Mark and Sharon met us at Rosy's house at 8.30am ready to begin the next major leg of
our trip. We went via Rosy's work to pick-up some last minute mail that had just arrived
(thanks Mum!) and then via the suspension shop for a last minute check of Mark's new
springs he had just had fitted. We drove towards Kakadu on the Arnhem Highway and stopped
at Fogg Dam and the Jumping Crocodile Cruise at the Adelaide River.
Adelaide River Crossing
The Adelaide River bridge was closed for repairs after damage caused by
the January floods but we were lucky enough to have arrived during a high tide and took a
vehicle barge across.
Less than one day out of Darwin and we broke something essential at our lunch stop. In
an attempt to keep the car cool we drove it too close to a large Jacaranda tree and a
thick branch snapped off our UHF aerial. We would have to purchase one in Katherine before
attempting the remote Gibb River Road.
We replenished our water supplies at Jabiru, the centre of Kakadu, and arrived at the
East Alligator river around 4pm. Not having a boat, we sat by the boat ramp for a while
and talked to the fishermen as they put in their tinnies for an afternoon session. We
learned that tomorrow is the biggest tide of the month and the crossing would be the
"hot spot". We decided to take a look at this crossing and with envy, watched a
few vehicles go over the border into Arnhem Land. We could not attempt the crossing
because we did not have a permit to enter the Aboriginal land. Many people seemed to have
a permit or maybe they chose to ignore the signs, we weren't sure, but there were plenty
of 4WDs from hire companies entering Arnhem land that day.The fishermen had told us there
were zillions of big crocs in this river and fishing from the banks is a little scary.
Sure enough, we saw plenty. Around 5pm the afternoon rains came down and Sharon and I
danced around in the rain with the aborigines - happy for the brief relief from the
oppressive heat of Kakadu. It was 36 degrees at 8am that day and it peaked at 42 degrees
at midday. The highlight of being near the East Alligator River is a visit to Ubir Rock to
view the spectacular sunset views over the floodplains. The area is also rich in
Aboriginal rock art, said to be the best of its kind.We camped a few hundred metres from
the river at Merl camping ground with about 10 other vehciles, mostly from 4WD hire
companies. We seem to be the only Australian travellers. It was too hot to light a camp
fire so we cooked on gas. Mark and Sharon cooked a thai green chicken curry with tiny
little egglplant balls they had bought from the markets and David and I cooked a campers
version of Tom Yum Gong soup for entre and then spicy thai chicken fillets with rice. For
desert we all shared a whole watermelon.
DAY 80 Saturday 10th October
At 9am it was 34 degrees and already I'd had two showers. It is searingly hot but we
are patiently waiting for the big tide to catch some barra. Yesterday, we met a guy who
caught one so big, at 117cm, he had to throw it back! At that size they are not worth
keeping, as they have become female and are no longer succulent to eat. The crossing where
we fished was named Cahill's Crossing and we stood ankle deep in the salt water river from
10.30 - 1.30 pm when the heat became intolerable and we'd only caught a few barra that
were too small to keep. Both Mark and David caught 42cm barra's, and mine got away after
eating half my lure. After a quick sandwich and plenty of drinks we decided to leave the
East Alligator River. We drove for about 45 mins to the Bowali Visitor's Centre run by the
Kakadu National Park and enjoyed the protection of the air-conditioned building for a few
hours before venturing out into an incredible electrical storm. As we drove the 50km south
to Cooinda we passed right through the storm and arrived dry at our campground. The
Cooinda camping ground is shared with the Cooinda Lodge and booking agency for anything
you want to do in Kakadu. We found a restaurant, bar and bistro and so we each ordered a
cold drink from the bar for starters. David and Mark had beer, Sharon had Pimms (and
complained when it didn't arrived with mint and strawberries!) and I had a craving for
fresh milk so I had the Tia Maria and milk. Feeling civilised again, we went back to our
camp site to prepare our evening meals. The ground was too wet from the recent rain to
consider building a camp fire so again we cooked on the gas. We were trying Kanagaroo
steaks which I had to serve with pasta because I had nothing else fresh for vegies or
salad. The temperature dropped to 27 degrees briefly, but overnight sleeping became
unbearably humid.
After the 6am wakeup for the Yellow Waters Cruise we agreed to get out of Kakadu asap.
DAY 81 Sunday 11th October
Our day started at 6am to meet the bus connecting us to the Yellow Waters Cruise.
Suprisingly, people came out of the woodwork and the cruise was not one boat but three.
Each of the flat bottom tinnies held around 40 people and for two hours, we watched and
listened as our guide directed the tinnie along the banks and pointed out beautiful birds,
crocs, fish and plants.
With the cruise ended, we went back to our camps to pack up, eat breakfast, and have
showers. By 10am when we were organised, it was too hot to think about anymore bushwalking
or sightseeing and agreed to drive right out of Kakadu and onto Katherine.
Although it was 41 degrees at lunchtime when we arrived in Katherine we agreed to stay
at the local caravan park and spend a few hours in the pool instead of pushing on to a
bush camp a couple of hundred kilometres away. Our fridge couldn't keep up with the heat
unless we were driving so we bought a powered site and used the 240v to run the fridge and
connect the car battery charger. We were surprised to find very few shops were open on a
Sunday so we couldn't even replace our broken UHF aerial so it was best to wait in
Katherine until the next day anyway. We put some block ice in a bucket and enjoyed chilled
drinks and good conversation over dinner with Mark and Sharon - we even discovered that
Mark is the same star sign as David and Sharon is the same star sign as me. The evening
seemed very pleasant but our temperature gauges showed it was still 30 degrees in our
cars. David and I couldn't handle sleeping in those conditions and within a few hours, the
bedsheet was saturated with our sweat. We climbed out of the car, dragging our
thermarests, pillows, and lay on the concrete under the stars. Finally, we had a pleasant
night's sleep and didn't even need a mossie net.
The following day we found Katherine to be amazingly well supplied for outback
travellers with genuine requirements. In an old shed, we found an auto electrician who had
the solution to our fridge battery problems. David bought the parts and installed the high
capacity relay and high current cable to improve the charge reaching the battery. This
little problem had both Mark and David testing and twiddling for the last few weeks and
this was their solution. We hoped it would work...
DAY 82 Monday 12th October
Leaving Katherine heading west along the Victoria Highway to Timber Creek the trip was
extremely picturesque with large mountain ranges and escarpments of red rock. We arrived
in Timber Creek early in the afternoon and explored the fishing spots and lookouts. It was
another 40 degree day so we chose to camp at the Timber Creek campground because it had a
pool. Under any other circumstances we would have been choosing to stay in more of the
free bush camps but the extreme temperatures were nearly killing us and any facilities, no
matter how basic, seemed utterly essential.
In preparation of reaching the NT/WA border, we cooked up all our vegies for dinner. I
cooked a Thai curry with kumera, potato and mushrooms, coconut cream, lime leaves and
loads of chilli.
The evening remained humid, so we camped out
under the trees, which was wonderful until we were woken at 6.30am by a helicopter taking
off from the adjacent paddock.
DAY 83 Tuesday 13th October - Wednesday 14th October
The day started with a hangover although we had only drunk two gin and tonics. We
realised that we must increase our water intake and avoid any alcohol in such extreme
temperatures. After showers and breakfast we improved and finally left the campground
headed for Kununurra. The NT/WA border was just before the turn-off to Lake Argyle, which
meant we turned our watches back 1 ½ hrs. Mark and Sharon didn't seem too keen but David
and I wanted to visit Lake Argyle before going into town. The drive was superb with
spectacular scenery. On arrival we all agreed to stay a couple of nights because we could
swim in the cool waters of the dam and fish for sooty grunter and "silver
cobbler" a new name for catfish that makes them edible!
Lake Argyle - Ord River Dam
Unfortunately, the time change meant that sunrise was 4.58am and sunset 5.30pm so the
day was hot early and we didn't get enough sleep. We all slept outside again but the
mossies were a problem. We unpacked our unused mossie net and found it was only a single
size and of no use to us. We managed to survive by surrounding the 4 sides of our ground
sheet with mossie coils - they actually work!
It was here that we met Sarah and Wal a young couple travelling in a bus towing a
trailer containing a 4WD. They had spent 3 years building the bus in Perth and had been on
the road for 15 months but hadn't got out of WA. They had their two dogs, part German
Shepherds, Mot and Oz and seemed very comfortable in total luxury including
air-conditioning.
Our second day here was meant to be spent fishing but the heat made us all lethargic.
The men put up our large tarp and we all sat under its cover for most of the day. The Lake
Arygle tourist centre had an outdoor pool and every hour we would wander down for a dip -
but even the pool water wasn't cool. Later in the afternoon, we starting putting our
tackle together for a fishing session. The locals had gone to great lenghts to explain the
best fishing techniques for the area but we didn't have the right lure. David thought we
might be able to fashion something appropriate using some old hooks, a piece of shiny
silver metal washer, his drill, some wire and Mark's 12v soldering iron. The end result
was a silver spinner.
Yesterday, Mark had a perfect silver spinner too but at the boat jetty he lost it when
it became caught on a submerged rope. We went back today with the diving gear to see if we
could recover the lure. David geared up and after a 10 minute, 8m dive surfaced with the
lure and 3 pairs of sunglasses!
Now that we had two silver spinner lures, we drove back along the dam wall to the
better fishing spot and caught lots of tiny fish too small to bother with. Sharon has her
heart on a fish BBQ though so we selected the 4 largest and kept those. The fish were
sooty grunter (black bream) and although small, were plump and fed us well.
DAY 85 Thursday 15th October
After leaving beautiful Lake Arygle early today, we arrived in Kununurra well before
lunch time. Kununurra being the gateway to the Kimberleys, and for us the Gibb River Road,
we needed to stock up for the drive along the Gibb River Road. We didn't really have a
plan for how many days we would spend making the trip but knew that visiting the gorges
was the only reason anyone would want to drive across the infamous corrugations of the
Gibb River Road. We had to expect that we might spend a day or two at eaach gorge,
hopefully wallowing in the relief from the heat.
Unfortunately, David was still unhappy about the performance of our fridge battery,
which was only new in Cairns. It was still under warranty so after phoning Cairns we
arranged to have it tested. No problems were found so we started to rethink our usage and
change our habits to suit the high temperature conditions. This meant that we would only
buy pre-chilled drinks to fill the fridge and would try to open the lid only 3 times a
day.
We had only been in town for an hour when we heard a lot of air hissing out of one of
our tyres! David and Mark quickly drove to Beaurepairs where they found the manufacturers
sticker had balled up and pierced a hole in the tube. Meanwhile, Sharon and I stopped in
at the Tourist Information Centre to check the weather and road conditions.
Finally, after some banking, shopping and talking to locals we set off on a fishing
excursion. We drove out of town about 20km to the banks of the Ord River. We found the
"hot spot" using a hand-drawn mud map from the check-out chic in Coles and began
casting lures. It was a beautiful shady site with soft grassy wide banks for camping and
we were prepared to set up for the night. Within an hour the sky turned black and we
abandoned that idea. Again, we had to drive along soft red mud with our trailer and we
didn't like it much at all. Even Mark surprised himself by letting his wheels slip off the
edge of the road and slipping suddenly enough to give Sharon a fright. We had to
reconsider the weather and it's affect on the Gibb River Road. We drove back into town and
chose to stay at a beautifully green and cool camping ground called Hidden Valley.
Tonight's meal was Musuman beef curry with cauliflower, green beans and chilli. As if
on cue for dessert we were approached by a local melon picker, who lived in the caravan
next door, offering an enormous rockmelon and a new type of honeydew melon that tasted
like pear. He and his wife were very friendly and offered to give us two large mangos for
breakfast too. This night was the first in a long time where I could think straight but it
was still too humid to sleep in the car.
