Itinerary comments for GRR

Thanks for your detailed reply. It is much appreciated! Have taken onboard your suggestions and agree that we could see Lake Argyle on the way to Kununurra (perhaps a nice stop!).

Have had a look at Middle Lagoon on EO ... it looks lovely, though I couldn't see any directions. Looks like it is a 2-3 hour drive from Broome, so we would need to go Derby > Broome > Middle Lagoon > Broome, before continuing south down the WA coast?

I am also wondering if we should give Mitchel Falls a miss. While we are planning to leave the camper at the KE River campsite, I've heard lots of bad things about the drive up to the falls, so perhaps we will leave it until 'next time' (without kids??).

Sass.

There is a track from the highway between Broome and Derby across to the Dampier Peninsula, but I do not know what it is usually like - maybe ask someone on this forum about it?
We took our van from Broome to Middle Lagoon. From memory, took us about 3 hours, but we did have a good look around Beagle Bay on the way.
The Mitchell Falls are great, but really are best done when you can camp in there for a night or two.

Thanks for the reply Val. While we have set-out an itinerary with rough nights at each place, we will have 6 months so if something goes pear-shaped, we will just need to go with the flow!

We would love to go to the Bungles, though as far as I've researched, the camper can't go there and honestly, we don't want to take a tent etc just for the one place. So perhaps a 'next time' visit.

Hi Sass,

You have had some really good advice in this thread! You can take a camper trailer into the Bungles but not a caravan. Its not a difficult drive but you do need to take it carefully and watch for oncoming traffic. A couple of nights there is a must as its a truly amazing place. But if you dont do the Bungles make sure you do Keep River NP as its similar, just on a smaller scale, but a real gem of a place.

Likewise the road into the Mitchell Plateau is OK provided that you drive to the conditions, lower your tyre pressure and watch out for oncomings. The falls are a magic place and the walk in is special. I dont think your children would find it too difficult if you allow plenty of time. You can take the helicopter "taxi" one way or both ways - if you choose one way I would suggest use it to come back.

There are a few special things in the way of helicopter flights and boat trips to do in this part of the world, and budget considerations may mean that you have to choose which ones to do. The flight out to the Horizontal Waterfall and boat ride up to and through the falls is wonderful, as is the cruise up the Ord river.

Have a wonderful trip,

Cheers,

Val

Added! Thanks for the feedback!

Sass.

Hi Frances, thanks for replying! Just wondering, did you take the kids up to Mitchell Falls? I'm thinking that the long walk to the falls is too far for my two ... therefore there is no point doing the arduous drive for them to bail on the walking part!

Great idea about the heli-ride over the Bungles! Have added it to the list. And we've got 4 days at 80 Mile Beach planned :)

No we didn't go to Mitchell Falls as we had an on-road Expanda. (When we got home we sold it and bought an off-road camper trailer so we could go to all the "good spots" on future trips)

With regards to walking though my advice is to build every excursion around the kids. In our case our youngest was 4 so everything we did had to be doable by a 4 year old. A couple of times though one of us elected to stay at the caravan or car and the other person took the older kids e.g. walking the rim at Kings Canyon, climbing Ayers Rock etc.

The other tip I will give you is to eat as you drive. I know this sounds strange but pull up only to stretch your legs and exercise. So for instance I would have a bag of fruit, a plate and a sharp knife in a green shopping bag at my feet in the car and i would cut up fruit, cheese, kabana etc. and hand it back to the kids whilst my husband drove. This keeps the kids occupied whilst driving. Then when we would pull up for a break while the kids were running around playing I would get out the lunch things and make the lunch then when we got back in the car I would hand each child their lunch to eat whilst we drove.

The other thing is to spend money on some tours. We did a cruise at Yellow Water in Kakadu for instance - the guides are great and very informative -great for the kids' general knowledge. We did have people make comments to us on how much money we spent on doing tours however we rarely drink alcohol (3 glasses per year) and I noticed that a lot of other people spent far more money on alcohol whilst travelling than we did on educating our kids through doing tours. (That's how we justified it anyway).

cheers Frances