Friday 26th April 2024

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Friday 26th April, Mary PoolMary Pool Rest AreaFreeRated by us 8/10Mileage 18484 travelled 777kms includes travel in BroomeTime to move on heading towards Kununurra, via a free camp for the night. WE have been advised by the tourist board to avoid Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing as the crime and theft is horrendous, so we have picked Mary Pool one of the four sites recommended by the tourist board, it is 108km short of Halls Creek and will enable us to make Kununurra tomorrow.The scenery is changing again as we move from the Pilbarra red earth to the browner dirt of the Kimberley. The first of many Boab Trees start to appear along with more water in the creeks and rivers. The termite mounds are now brown as opposed to red and there seem to be many more fields of smaller tall ones rather than the red fat squat ones we have seen so far, they are all strange. We stopped to top up our fuel in Fitzroy Crossing and it is so sad to see the place, the people sit around under trees with nothing to do, the houses are run down and the servo has grills and chains on everything, even then the lady said the theft from the shop is horrendous. The road is in pretty bad shape after all the rain but a new bridge has been built across the Fitzroy (the old one was washed away in this years floods) which has at least re opened the highway one. The typical long straight stretches of road are back again, disappearing to the horizon as far as you can see, with a shimmer from the heat. There are many single track bridges on the road, some are in a bad way and some are been replaced, to say this is the HIghway1 its a bit bad it is not better maintained but as G said only locals, delivery trucks and tourist use this part so it will get run down, no mining companies to push or pay for the upkeep up here.The scenery is really spectacular as we wind our way into the Kimberly region, lots of hills and valleys, camera getting a work out today.Mary Pool is a nice grassed area at the side of a large pool, it has lots of shade and we met up with a couple from Broome who are also heading to Kununrra, staying at the same site so will see them later.

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