June 10-15: Back to Katherine

After leaving Broome, it's the same way back from whence we came - back to Katherine in the Northern Territory. We didn't have to worry about a boring road trip for long. We stopped for lunch after we'd travelled a couple of hundred kms and I noticed a funny noise coming from the car after it was switched off. The sound of boiling water. Not quite embarrassing as steam billowing out from under the bonnet, but enough to tell me that the engine was too hot and not too happy. We let things cool down, topped the water back up and then drove on, but the over-heating soon returned - bugger! Next town was Fitzroy Crossing (home of the crooked cops). We asked at the 2 mechanics in town whether they could help. "Sorry mate, can't fit you in until at least next week some time." We decided that we'd keep driving - slowly, with a few stops along the way whenever the car looked like getting too hot.

We spent the night at a freecamp that we checked out on the way over - Ngumban Cliff.

Sunset at Ngumban Cliff

More slow driving and lots of stops and we made it to Halls Creek. We put on our sad faces and checked out another couple of mechanics. Same story. "We're flat out mate; couldn't possible fit you in til next week. Try Kununurra." This was Friday, so we had the weekend to limp along to Kununurra. But this time we phoned ahead to a mechanic and made sure that he could help us out first thing on Monday morning.

We thought we would camp the night just outside of Halls Creek - only 3km down a dirt road. We made about 30 metres before we turned around because of the mountainous corrugations in the road. Good decision, we found a great little site along side a river - Little Panton River. Everything was going well here until a huge bull that was grazing near by, turned towards our van and started bellowing in painful, primal tones. The dogs were quickly shuffled into the van followed closely by us humans. Not sure what his problem was, but fortunately the grass across the road was greener and within a half-hour we released ourselves from our self-imposed captivity.

Our camp site on the Little Panton River

Plenty of free water here so we caught up on a bit of washing

The bull before his rampage.
Sorry that I didn't take any photos as he was coming for the van.

Some majestic birds of prey checking us out as well

Another day of slow driving and lots of stops. After a couple of hundred kms, we spent the night at one of our favourite spots. The road sign just says "Scenic Lookout". The views are spectacular and its so quiet.

The spectacular view all to ourselves

The dogs posing for a photo.
OK, we had to bribe them with food.

Finally got them to look up together

The view at dusk



View from the caravan next morning

 We made it to Kununurra on Sunday night, found a gravel pit about 10km out of town. Early the next morning, we went to the mechanic and explained our car overheating problem. "It'll be your head gasket." No, it can't be. That sounds expensive. I tried to talk him out of his diagnosis - the engine gets hot before we lose any water. He has a look under the bonnet and almost immediately determines that its the fan. No resistance, oil has leaked out of it. I learn more about fans than I need to ever know, but our hero mechanic fixes the car in a couple of hours and best of all, only charges us $130. Huge sigh of relief...

The car makes a different sound now - the sound of a fan going around and actually moving air towards the radiator now. That's good! But we did get really good fuel economy while we were driving at only 60-70km/hr. (Apologies to all the frustrated drivers who got stuck behind us.)

Celebrity Park at Kununurra.
Toilets, water and power available - who needs a caravan park?

With a renewed confidence in our car, we drove on and included a 70km detour to see Lake Argyle. Very glad we did - some of the best scenery of the trip. A nice caravan park on the lake where we were tempted to stay, but my brother Neil is holidaying in Darwin and we plan to meet him and Kerry on June 16, only a couple of days away.

First glimpse of Lake Argyle

What a beautiful view from the pool?

The Spillway from the dam - that's a lot of water flowing out

A natural terrace on the mountains by the roadside

Our dog Spike

We drove on to another of our favourite camp spots at a lookout near Timber Creek. We arrived after sunset, so no photos this time.

The next day we made it back to Katherine. We had our swim at the natural hot springs - just love it. Bought a few supplies in Katherine and then found a gravel pit about 30km north of Katherine on the way to Darwin.

Roughing it overnight in a gravel pit on the side of the highway

Our dog Princess

June 4-9 Broome

We arrived at Broome and it didn't take us long to find Cable Beach. Not sure whether it was the best beach we had been to or whether we were just longing to see a beach after spending so long travelling in-land, but we thoroughly enjoyed the beach. To our surprise, there is a section of Cable Beach where dogs are allowed. And off leash as well. So we, and the dogs, had a great time at the beach together. Not too sure if the dogs liked the idea of getting wet, but they did enjoy running around with other dogs on the sand. The town of Broome is a trendy little holiday town with supermarkets, cafes, pubs and anything else that we might be looking for. So, with the beautiful beach and the nice town, it looked like this was a place we could stay for a while.

Cable Beach looking south

Cable Beach looking north

Cable Beach at the border of doggie beach

Relaxing under the shade of a beach umbrella (availabe for hire at $4/hr)

Very relaxed... but unfortunately not for long. Too many other people and other dogs

But then we needed to find a place to stay and that's when our visit to Broome turned sour. We asked at the Information Centre about dog-friendly caravan parks. "Sorry, there aren't any." What? "There's a caravan park 34km out of town behind a petrol station and right on the main highway where you could stay." How bitterly disappointing. We met a local lady on the beach who told us about the Pistol Club as an overflow park in peak season. We had also heard similarly about the Police Youth Club. However, neither were open yet - not until June 21 apparently. The more we found out about how the caravan parks work in Broome during the peak seaon, the more annoyed we got. So we wrote a letter to whoever we could think might be interested - the local newspaper, the chamber of commerce,  the Tourism Centre, the shire council, even the local member. Only the newspaper responded and they agreed to print our letter in the paper.

Our letter printed in the Broome Advertiser.
Hopefully someone will care enough to fix the problem.

We found our own place to stay about 20km out of town. It was a gravel pit with no facilities, but we were able to get a few hundred metres away from the roadside (noise). We had it to ourselves the first 2 nights, but had the company of some other free-campers on the following nights. Our routine was to go into Broome each day, first stop being the Information Centre as there were good clean toilets there and easy parking. From there we would walk into town for a coffee and raisin toast. Then we would set up our van in the car park of Cable Beach and enjoy the beach. When we needed more water we would go down to the port, where we had found a tap. And the Information Centre had an outside power point that we took advantage of in the evening. Not an ideal lifestyle, but it was an enjoyable way to spend a few days. We felt a bit like back-packers and a bit like criminals.

The view of the jetty at "Port"

Another view of the beach at Port



Town Beach - a protected beach suitable for families with young children



Cable Beach at sunset - people come from all around to watch the sunset. So many photos taken.

Judith at sunset

Sunrise at our roadside campsite

The seagulls of Broome

June 1-3 The West Kimberley

We passed through Halls Creek after filling up with petrol and having a look around. Most exciting thing that happened was the Princess got a cuddle from a little aboriginal girl. Both seemed to enjoy that.

We went on to an established free-camp site at Mary River to stay the night. What a busy place. There were over 30 vans staying here. Of course we set up next to the one with the noisy generator. How we hate generators! Fortunately for both he and us, the generator was only on for an hour or so at dusk. We can understand why it is popular at Mary River. The park is set well back from the road and is next to a beautiful creek. Tried my luck with the metal detector and did my bit for cleaning up the environment (i.e. no gold again.) Funny thing happened on the way down to the river - Spike fell into a hole. His eye sight really is starting to fail him. We only laughed a little bit. We had a lovely refreshing swim in the river shallows.

The entrance to the Mary River camp site

The busy camping ground, but still plenty of room

The hole that gobbled up Spike

Spike bounces back after his traumatic fall

The next major town is Fitzroy Crossing. The Fitzroy is a mighty river. The town is not. We filled up with petrol and had lunch before moving on. About 40km out of the town, the local cops are behind us and then pull us over. "Do you know you were speeding? Our radar shows you were doing 120kph." What a joke. I have never been over 95kph while towing the van and mostly hover around 85 kph. We have the GPS that also confirms the speed at which we travel. We laughed at him, but disappointingly he was serious and wanted to stick with his story. Big concession from the cop that he wouldn't book us this time. Big concession from me too - I won't take him to court this time. What an idiot! Kinda makes you lose respect for the police unfortunately.

We targeted the next free-camp site listed in our book at Ellendale. On arrival, we saw lots of vans again, but this time no compensating features of being away from the road or next to a river. We went to a clearing on the side of the road about 100 metres away and stayed the night in a quiet and secluded spot. Looked like this spot was once a storage point for all sorts of things - av gas, water, sand and screenings. Way better than squishing in amongst all the other caravans and motorhomes.

The next day we went into the town of Derby. Derby is famous for the largest tides in Australia. It can be as much as 10m between low and high tides. Derby also has an enormous boab tree that was once used as a prison. We thought we might stay a night or 2 here, but we didn't. We had a picnic lunch in the park, where Pricess fell asleep on the rug. We thought about going on a trip to the Horiozontal Falls (like rapids that flow between islands as the tide changes), but it was booked out for the next few days - its the start of a long weekend in WA. One of the 2 caravan parks was booked out. We decided to leave and travel on towards Broome.

The prison boab tree. The inside of the trunk is hollow and could hold a dozen people or more.

Princess having a quiet snooze at Derby

We found a clearing off the main road that backed onto a lake. That was a nice place to stay about 70km away from Broome. We were surprisingly interrupted by a local of Belgian decent, who came by to pick out some water lillies from the lake. We had a good chat with him about the local area and world affairs. We had another surprise visitor around midnight - this one was not so welcome. A noisy car drove into the clearing, stopped long enough for us to wake up and ponder what the hell might happen next, but then thankfully drove off again. All part of the adventure. Next, we move on to Broome.

Princess playing on a termite mound.
No dogs were injured (permanently) in the taking of this photograph. She's fine now.

Sunset at our roadside camp site

Our morning view out of the caravan window

Here is a map showing our trip from Katherine to Broome and where we have stayed each night.