibah Station’. Sure enough when she got out I realized it was Christina Jones from ‘Keeping Up With The Joneses’, which was a series on Channel 10 about an outback family, Milton and Cristina and little Milton Jones.  I told her I was a fan. When we left and headed on we saw the sign for Coolibah Station was only about 20km further on.

We then continued on toward Timber Creek. We had our first and hopefully our last near miss with another vehicle on the road. As we were approaching the crest of a hill we were face to face with a vehicle coming at us on the wrong side of the road. He was overtaking a motorhome over double lines. Unbelievable. He pulled back in behind the motorhome just in time. I had started to swerve left but would not have been able to get off the road far enough as the drop off from the shoulder was to steep. Our Lord Jesus was looking after us, Praise God.

As we neared Timber Creek we pulled in to the Durack Memorial site and read the info and saw the replica of the bronco panel that they invented for branding the cattle.

We pulled in to the Timber Creek Caravan Park, set up and went for a drive to see the sights. The Victoria River is one of the biggest rivers in the top end.

We went and saw the Gregory tree which was a big boab tree. It is the site of the Angus Gregory Exploration and Surveying Expedition of Northern Australia.  It is an aboriginal sacred site. I can imagine the aboriginies were pretty pissed off when the artist in the Expedition party carved ‘July 2^nd 1856’ in the tree. It was an important place for the aboriginies before Gregory’s Expedition Party came along. It was interesting though as a ‘schooner’ (boat ie) would come and bring supplies up the Victoria River where they had their base camp, complete with huts and vegetable garden. Gregory was a pretty interesting man who invented stuff on the job including a compass he could use on horseback and saddlebags that allowed the horse to sweat and he learnt how to dehydrate food so that his pack horses had to carry less weight.

Went to a lookout from the escarpment and then back to camp. The days are pretty hot for us now so a swim was very welcome.

At sunset we went back up to the escarpment lookout. The colours were amazing and the photos do not do justice.

 

We took a couple up to the lookout with us, Gary and Corrina. Get this, they are on a three month bicycle ride from Darwin to Perth. Yep, I don’t want to guess their age but they are no spring chickens. How hardy are they? We met them in the caravan park. A lovely couple from NZ but don’t hold that against them. They had left Katherine and it was their third night from there. I cannot imagine trekking like they are with so little comforts. We knew they would not be peddling up to the escarpment so thought it would be a treat for them if we invited them to come up with us at sunset. (Unfortunately to much flash effect).

 Today, Thursday the 21st we left Timber Creek and headed to Kununurra. We passed the Bullo River Station sign. That is the property where Sara Hendersen lived and her daughter, Marlee and husband, Franz still live. Sara and Marlee wrote novels and I would have loved to meet Marlee. Sara has passed away. It is a rough road out to the property and a 300 round trip without the van so it was not going to happen.
We arrived at Kununurra and went straight to a caravan repairer/engineer as I have trouble with the hot water service. He thought he repaired it today when he found the pressure release pipe had been jammed and no flow came through it whatsoever. He replaced it but when I filled the hot water service the release pipe constantly flowed. The engineer thinks the valve is damaged. Problem is he could not get it out to check it so I have to bring it back to him tomorrow, but whether he can fix it is another problem. See what happens tomorrow. Trouble is we are chomping at the bit to get on to the Gibb River Road before it gets wrecked.