arnehem Land

As you may have gathered by reading the above, you need to check your spelling before doing a search.

Yes you need permits and they're hard to get (only about 15 cars allowed at any time I believe) but there's always a day trip from Jabiru to Gunbalanya (Oenpelli) - still needs a permit but easy to get from Land Council office in Jabiru shopping centre. Brilliant drive through some of the best scenery in Australia, and an excellent art centre in Gunbalanya with Aboriginal art of the highest quality at lower prices than anywhere else. Do as we did and spend some time with the artists on the verandahs (women on one side, men on the other) to have a good chat: a supply of cigarettes and a sense of humour helps.

you can camp on the central arnhem road, but just be careful if you have grog in the car. DO NOT go into a community with grog, if you are obviously travelling and the cartons are unopened you will be ok. at communities along the way... manyallaluk, barunga, beswick, bulman etc, you might feel like stopping at say, beswick, the store is about 30 metres off the road, if you have grog, that 30 metres will cost you your car, the police at maranboy are fair but firm. car parked on the road you in store ok, car in front of store grog in car, car gone.but like i said they are fair and misunderstandings do happen. in theory when you camp and you have a beer you are braking the law, you can take grog through but it must be unopened, so if you open a thirty pack, you have to drink the lot, there is an upside to every situation.

David

Thanks for the info. We are travelling around Oz at the moment, and have been told about the great fishing at Nhulunbuy.

I have a couple of questions if you don't mind:

- do you need a permit to travel into Nhulunbuy? I had heard something about paying for a night at the motel as part of the arrangment.
- Where do you access permits?
- Is it a safe town (we have 2 kids 10 and 8)?
- Are there camping facilities?

....any other info greatly appreciated, as my info is a bit limited at the moment.

Alan

Alan

in answer to your question you need a permit to travel from Katherine to Nhulunbuy Gove and as part of the permit application you must have somewhere to stay in Nhulunbuy as there are no camping facilities in the town, there is a motel and hotel though. Transit permits are available from the Northern Land Council and Local Permits are available from Dhimurru Land Management in town. Try these web sites for starters:

http://www.nlc.org.au/html/files/tourist.PDF

www.dhimurru.com.au/

Fishing is great but it is a long way off the beaten track.

Hope this helps

James

NB

and it is a very safe place for kids, where kids can still be kids.

James

Hi Alan,

Pretty much as James said above with regards to permits. I am not sure how things are now as it has been a few years since I was there. It became very strict there in the 80's and 90's with regards to permits being required to access everyday areas such as the town beach etc. but it was never policed.

Nhulunbuy is very safe and is like any small costal town. The only time it can get a bit rowdy is at night around the pubs. You can camp at a number of places outside the town such as the various rivers, Turtle beach and my favourite Cape Arnhem.

The latter is a great camp that is restricted to 10 vehicles at any one time. You do need a permit but this is easy enough to get. The Cape is a vast stretch of very white sand with rugged Bauxite cliffs/rocks at the end. It has reef just off the beach that you can snorkel. Large schools of fish cruise along the beach and you can catch crayfish whilst snorkeling. Water is very clear (well it was when we were there in September 99) but it all depends on the time of year. There is a lot of debris on the beach from the shipping channel which is unfortunate.

Regards
David