Day 12-08-11 Katherine Gorge

 

The women had to drive for 45 km on the dirt road this morning.  Tony felt that we needed a bit of experience in case something happened to our men.  We had several small water crossings, dips and rough road.

It was a valuable experience but I didn’t really enjoy it.  I’d much rather be a passenger.

Norbert and Jill get a puncture – on the bitumen!  The tyres have been cut about on the rough roads.

Stopped at the Victoria road house for fuel and a break.  They are doing helicopter rides!  $95 for 12 mins and $155 for 20 mins.  Tony and Greg do a deal with the pilot and we can have 20 mins for $130.

Tony, Greg and Dean take the first flight up (3 at a time), Jennifer, Michael and I go next followed by Jill, Norbert and Peter C.  Fantastic country, there are photos but they don’t do it justice. Unfortunately there are feral animals in this park – they killed 34000 donkeys last year.

As we approached Katherine Peter D and Susan  came across an elderly couple in a caravan that had broken down.  Of course they stopped, the woman was in a very stressed state. They had blown a tyre and had peculiar nuts on the wheels, no one had a tool to help and apparently the tool box had been ripped off it’s moorings when the tyre blew.  Peter walked quite a way back down the road with the guy in an attempt  find it   Peter D has been a marvel on this trip, helped with every flat tyre and all electrical problems.  So great to have such wonderful people.

Onto Katherine where we suddenly had phone reception – calls from Rhoda and our son (husband) to 3 or 4 people asking us to tell Tony to ring her.  Oh dear!  Not too bad after all, a possum has got into their house and created havoc, curtains down, carpets messed on, soot and cinders everywhere. a Rhoda is handling it with great efficiency.

Michael and I get a kit to repair our tent pole and get no help from the ARB guy with,our winch controller (gives us a couple of washers.  Ha!  Can’t remember if I said that it was hanging by it’s cables.

Arrive at Katherine Gorge Camping ground. This is an upmarket camping ground.  SHOWERS!  Swimming pool (really nice – small waterfall, rocks, plants lovely).  We can have a bistro style dinner & wine/beer around the pool between 6.00  8.00pm – so of course we all did.  I think that most of us had Barramundi

Day 11 11-08-11 Bullita Homestead

 

It’s going to be hot again today.  Dean, Greg, Wanda, Peter D and Susan went off to walk up the Fig tree Plateau.  Dean, Greg and Wanda bush bashed up to the very top of the plateau, reported that they had a 360 degree view of the country.

Tony, Jennifer, Michael and me walked back to  the homestead to read more of the information posters.

During the afternoon we took our chairs down to the river and sat under threes in the shade.  Much too hot to do anything else.

Peter D and Greg had another cane toad hunt in the evening – a total of 51 (76 total).  Peter D who is a Queenslander says that he has never seen so many in such a small area (60 metres). He says that they are all mature adult breeding stock.  Oh Dear!  When one of the toads was wacked a little native frog jumped out of its mouth and jumped off!

John and Lanlan have gone to Katherine for tyres.

The Kapok trees are in flower, this is a sign that the crocodiles are carrying eggs, when the seeds form, the eggs are laid and when the kapok appears the little crocs are hatching.

Off to Katherine tomorrow

Day 10 10-8-11 Bullita Homestead

Had a good trip to  Bullita Homestead – this is the place we had hoped to get to yesterday.  a couple of tricky river crossings, not deep, but rocky bottoms and exits off at strange angles.  On one we had to drive along a rock shelf on the edge of the river to reach the exit.
Bullita station is now a National Park display area – the buildings are all galvanised iron – so primitive, it must have been so hot in summer.  The homestead was occupied until 1977 when there was a huge flood.  The woman who lived ther then was on her own and survived by wedging herself into a tree.  They must have had such hard lives out here.
Weather is getting hotter, the car says 41, but the display at Bullita has a temp range that says the hottest is 38, no matter it is HOT.  We arrived at middayish.
On the way, Michael saw what he thought was a cane toad on the road.  It WAS one of our party ran it over.
Peter D and Greg went on a cane toad hunt in the evening and clobbered 25.  The ranger is pleased. 
Bullita camp is on the East Baines River (runs into the Victoria River (well back so no crocs for those friends and relatives who may be concerned).  Once you could swim here, but due to the high rainfall rivers have converged and they believe that the salties have travelled into it, they are currently changing all the signs inviting you to swim to croc warnings and no swimming.
However, there are some great rock pools that we can sit in.
Bird life is plentiful, something really screeches at night, possibly the sea eagle chicks, it is interesting when one is lying awake.
We have seen: corellas, lesser egret, jabiru, yellow finches, a sea eagle with a couple of young, blue winged kookaburras, grey crowned babblers and rainbow bee eaters.

Day 9 9-8-11 Top Humbert Yard

Heard a couple of very large splashes last night Crocs?  Got up a little earlier to go back down the the gorge to see if we could spot crocs.  Yep! saw three, one quite large for a ‘salty’ (5 feet – sorry for the imperial).
Had a hood drive to Karadingi (Wave Hill) where most of us had showers ($5 each).  Absolute bliss.  We had lunch there and hung a round a bit which had it’s consequences later.
Drove down the Highway a bit and then got onto the Wickham track up the Mt Stanfield, then onto the Humbert track.  We were then really into 4 wheel driving country, up until then I think any vehicle could travel the roads we went on.
Driving was now very slow and we had quite way to go.  The scenery was great, as Tony says ‘magic’.  Were saw red tailed black cockatoos – very exciting, and a dingo stood right in the middle of he road daring us to challenge it.  I was able to open the door and take photograph quite easily, then it reluctantly moved off, making a ‘rumbly sort of noise’.  It later walked beside Jill and Norbert's vehicle.
It was now getting late and we were worried about making a campsite before dark (not the one we planned for) John started to make up some time, when – he gets a flat tyre.  Tony told Michael and me to  take the lead.  Stress!  We had no idea where we were to go.  Came to  river, crossed one section only to find another piece of river with no obvious exit, turned right drove up the river, WRONG WAY, had to do a U turn in the river on some rocks and try the other way, found it!  Getting darker, we find a flat area in an old stock holding pen and believe this to be the cam site, we stop, others arrive and Peter C guides the rest in.  Darker!  Not a very pleasant camp site;  barbed wire, burnt stubble, staying since it’s now too dark to move on.
Wake up, Peter C now has a flat tyre (slow leak).  The company now has had 4 flat tyres, the roads are really giving them a pounding.
Jill P takes a walk and…..discovers correct campsite 100 metres further on.  SIGH.  No one is cross with us since conditions were difficult.

Day 8 8-8-11 Marella Gorge

  

Left early today and headed up to Halls Creek.  Saw Wedge tailed eagles on the roadside, lots of lovely flowers, ant hills [8’ – 10’ high], and piles of talcum dust.  The road is really in good shape for a track, we had to slow our pace down due to the dust.

Halls Creek is quite a nice little town,we did a little bit of food

shopping and actually found a bakery with quite good coffee.  Poor Peter (the guy with the shredded tyre yesterday), pulled up to get petrol only to find that he had a flat tyre absolutely wrecked.  We had to find somewhere to buy 2 new tyres.   The wonderful Tony stayed with him and they were then 2 hours behind us.  They made up time and arrived only about 20 mins after us.

This road (Duncan Highway – dirt road) went through some wonderful country.  This road was far more interesting than the Tanami which was so flat.  We have hills, termite mounds, small water crossings, brahma cattle, (so pretty), wedge tailed eagles and…..a couple of hitch hikers in the middle of nowhere.  They were hopeful weren’t they?  They looked tired and hot, but of course we are laden to the hilt and have no room.

Our fuse is now fixed thanks to the wonderful Peter, so we can recharge our phones and other stuff.

Our party is split tonight, Some in a paddock, Tony, Jenny, Dean, Michael and me are by a river (this spot was discovered by Dean) – with freshwater crocodiles.  The men went swimming and pronounced the water wonderful.

Greg saw about 30 crocodiles (fresh water – we believe they are not so very dangerous) on the other side and downriver a little.  Made no difference to our intrepid males.  We saw about 4 coming in our direction, but they only came so far – not really near us.

Karen, Dean was perfectly safe (Jen says so)……..you should have seen him climb up the tree on the riverbank.

Day 7 7-8-11 Wolfe Creek Crater

Jill P is well this morning
Michael and I had a slow start today.  Yesterday we let some air out of our tyres to make going over the corrugations ‘softer’.  Tony thought that we shouldn’t have let them down so we went to pump them back up with our new compressor.  The back tyre went up OK then blew the fuse in the ‘cigarette lighter’, so poor Tony had to get his compressor out and finish the job for us. Everyone went on ahead of us.  We did catch up about morning tea time.
But….we now can’t charge our phones or use the GPS.  Sigh..
We had  quite a good run, the Tanami Track is in quite good condition, although the dust was pretty bad, we had to  travel quite far apart so that we could see.  We drove on the right hand side of the road quite a bit.
Passed a guy on a pushbike – way out here!  Poor man was covered by our dust.
Again some really great flowers along the road.  
The Wolfe Creek Crater is very impressive we walked to the top of it.  It is 20 metres deep but they believe that when it was made by  the meteorite it was 120 metres deep.  The meteorite was as heavy as a battleship and 850 metres across.
This campsite is very crowded, there is only a small camping area.
We start at 8:00 again tomorrow.
Thanks for the chocolate and chips Tara – greatly appreciated

Day 6 6-8-11 Up the Tanami

 

Today we started our trip up the Tanami Track.  We had bitumen for about 100 km, then corrugated gravel and sand.  We kicked up lots of dust and had to maintain a reasonable distance from each other.

We have been told that this section of the road is good and that the WA side is much worse.

It’s quite a learning curve for us, we discovered that there is a ‘sweet spot’, a speed fast enough so that we drove over the corrugations instead of up and down.  The sweet spot was 90 km/hr.

Tony and John were held up this morning with a fault in something that was installed (loss of power steering oil) in John’s car only 2 days ago, they had to wait until 9:00 to get any attention.  The rest of us started out.  We were getting fuel in Yendamu when they caught up with us.  Yendamu is an aboriginal settlement, travellers are only permitted to enter for fuel and supplies.  It was pretty awful, rubbish everywhere and so run down.  The diesel pump failed to work and we were a little worried, but the guy at the pumps took us to another place, I think the pumps were old, we worried about the state of the fuel but it seems OK.

Peter from Qld blew a tyre today, it was absolutely and symmetrically shredded.

Jill has been sick (vomiting), but is recovering, Peter thinks a combination of dehydration, heat and rough road.  It has been really hot, most of us sat in the shade and watched Tony and Michael rush about.

There were alcohol and pornography warnings on the road, no open bottles of alcohol and no pornography allowed, there was a bin placed under the sign to put it in.  Peter C stopped to look in the bin – it was empty.  He was disappointed Hehe.

Dean is sitting next to me Karen, he sends his love

 

The handwritten sign says – place porn here.