Little Red Hands

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DAY 218

We have been well and truly Bungled! No, for all you Rainbow fans out there, this is nothing to do with Jeffrey, Bungle, Zippy and George, those of you of a certain age and living in England may know what I am talking about.

Today we leave the Bungles to continue our journey further north. Andy is up at 6.00, the day light is well and truly up I can hear the kettle on but I stay in bed because it is still cold outside and bed is lovely and warm, and lets face it we are not in any hurry.

I can hear some shrieks outside and peel back the inner blind, to see a young girl in a bikini standing under a shower, but from the sounds of it the water was cold. I looked out of the other window and Andy was sat there watching having a chuckle to himself. This girl was using a solar bag for the water, but if she was sensible then she would have filled it and let it warm up while they went off to hike to gorges, so she could have a warm or indeed a hot shower on her return, still it was entertainment for Andy.

We busy ourselves getting ready for our departure and finish the last of the damper for our breakfast, washed down with the obligatory cup of tea. A few people have left the campsite already and a few others have gone off for a hike and left their camps ready for their return.

Chris and Sandy drive past to say their goodbyes, we make sure we have email addresses etc. and the promise that we will look them up if we are ever in Adelaide, Chris says we are welcome to come and stay, they have the room, then Sharaya announces from the back of the truck, “not my room!” Of course you never know we may actually bump into them again as we are heading roughly in the same direction.

We are ready and head off, Caroline is excited about the off road drive back as like we have said before its 63K’s in total all off road, which is quite rough and with the added bonus of some water crossings.

We are going well and Caroline is loving the experience, we get to the fist water crossing back and she asks me about selecting 4 wheel drive, I say try it in 2 wheeled drive but she say’s “Oh go on Humour me!!” So 4 wheel drive is selected and we edge in, the water is probably ¾ of the way up our wheels, and she gently keeps the power on and the old Patrol trundles out of the river crossing and Caroline has a smile on her face like a lolly stick has been jammed in.

Apart from the 5 or so river crossings the journey is quite uneventful, rough and fairly slow with unbelievable scenery, there is a fair amount of traffic coming into the National Park, but today we see no tour buses, finally pulling up to the Mabel Downs gate at around mid day.

I (Andy) jump out and do the gate, Caroline takes the Patrol through and parks it underneath a tree for shade as we have to re inflate the tyres, as in less than 50 meters we will be back on the Bitumen.

Each Tyre has to be re inflated along with the trailer tyres, which takes around 40 Minutes, as we are waiting for the compressor to do its works an older Nissan Pathfinder pulls up to the gate and we see the occupants are waving at us.

As they get out we see that it is the Dutch family who we camped next to at Denham, Renate Albers and Sietze Haan and the Children, Julian and Claire.

The little boy, Julian, virtually dives out of the car, with a handful of toys straight in to the red Dirt, before long his trousers are completely red, his hands are red and then suddenly his hands are on his face and his lovely blonde hair starts to turn red, he’s having fun.

We chat about where we have been and what we have been up to, they have done the Gibb River Road and they are just going into the Bungle Bungles before heading back up to Darwin, it is nearing the end of their trip so will be flying home soon.

We eventually say goodbye to Sietze and Renate and hit the road, heading north towards Wyndham, Andy and I agree that we should stop at Turkey Creek to check if Andrew and Kirsty are there, just in case they are broken down and cannot get any further.

There are a lot of roadwork’s along this road, the road is quite narrow for a major highway, there is even a river crossing to tackle, but we see a bridge is being built a few metres to one side that will eventually remedy this.

Just before Turkey Creek Roadhouse a huge Bullock wanders across the road in front of us, lets just say we do not want to argue with this fella, I am pretty sure he would do the Patrol a lot of damage.

Pulling into the roadhouse we scan the landscape for Kirsty and Andrew (believe me it is that easy to look for someone here), we see no evidence of their caravan or Nissan Patrol so can only hope that all is ok and that they will have headed out to Kununarra.

It is lunchtime so we indulge ourselves in a portion of chips from the roadhouse café, they are delicious and very filling, and we eat them as we are driving. We stop at the Doon Doon Roadhouse a little later on to check on the diesel price, it is $1.69 we have plenty of diesel so decide that we will fill up at Wyndham where it will be a little cheaper. This roadhouse looks very neat, tidy and clean, the caravan park to one side of it has lovely green lawns to park on. We have since learnt that this roadhouse is all fairly new.

We are driving down between the O’Donnel and Carr Boyd Ranges. The views on either side of us are stunning; again the landscape never ceases to amaze me how much it changes in a short space of time. We pass the Argyle Diamond Mine, you can see the mine in the distance, Argyle Diamonds are Pink, what a great colour for a diamond! I am looking forward to pressing my nose up against the jewellers shop window in Kununarra, however I am sure that Andy has other ideas, no harm in looking though is there?

Argyle Diamond Mine actually produces more than 90% of the world’s pink diamonds, I wonder if they have any jobs going?

We stop at a couple of places listed in Camps 5 just to check them out, but we agree it is a little bit too early to stop so we decide to push on a little further, we pass a bush fire on the side of the road, we wondered if it was being managed, but there was no one around so we can only assume at this stage it is a wildfire, you can see the birds circling above it.

The second overnight stop was a little bit too close to the fire for comfort and as we are so close to Wyndham and our next stop at Parrys Creek Farm, then we carry on. A little bit further and we find our turn off, another dirt track, but this time only 7 kilometres and we then find a beautiful green oasis.

As we drive in we can see they are not too busy, we ask for a powered site and this is no problem, we pay and are told to go and find somewhere to park up, the choice is endless, sometimes you just want someone to tell you where to park, but here we drive round to try and find the “perfect” spot.

We discussed the bush fires with the lady on reception, she tells us that they just rage out of control up here during these months, they are not like the bushfires in Victoria, the ones up here only have short grass to burn and they just let them burn out as they perceive it will not do any serious damage, they burn for about 5 months of the year, it is also a lot less populated up in this part of Australia.

We soon find that using the big aerial we have two bars on our internet so hurridly log on to catch up on the blog and email, we find the Travelin Truey’s are on Skype so have a brief conversation with them, they are already in Darwin so are now well ahead of us.

I have a lot of pictures to upload to the Internet along with the text for the blogs that we are behind on, that is the problem with being without Internet for a few days you do get behind, but that is just the way it is out here.

We don’t eat much for our tea, only cheese and biscuits as we both felt full up from our indulgent lunch. We had to eat inside the tent as the insects were swarming around the light and the table was littered with them, it was like a mass suicide mission, the bigger beetles (cicada’s?) just kept flying into us they seem to just fly without any aim and crash land anywhere. Despite being sprayed up with Bushman to keep the mozzies away I actually ended up having to put a long sleeve shirt on and trousers just so that I did not constantly get nagged by them.

Before bedtime we manage to chuck a load in the washing machine, Andy’s shorts needed an anaesthetic before being put in the machine. Half hour later the washing is done and hanging on the line, we know they won’t dry overnight, but at least they will start to dry when the sun comes up in the morning and it is a job that I don’t have to worry about in the morning.

They ask you not to put fabric conditioner in the wash as they use the grey water to water the trees and grass around the ablution block; conditioner and bleaches etc will obviously damage the area.

The night is cool, but nowhere near as cold as it had been in the Bungle Bungles, no need for all the blankets on the bed tonight.

Andy is in bed by 9.00, I stay up to finish the blog and finally by 10.00 I give in and go to bed also.

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Photos

Boys
Boys will play

Even Bigger Water Crossing
Caroline at the wheel she negotiated this water crossing

Little Red Hands
Look at my red hands dad, the Dutch family we met when we were at Denham,

Me and My sister
I've got my sister involved so twice as much washing to do

Comments

[Ann W]

Oh my gosh! I am searching for Sietze on the internet and what do I find - them in the outback! That brings back memories - we were there travelling north in 2009 and we met them too. Co-incidences...