Nomading - Katherine Timber Creek and Kununurra - 14 - 24 July 2021

Finally moving on from Darwin, not that we haven't loved our stay there because we have but WA is open up to NT again and Matt and Lyndal are moving across from Kununurra and will be in Katherine on Thursday 15 July and we want to take this opportunity to catch up with them. We are arriving a day earlier so that we can be set up when they arrive and once again we will be staying at Manbulloo Homestead. We didn't hurry because it wasn't a big drive and we only had a few household things to do when we did arrive. Once again we drove through Adelaide River and once again it was market day, they have a market three days a week so chances are good of passing one by and then we pulled into Manbulloo around 1.30pm we then set up and we were sitting down to lunch about 2.15pm. After lunch I took care of the few things I wanted to do and then we sat outside enjoying the afternoon in the shade. We had asked when we booked if they could organise for us to be together but we weren't sure if that was going to happen or not but we did have a vacant site beside us and we were keeping our fingers crossed that it was for Matt and Lyndal. We watched a bit of TV after dinner and then we were in bed early to prepare for the next couple of days.

Thursday we were up and waiting for family, I had purchased the box of chippies that I always have when there are grandchildren around, I had actually missed buying them so it was fun to make this purchase, maybe I really missed seeing our grandchildren. Still no-one in the site next to us so our hopes are growing, Matt and Lyndal expected to be there around 11.00am and they were pretty much on time and thankfully they did have the site beside us, life is good. Cuddles and greetings lasted for about half an hour, apparently our grandchildren have been talking about nothing else but catching up with us for the past three days, I do hope we can live up to their expectations. They had so much to tell us about their trip so far, it is great to see they are really enjoying themselves. Matt and Lyndal had to do a bit of shopping to they left the children with us and had a bit of time to themselves, the first time in three months that they had been alone. We spent the early afternoon with them talking about the different experiences they had and friends they had made on the way. Matt and Lyndal returned mid afternoon and after packing away the shopping we sat and had a catch up and of course I took a few photos. Manbulloo take the children to feed the horses on the property at 6.00pm so I decided to walk up with them and take photos, it was a magnificent evening as you can see in the photos. We were mainly feeding Percy (I think that was his name) but unfortunately after Percy had a few handfuls of feed he became quite drippy with saliva flying in all directions. After that Annabelle and Edie were not too keen to feed Percy so they would bring the feed up to me to give him and to be honest with that amount of saliva flying around I wasn't that keen either so we made an executive decision to throw the feed into his bucket for later on and then I suggested it was time to go home for dinner. Anyway by then I had some great photos of the children and Percy so we were all happy with that. We returned to camp where we were going to eat all together, we had agreed on BBQ which meant sausages in bread for the children and we had chicken wings cooked in the air fryer and hamburgers with a bit of salad. The children aren't that late out of bed and they were really tired so after that the four of us sat around talking well into the evening, offering information backwards and forwards, it was so good to catch up.

As luck would have it the Katherine Show was on this Friday and Saturday and Robb and I love a good show. Neither Matt nor Lyndal have been to the show for a while now and this will be the first show for our grandchildren so we are so excited to share it with them. We didn't hurry in the morning, you really can't with young children but when we were ready we drove straight there. Unfortunately the disabled parking was full so I let Robb off at the gate, parked the car and then went to meet him and purchase the tickets. We were looking at a very long line when we saw Matt and Lyndal waving to us and they were fifth back from the front so we joined in with them as you do. It was an excellent show with lots to look at we had told the children we would buy a show bag each for them, they did not really know what a show bag was but we had googled it the day before together so they would know what they were looking at and they were quite excited. After a quick look around Elijah decided he wanted a bubble gun instead of a show bag so we bought one for him which entertained him for the rest of the day so well worth the money. The retailers had a good arrangement in that you could get as many tops ups through the day that you wanted so we took many trips back to them to get a full bottle of solution and then another one when we left. The girls spotted a show bag truck and chose the bags they wanted and they were so excited it was well worth every penny (that is an excellent expression). We spent a bit of time going through both bags and showing every little thing in there which made them very happy. From here we walked over to the rodeo area where there were a few horse events happening, we didn't stay long because Annabelle was worried the cattle that were being herded might be hurt and the horses often fell down a hole and stumbled so she was worried they would hurt their legs. We moved on from here around the show. At one stage we separated and then met up in the food pavilion where we had lunch and Lyndal met up with her Pastor and his wife from 20 years ago. We all sat together and chatted and we now have their details for when we return to Katherine. From here we walked to the dodgem cars where Matthew went on with Annabelle and Lyndal went on with Edie, however, I did notice a bit of competition between Matthew and Lyndal while Annabelle seemed to be enjoying every minute and Edie was just sitting back bored. My job at this time was to take Elijah around to the jumping castle where I paid for him to get on, removed his shoes and then he was off. We must have been there for 30 minutes, he is not the gamest one of the three children but he had high hopes, He climbed the ladder to slide down the steep slide but when he had a look at it he changed his mind and then came back to the ladder to climb down. I could almost see his mind ticking over thinking the slide might be easier but he persevered and eventually climbed down. He sent the remainder of the time jumping around the lower levels. When he decided to leave we walked back to the dodgems to meet up with the others, they were still going so I took a few photos. We had enough now and decided to drive to the Hot Springs to have a soak, last time we were here we couldn't find the springs but we had taken a few directions from Jenny who lives here. We parked and walked down to the springs, we had not worn our toggies but it looked really good so we held the towel for each other to get changed and then we joined the others in the water. it was just what was needed to cool down our core body temperature and we were happy to sit there and talk to other in the springs. We left here and Robb and I had to drive into town to pick up a few items and Matt and Lyndal drove back to camp. We had already decided to have left over BBQ food for dinner, there was still plenty left and we all had plenty to eat. So sad that we are moving on the next day but we are really keen to get into WA before they close their borders again. We had a great night sitting around talking and when the children disappeared we eventually found them in our bed, which they think is very comfortable, as we do, it was well past their bedtime and they were happy to go to bed.

It is with mixed feelings that we are moving on the next day, we are really keen to get into WA before they close their borders down again which they could do at any time but we are sorry to be moving on from our family as we have had the best two days and we won't see them again now for a few months. We took a few photos and then it was time for us to hop into the car and move on, I am sure they also have plans for the next few days in Katherine and want to get on with them. Our destination for tonight is Timber Creek roughly half way between Katherine and Kununurra. This is a beautiful scenic drive through the Victoria River area where the landscape is so dramatic with red hills comprising many rock structures that leave you wondering how they were formed. We eventually arrive at Timber Creek and we are able to get a site where we can stay hitched up for the night. We don't bother taking the awning down we have plenty of shade from the trees overhead. When we have set up we walk down to the river to find a crocodile sleeping on the other side of the bridge, we walk over to take a few photos, he is just a freshie so we feel quite safe. When we return to the van I cook up all the vegetables we have before crossing the NT/WA border where they are very strict about taking any fruit or vegetables over into WA. We return later on to the river for the croc feeding but find he is still sleeping and no amount of vibration or tempting with food can get him moving along (maybe he is dead). We return to the van and then walk over to the pub for a beer, or really just to take a few photos. One beer is enough and then we walk back to the van for dinner which is very late because we are cooking in the van oven and it is not a quick cook.

The next day we were up and ready to drive to Kununurra in Western Australia, we were ready with our G2G pass that was required to cross into WA and I had spent the day before cooking up the remainder of our vegetables so that we wouldn't have to ditch them at the check points. I was a bit stressed about crossing the border because we had heard a few stories about how difficult it was to pass through, however, it could not have been easier. We drove through more beautiful rugged territory on our way to Kununurra and we soon found the caravan park we were booked into and found our site and set up. We needed to go shopping because we had let everything run down or cooked it up before crossing over and we didn't have any fresh vegetables left. After shopping we had a walk down to the lake at the park and then back to the camp for the rest of the day. I phoned the caravan repairer to see what time we could take the caravan to him in the morning and have organised for 9.30am. We have let the caravan park know we will be taking the van out in the morning and we will be leaving our table and chairs at the site to save packing them up and hopefully we are back early afternoon. We are still hoping to extend our stay here but when I checked in this morning there weren't any vacancies so I will have to check again in the morning.

We both had an unsettled night last night worrying about getting the van to the repairer and then back again to the park and then off course will we be able to extend out stay here. It is really hard to give an accurate description of how many people are on the road and how packed the caravan parks are, so much so that even the overflow areas are finding it difficult to keep up. So it is not surprising to hear that we were both awake quite early and packed up quickly and arrived at the repairers 30 minutes early. Lindsay we had been dealing with on the phone didn't care that we were early and started on the work straight away. We sat down at the outside table on his beautiful block talking to other caravanners there for repairs until he indicated he was finished. We now have a solid piece of metal attached to the roof extending over the opening and siliconed on the inside of the van so hopefully we should be rain proof. I cannot express how grateful we are to Lindsay, I think I thanked him at least a dozen times and then explained I couldn't really find the appropriate words to explain how I felt about the work he had finished and what it meant to us that he was so cooperative. The best I can do is to recommend him to anyone travelling along the top end. We drove back from here to the caravan park and set up, again, and then walked over to the onsite cafe for a coffee but unfortunately they were closed for the day, damn. The office is next door so I went in to see if we could extend our stay and thankfully we can but we will need to move to another spot which is ok with us we are just so happy we can stay longer, so because we have wasted the last two days we have booked for another four nights here. From here we drove into the town centre for a coffee at the Cornerside Cafe, I have to say the coffee was excellent and Robb had a piece of carrot cake that he thought was pretty good too. We then visited the Information Centre to book a tour of Lake Argyle and surrounds and we were hoping to take that on Wednesday but they were booked out so we have booked in for tomorrow. We were a bit concerned because we are moving our van tomorrow but we are being picked up at 11.30am out the front of the caravan park so we should manage this ok. Back to the van from here to sort out our movements after Kununurra and our sightseeing around this spectacular area.

We were up a bit earlier this morning to get ready to move around the corner to our new site. Check out time at the park is 10.00am but most people are well on their way by then and we are hoping the people currently in our new site may be the same. We plan to make our coffee and then go around and see if the site has been vacated and thankfully it is so we went back to the van and hooked the van up to move. To do this we have to exit the park and then drive back in again because the streets we want to access are all one way. It doesn't take us long to get set up and it is good knowing we have four nights here as we have moved daily for the past four days. I had some washing to do before we meet up with the tour and I took the opportunity to prepare dinner before going out, but the time we walked to the caravan park entrance the bus was already there so we found our seats and finally sat back and relaxed. The coach took us 70 kms over Durack country to the new site of the original Durack family home, Argyle Homestead, where we had our first stop and chance to stretch our legs with a walk around what is now a museum. The original site of the homestead is now underwater in Lake Argle and the home was dismantled and moved to this new spot. The home is surrounded by a wide verandah and was quite cool inside, it is very typical of this era with a hallway down the centre and the rooms to either side of the hallway. There is a resident bowerbird that has a home on the fence line of the property which we had to take a look at, it is a very nice home with lots of white articles to decorate the entrance. This Bowerbird's name is Patsy, named for an original pioneer to the area and the builder and owner of Argyle Homestead. Bowerbirds decorate the entrance to their homes to attract females and I think different species like different colours and white seems to be Patsy's colour. There is a story that there was a wedding at the homestead and they had white almonds on the table and the majority of them ended up in front of Patsy's home.

From here we drove on to the most magnificent Lake Argyle and over the dam wall of the Ord Top Dam where the views are nothing short of breath taking. The dam wall itself is an engineering marvel and if you are interested in such things I would recommend you do a google search because the story of the build is fascinating but I am sure if I tried to relate it I would mix up some of the details and that wouldn't be fair. We did quite of bit of ooooohhhing and aaaahhhhing looking around at Lake Argyle and if you are coming to the area I would suggest you stay one or two nights here at the caravan park if you can get in. When we went past there were 20 or 30 caravans lined up waiting for a spot for a few nights. most people end up taking one of the unpowered sites so they can at least stay there. I should have mentioned earlier just so you have an idea about the size of the lake it is equivalent to 20 Sydney Harbours at it's desired level and has been as high as 42 Sydney Harbours at one flood level time.

Back on the coach from here and then we were driven down a very narrow, steep, dirt road to meet up with our boat for the 55km trip down the Ord River. Before I tell you about our boat trip I have to mention Hazel our coach tour guide, not only was she one of the friendliest, nicest people you could meet but she was also so knowledgeable about the area, I spent a bit of time with her and picked up lots of little bits of extra information. We climbed onto our boat which had been built specifically for the area for tours and Robb wanted to put an order in for a similar one until he heard the build cost. We chose seats by the side of the boat so that I could take photos but because of the design of the boat you could really be sitting anywhere and the aisles were wide enough to allow you to move along easily, needless to say I took more than my share of photos of this special trip. Jeff our boat driver and guide was also very knowledgeable about the river and surrounding area and a passionate realistic environmentalist. The first 15kms of the trip was a very fast ride through the narrowest part of this fast flowing river which was very exciting, we would stop often when Jeff spotted a crocodile or an interesting bird for us to see. We saw four sets of nesting Osprey high in the trees and Jeff also pointed out some of the more interesting plants in the area, he also spoke about some of the weeds along the river and how nature was correcting the condition without any help from anyone. We stopped for afternoon tea at a well hidden spot on the banks that has toilets and a covered picnic area, we had scones, cakes and fruit with tea or coffee. We all sat around chatting until it was time to hop back on board. Our ride was to finish at Lake Kununurra in time for the sunset which was a sight to see and from here we hopped back on the coaches to be driven home. It was dark by the time we were dropped off out the front of the park but we both commented that this was one of the best tours we had ever been on.

Wednesday we thought we would take a drive to Wyndham a northern coastal town with a port and quite a few cemeteries and on our way we stopped to look around the diversion dam in Kununurra which is most impressive. The diversion dam is part of the Ord River Project which also includes Lake Argyle where we visited yesterday. We had a quick look around and then proceeded with our journey. Wyndham is 70kms from Kununurra and on the way we stopped off at the Grotto which is a swimming hole surrounded by magnificent cliffs. We stopped at the top but could not see down to the water and we looked across at the access which is 144 steps down to the water and the steps are made up of concrete man made steps and rocks, there isn't any railing that we could see from the distance so we thought with respect to wasting a lot of time for people when we tumbled down we would just skip that little adventure and we moved on. It wasn't long until we arrive in Wyndham and I am not sure what we were expecting but this is a sad old town where the majority of buildings are falling down and the majority of businesses have closed down. I think in it's day it was a thriving port with lots of ships including cruise liners coming and going but we are not sure if there is much that happens here now all though the port does look to be in good condition. We visited a few areas including the fishing jetty which is in good repair, there is a pub but not one I would enter a and the supermarket has a definite sag in the roof. On our way to The Bastion Lookout we stopped off to take photos of the very large crocodile in the town park and we also paid a visit to the pioneer cemetery which was quite interesting. We love a visit to a cemetery there is so much history you can learn from reading the headstones, we found two rows of meat workers buried there and it turns out that most of them died from heat exhaustion, you can imagine what the working conditions were there at the time. We then took the turn off to the lookout and drove slowly up the very winding road until we arrived at the lookout and this made the whole trip worth while. The views were extensive looking out over the five rivers that connect in the area, the hills that surround and the flood planes, absolutely beautiful.

We started our exploration of the area today with a visit to Mirima National Park, on the way we had visited with the Information Centre to purchase an annual park permit for WA which allows us to visit all the National Parks in WA at $85 we thought this good value because the entry to Mirima is $15 and we intend to visit a lot of National Parks on our drive down the west coast. You can see the formations that are Mirima on your entry to Kununurra but to enter the park you need to zig zag around the town streets. We drove through the entry gate and onto the parking lot where there is an information board on all the walks and on entry to the various paths there is another board giving you the difficulty of the walk and how long it takes. We chose the entry level 2 walk where there is a man made boardwalk on a circular route. Mirima is considered to be a mini Bungle Bungles but if you talk to the locals they will tell you it is pretty good but no where near as imposing as the Bungle Bungles. We walked on below the imposing cliffs and then came to a point where we had to decide if we were going to just continue on this journey or we were going to be a bit adventurous and take the level 4 path up to the look out. We foolishly opted for the level 4 walk, it was only 30 minutes and seemed like a good idea at the time. We left the boardwalk and then came to a path that was basically an easy climb up the side of the mountain, the path was just finding your way on the flatter rocks to get your footing until you came to man made stairs to lead to the top. We took the stairs up two levels and then if we wanted to go further we had to once again negotiate the side of the mountain. By this stage we decided we had been brave enough and we weren't going to see a whole lot more up higher. I took all the photos I needed and then we started to walk back down. Walking back to our car I am not too sure whether I was just grateful to still be alive or not but I was overwhelmed with the spiritual feel of this area. A conservative estimate tells you Mirima National Park has been here for 350 Million years but there are some geologists who feel it is probably much longer, but either way there is something mind boggling about being able to access something so beautiful that has just been, for so long. The fourth photo along is the path we took up to the look out.

From here we drove to Kelly's Knob Lookout because we had heard you could drive right up to it and park and view over Kununurra, however, when we arrived we discovered that was not the case and we had to walk up a very steep incline to get to the top. The journey was only 1.2kms but the estimate on return time was one hour, that rang alarm bells for us because a normal walk of this length would take 40 minutes at the most, we decided not to take the walk. From here we drove to Valentine Falls along a track that you would need a 4WD to negotiate. We managed ok without putting the car into 4WD but when we arrived at the springs we discovered they are better viewed just after the wet season. From here we drove down to swim beach in Kununurra to have a look and then around to the Pumphouse. The Pumphouse also operates as a restaurant and we may return here tomorrow for dinner. There is so much to see around Kununurra you could easily spend a week here.

Our last full day in Kununurra and we had a relaxing start with a coffee and read at home. We then took care of a few things in town before driving onto the Hoochery and Distillery 13kms from Kununurra. We had a bit of a look around here, we did think we might have had lunch here but the menu didn't excite us too much so we moved on. We weren't going to but we stopped at the Sandalwood Shop and we walked out with a mosquito coil pack which we are hoping we can also use our commercial coils in, when we get home and try it we find that we can. We drove back to the Kununurra Hotel for lunch but it was not what we expected so we moved on from here to drive to the Pump House where we thought yesterday, we may have come for lunch. Robb had a steak and I had the steak sandwich and we both enjoyed our lunch. Back home from here to do the few jobs we can to get ready to move on tomorrow.