Broome

One the way to Broome we stopped for a night at the free Mary River camp site, and it was fantastic! Clean toilets (which is rare for the free sites) loads of shaded places to pull up for the night, and lots of other people doing the same thing. It was the best free site so far!

Onwards and upwards to Broome! Our good camera's batteries went flat so we had to use our spare for the 1st day at Broome, here are our first impressions... It was only 29 degrees, so that was a great way to start (we had been in mid-late 30's for a couple of weeks), our van spot was huge and shady and below is the view wad had from our spot! The famous Broome tide was out so we walked along the mad flats and got some shots of coloured coral, crabs, and weird green worm things slithering around in the sand, they may have actually been tiny snakes, i have no idea.... so Broome made a a good impression on day 1, and i will tell you more when i am next online, so until then....

Kunnunurra & Lake Argyle

So now we are in Kununurra (try saying that 10 times really fast!) The drive was stunning, going from dry and dusty in the NT to beautiful and green, apart from the red hills and mountains. We had planned to just stay a few days here but ended up being just over a week. It is a great little town that we enjoyed being in. We stayed at the van park right in town, about 200m from the shops, and it was lovely and clean, with great amenities.




We visited the famous Lake Argyle, the biggest man-made lake in the Southern Hemisphere (although i would like to know where there is a bigger one). It is truly spectacular, and next time we will take a seaplane tour so we get to see all of it. Alex & I swam in the Lake Argyle pool, which we weren't really meant to do as we weren't paying guests, but when you look at the photo you will understand why we wanted to.... the pool has been specifically designed so when you take a photo from water level it almost looks like you are in the Lake!

We had a trip to the Argyle Diamond store.....WOW, i have never seen so much sparkle! Unfortunately i didn't manage to talk Antony into splurging on one, but he has promised he will one day (you can all hold him to that....and i want a pink one!!!) :)

We sampled the rum at the only legal Hoochery in WA, and coming from a drinker & a non-drinker, it is better than Bundy!

We broused and bought a few things from the Sandlewood store, which is one of the most diverse and beautiful stores i have ever been in, everything from natural make-ups and creams, to Boab chocolates and chutneys, jewellery, Zebra rocks, ornaments etc etc.

We saw hundreds of the amazing famous Boab Trees on our drives, and decided that we loved the Kimberley's, the scenery and Mountain ranges are just phenomenal. Next time we will be more off-road prepared and do the Gibb River Road...we weren't quite that adventurous this trip.

Another thing we are loving about WA.... not revolting Cane Toads! They haven't (yet) crossed the border! There are, however, numerous species of frogs and lizards.

Timber Creek

From Katherine we headed towards Kununurra, which would be Alex & my 1st time in WA. We stopped for one night along the way, in a tiny town called Timber Creek, which is on the Victoria River, it literally had one servo/shop/restaurant, a souvenier & fishing shop and 2 van parks! It was a fantastic place to stop as it had a pool & playground and was well shaded and had a lovely cool breeze. At 5pm every night you can go down to a bridge and feed the crocs, it was a great experience and Alex had a few turns at feeding the crocs with a big long stick that had meat hanging on the end of it, he loved it! (i wasn't too sure though, and kept a very tight hold of him in case they pulled him over the bridge!) The croc feeding 'expert' was an Irish backpacker named Dan, Alex and him became instant mates, Dan thought Alex was very cool :)

Katherine - take #2

I know it has been ages since we blogged, we have been really slack, but i suppose that's what holidays are all about!

So, after Darwin we went back to Katherine for a few days to spend time with some very good friends that were travelling from Tassie. It was stinking hot (about 40 every day) and starting to get really humid. We had Bbq's, drank wine, ate gourmet cheeses and visited some amazing places.

We did a spectacular sunrise riverboat tour on the Nitmiluk Gorge, we we got fed a hot breakfast, saw Aboriginal Art 30 meters up a cliff, you see the river can rise up to 60m in wet season. When we did the tour it was dry season, and the water was so low we had to catch 2 boats as we had to walk between the gorges, and the skipper was telling us that in dry season you can do the normally 2 hour tour in 15mins, as the water rushes over the rocks that we had to walk over. The gorge is spectacular, beautiful birdlife, foliage & even a croc or 2 floating around.

We also swam in the thermal pools again, and in the waterfalls and rock pools of Edith falls, which was a 40 minute uphill walk (rocky), and in 36 degrees Alex climbed that hill like a rock wallaby, we were so proud of him (and then he didn't like to water because it was 'too cold) ha ha.

The van park we stayed at this time was pretty scungy, the pool was slimy and the bathrooms were average and full of mozzies, nothing looked like it had been tended to for years, but there was one cool thing, we had a fresh water croc (that we named Colin) that came out of the river every night to say hi! Remembering the river was maximum 100m from our van that was pretty cool!

We had a really lovely time with our beautiful friends, thanks for hanging with us, guys :)