East Kimberley Day 22 - Wyndham to King River (bush camp)

Friday, Jul 13, 2001 at 00:00

ExplorOz - David & Michelle

Day 22 - Friday 13/7/01
Start - Wyndham
Stop - King River (bush camp)
Trip Odometer - 37.3km
Stopped time - 1.1hr
Moving average - 38km/hr
Moving time - 58mins
Max speed - 2.09hrs

Another morning of fluffing around... After lifting camp we fuelled up – Wyndham is a good place for this, with prices usually less than Kununurra. Being our last opportunity to stock up before the Gibb River Road and Kalumburu Roads, we did a wander through the supermarket, which was well stocked with meats, fresh dairy products, bread and other basic supplies. And the bakery had hot pies, fresh bread and rolls and sweet pastries like apple turnovers with cream!

As we’ve previously done the Gibb River Road, we planned to drive from Wyndham to the Pentecost Crossing via the Karunjie Road that runs along the King River then follows the Pentecost before meeting up with the Gibb River Road at the Pentecost Crossing. The turnoff is on the RHS just 6km south of Wyndham. The first 25km is on very good dirt road with sign posts to some worthwhile sights such as the Moochalabra Dam, Aboriginal Cave Paintings, King River Crossing, Boab Prison Tree and finally at 74km, the Gibb River Road at the Pentecost Crossing.

There is a fabulous bush campsite with bins under a huge boab tree at the Moochalabra Dam, and lots of great fishing camps along the King River (RHS). These are not marked, but following any of the numerous tracks off to the right will lead to decent camps between 10 – 200m off the road.

We chose our campsite at the last RHS track before the rocky crossing of the King River and the Prison Tree. This track winds around the river for 1-2km to a hilly camp on a double bank above the river.

The King River is known by the locals as the best spot to catch decent barra so David had prepared himself by purchasing a cast net for catching baitfish. The King River was his first use of it after buying it in Kununurra for $56. His first cast was a beauty, bringing in a bucket-load of mullet for baitfish. But after fishing for a while from the camp Colin and David decided that this wasn’t the ideal barra spot and decided to drive back along the King River in search of another fishing spot. Sandy, Leah and I stayed behind under the shade of some lovely trees at our camp.

A few hours later the boys returned but without fish – Dave had returned his unused mullet to the river at our camp before heading off and was unable to catch any more bait because he snagged the cast net on a submerged tree at the next spot – he was VERY disappointed to say the least! Camp oven dinner had to do.
David (DM) & Michelle (MM)
---------------------------------
Always working not enough travelling!
BlogID: 482
Views: 6768
Blog Index

Sponsored Links