Watching Me Watching You

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Friday 8th – In some ways we were sorry to be leaving Kununurra. After a shaky start it had become a comfortable place to be with enough variety to keep us well entertained. But even more attractive places beckoned and we hoped that Katherine, with its magnificent gorges, would be one of those places. We were sure we didn’t fancy doing the journey in one go so we identified a couple of potential overnight stops. Travelling conditions were good as there was not a lot of traffic and some beautiful scenery en route.

Before long we came to the border crossing and it was time to say a rather sad farewell to Western Australia. The three months or so we had spent in the state had only increased our fondness for it – we have lost count of the many special places we had visited and there were lots we didn’t get to but that only gives us a good reason to return in the future. About the only downside to being in WA was that it gets dark at 5.30 every evening – we never got used to that. Back home of course it gets dark very early in winter but at the height of the summer it stays light until 10pm. However, now we had crossed into the Northern Territory and it was necessary to change our watches and put them on by one and a half hours. This meant that we would get daylight until about 7pm and perhaps people would be discouraged from getting up and about at 5:30am – hooray!!

The road was fairly undulating in places and PIE had to work quite hard to maintain a steady speed. For our break we pulled into an overnight rest area where a few cars and caravans were parked. All but one were just doing the same as us and just having a tea break. Only one looked to be set up for the night but that was probably because it was still relatively early. Just after midday we arrived at Timber Creek where we had stayed before - we had covered well over 200 kilometers and we felt we had done enough for today so we checked in to the main caravan park. Timber Creek is not particularly big - it is slightly more than just a roadhouse but only just. The caravan park was spacious but hadn’t begun to fill up yet so we were a bit undecided as to how to “park up”. It wasn’t obvious how we should place ourselves so on the Aussie principle of “first come, best dressed” we chose a nice big space next to power and water. We didn’t want to unhitch so we followed a pattern already set by a couple of vans a little way away. In hindsight, we realized it would have been easy for other units to block us in. One parked immediately in front and another along the one side but no-one parked behind us or on our “open” side so we had a lovely spot with plenty of room.

The caravan park organized two events – a croc spotting boat tour which started a short drive away and a croc feeding display which took place at the creek at the bottom of the park. We didn’t want to unhitch and move the car (we found out later we would have been taken to the boat) so settled for the croc feeding which cost nothing. It was most entertaining, very well attended and involved about four fair sized crocs and a turtle or two. We got chatting to two separate couples and were invited to share “happy hour” with them. This is not necessarily our favourite pastime but it proved to be a very enjoyable hour or so. The one couple were both older than us and were “poms” from Chesterfield who, after two failed attempts, finally settled in Aus about 30 years ago. The other couple, slightly younger than us, came from Perth and the lady was hilariously funny - so it proved to be a very happy happy hour. We thought about our evening meal a bit later than planned and it was very dark by then but I rustled up a tasty cheese omelette while Graham went and got a pastie and some chips from the roadhouse. The combination was excellent although, as usual, Graham got far too many chips!

Nothing had crept in behind us during the night although a couple of late arrivals had parked up not too far away. But we were able to pack and reverse out (Graham’s pretty good at that now) and be on the road by 8:30am. We knew we would probably need some fuel before we got to Katherine even though Graham had loaded up with the second spare can of 20 litres. But as the price at Timber Creek was quite high we decided to call in at the Victoria River Roadhouse about 80 kilometers along our route and hope that the price there would be better. Not only was the price of diesel much less, but it was a delightful roadhouse which would have made for a good overnight stop had we gone a bit further yesterday. But we would have missed the croc feeding and the happy hour so we weren’t disappointed with our choices. The route continued to be interesting with some fascinating rock formations and traffic levels were reasonably quiet. Soon we were on the outskirts of Katherine and, because we had been told that all caravan parks in Katherine were busy, we had booked ahead at Low Level, a Big 4 park we had used before and which we thought would be a good stop. But, despite paying $37 per night (less a discount because we’re members) the site we were given had three main faults. It was very narrow, it was a long way from the power outlet so we had to “hire” an extension cable and it was directly in line with the ablution block. This meant that many campers walked right through our site to get to the loos and there were a lot of campers there! Usually you can adjust and create a bit of privacy but the site was so narrow that this wasn’t possible. What made it worse was that all sites attracted a $37 fee yet many were huge – almost twice the size of ours. We thought about complaining but decided to sit it out for the first night and to see what the morning brought.

We nipped into town to do some shopping and to visit the Information Centre. We were anxious to do a gorge cruise – a “must do” in Katherine – and managed to get on a 4 hour trip for Monday starting at 9:00am. Back at the caravan park we checked out the pool which was splendid but very busy. We realized that timing would, once again, be important if we were to have a comfortable swim. We also checked out the camp bistro which we remembered positively from last time. It still looked good so we had an evening meal there and it was terrific, slightly lessening our disappointment about other things. In the Bistro area from 5 – 6pm a bush poet entertained quite a large crowd – he was very funny and the crowd appreciated his humour. At 6pm an easy to listen to singer came on and we enjoyed his music whilst we had dinner. He kept going for a couple of hours and again the audience liked his music. Back at the caravan when we were just thinking of going to bed the peace was shattered by the arrival of two new sets of campers, who had to erect their camper trailers and were making lots of noise doing it. As I popped out to see what was going on the chap admitted they didn’t have a clue what they were doing! But, ‘don’t worry’ he said, ‘we’ll be gone in the morning’! There suddenly seemed to be dozens of children running around but surprisingly, although our caravan was now surrounded by families with young kiddies, by 10.30 miraculously it was very quiet so we managed to get a good night’s sleep.

On Sunday 10th July we just relaxed and became slightly less concerned about our site. We were very handy to the loos ourselves so all was not lost and all the young families packed up and left and were replaced by people more our own age. Things were getting better and the weather was, again, brilliant. We drove to the nearby Springvale Homestead which was established in the late 1800s and, although successful for a while, failed to survive as a profitable cattle station. The homestead was taken over by other families including a successful author but was eventually left to the local authorities to be used as a museum. As well as a museum it is now a pleasant café and also acts as a reception for a small caravan park. We noticed that they ran “Crocodile Tours” in the evenings which included a barbecue supper. As it was reasonably priced we booked a trip for the same day as our gorges cruise – tomorrow – so that will be a busy day. Today, though, after sampling the tea and scones in the café, we returned to our caravan and prepared for a swim in the pool. It is probably the second best pool we’ve encountered – large and very clean with plenty of “loungers”. At the last minute, though, we changed our minds and drove to the nearby Hot Springs where we just indulged ourselves for an hour or so, drifting with the current in the warm waters – it was slightly cooler than I had expected but very pleasant. Later on, back at the caravan park, we did have a swim in the pool and because the water was on the cold side it was almost empty. I cooked a chicken based evening meal and although some people still used our area as a short cut to the loos we were becoming more and more settled in our small site.

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