Friday, Jul 22, 2005 at 13:45
The tales of this place are spreading far and wide. I heard of it in
Broome and planned to fill up at the truck stop just out of
Karratha instead and gave Nanaturra a cheery wave as I passed.
Another place to avoid is the Barnett River Roadhouse the operator of which is on a par with the management of Fawlty Towers for attitude! Go instead to the Imitjiri (I think that's how it's spelled) Roadhouse. It's not that much further away and fuel may be the same price, but they're pleasent people and there's also a mechanic and tyre fitter available if necessary.
If you're going to
Broome and have gas bottles to fill, try the
Home Hardware just off Guy St. as they weigh bottles before and after and charge just for what you've used! How rare is that these days?
If you want to leave the van in
Broome as we did to go further North, call the storage people in Lucas St. They're fully protected with dogs, barbed wire and an on site caretaker plus they don't rip you off just because you're a tourist.
We normally stay at the
Cable Beach Caravan Park but couldn't get back in when returning from a couple of weeks up the GRR, so tried
Roebuck Bay Park ......... the receptionist there looks and acts as if she sucks lemons for breakfast!
Cable Beach may charge a bit more but the difference in attitude is amazing.
On the GRR we stayed at
Home Valley Station and they also are nice people.
While we were down at the
Pentecost River I lent the owner/manager a screwdriver to investigate a foul odour coming from his Troopies aircon and they found a dead mouse in there! The pong had nearly killed his wife and her sister the day before when they switched it on.
The ablutions here are a bit antiquated but are clean and the waters hot plus,there's the amusing sight of frogs popping out from behind mirrors and the
toilet when you're in there.
At least I thought it was funny but the
cook didn't as she hates the things.
Drydale River has excellent ablutions but only room for about 6 power sites from memory, but is a good place to stay. Diesel was $1.75 per litre and may be more now.
There were some horror stories around about damage to vehicles and we saw a Nissan Navara plus van/or camper totally burnt out on the
Kalumburu Road.
Story was it was an electrical fault or they were running on gas but whatever it was unrecognisable. The people were from Queensland and luckily got clear and run from it without injury. What a way for a holiday to end!
If you go up to
Wyndham before the GRR, try going via the
King River Road, Diggers Rest Staion and then the Old Karunjie Road which goes round the
Cockburn Range and meets the GRR at the Pentecost. Terrific scenery and the road is not bad just requires a bit of common sense in a couple of
places.
Have fun out there, avoid
places with bad reps. as above and drive carefully.
Alan H.
AnswerID:
121595