Day 82 – Bungle Bungles to Kununarra – sunny 28

Mainly a day of travel, we were told not to mess around before settling into a campsite in Kununarra. So we settled into Lakeside Resort where it is the biggest rip off $42 for a powered dust bowl site. These were the only ones left so we had to take it to charge everything before heading onto Gibb River Road. The pool was refreshing though.

Kununnarra as a town is quite nice and has heaps of places to explore in and around.

 And "NO" Glenn we are not moving here!


Anna's a Sooky La La

Day 81 – Bungle Bungles – sunny 28

Mini Palms walk

Time for a snack

We didn’t hear a word from the kids walking the Mini Palms Walk 5km, they loved the climbing over boulders and scrambling into tunnels it made their day,and the peace made ours

Echidna Chasm

Where are the Echidnas?

Palmtastic

Now Echidna Chasm 2km is where you have to wait until noon to see the light fall between the giant walls of rock. We stayed had lunch and watched the amber light meander in, this was well worth seeing.

Day 80 – Bungle Bungles – sunny with breeze 28

On the Piccaninny lookout trail

Speci as, we did the Cathedral walk 3km, Piccaninny Lookout 3km and Dome Trail 2km altogether. Very easy walks we started at 8.30am and finished at 12pm and that was with 2 morning tea breaks and lunch. Levi walked to all of them and then Glenn would carry him back out. The views of the towering honeycomb domes look magnificent.

We really loved it here.

Levi and I slept from 12.30 to 3.30pm in the car we were exhausted, everything just catching up to us.

Paige and I made damper, the first batch was crap and then the second was demolished by the four of us with honey.

Day 79 – Lake Argyle to Bungle Bungles – sunny 32

Entrance to Purnululu Nation Park (The Bungle Bungles)

We picked up our spare tyres for the camper from Tyre Power, as we had decided to take our camper into the Bungle Bungles. The word around the town is that the road is pretty good and that we shouldn’t have a problem. Well they were right the 5 creek crossings didn’t go over the top of the wheels, the road did have some corrugations, but nothing serious, if you stuck to 50km per hour like we did and dropped the tyre pressure on all the tyres down to 24 PSI, there wasn't a problem.I would hate to see it late in the season though. A lot of the people mostly in hire vehicles were doing well over that.
Our camp at Kurrajong Campsite was pretty cosy, don’t get me wrong there were a lot of other campers and sites were slim since we had arrived at 3pm, but we did well. Paige was happy, as we were next to Tara and Lucy again, by chance they are heading the same way.

Day 78 – Lake Argyle – sunny 31

Munchies at the Bluff Lake Argyle

We basically relaxed today, we did do a 4km in the morning to the Bluff which was nothing to talk about.

The Afternoon we vegged by the pool and what a pool it is, if you can get passed the icicles forming on your nipples then the swim was ace.

Glenn enjoying the view.

Levi decided to glide into the pool without his life jacket. I saw him approach the water and put his hands out. Kicking his little legs and paddling those little arms as hard as he could, once his nose went under he knew he was in trouble. When I pulled him out there was no coughing or splattering, he had held his breath for the whole 30sec, it just scared the crap out of him. Once he got his breath he said “I kicked my legs”.

Also I need to mention that because of the time difference it is light by 5.15am and dark by 5.15pm, so we head out to see a sunset at 4pm, freaky.

Day 77 – Keep River to Lake Argyle – sunny 31

Ginger’s Hill walk was nothing to talk about but it did have this stone structure at the top of it, it was used to catch hawks, the kids used it as a cubby.

Paige the conqueror.

Heading over the border into W.A. through Quarantine, was fairly thorough. They didn’t make you pull out the camper, but definitely open every door.

Paige has now conquered every State and Territory in Australia, so have Glenn and I. Poor Levi will have to wait, he still has QLD, TAS and ACT to go.

Driving towards Lake Argyle the views were unexpected, we heard people say it was nice, but the landscape was gorgeous. We do admit that when we drove up to the caravan park it didn’t look appealing at all, but once we looked around and were allocated our site we didn’t mind it. The pool is posh, rimless so it looks like you are swimming in the lake, umm but it is a bit fresh even though it is 31 degrees out.

Day 76 – Big Horse Camp Ground to Keep River – sunny 26

Paige at Gregory's Tree

Gregory’s Tree was a massive Boab tree that the explorer and his team used as their reference point to were there supplies were kept as they were going down the river in 1856.

Morning tea was at Saddle Creek, by chance we sat next to a couple having breakfast heading the opposite way. We ended up talking to them for an hour they were a wealth of information and nice couple.

Keep River National park

Keep River wasn’t that much further up the road, we pretty much went and set up camp straight away, and lucky we did the place only had 2 spots left. We couldn’t believe how beautiful it is here. The bee hive shaped boulders and escarpment is truly under rated here. The walk was 2km and would look even more beautiful at sunset.

Also Paige and Levi loved it as their friends from the last camp Tara and Lucy were camped next to us.

Day 75 – Limestone Creek to Big Horse Camp ground – sunny 28

Our first stop The Escarpment Walk 1.5km gave a beautiful view over Gregory’s National Park.

After lunch we organized some postage at Timber Creek and went and set up camp at Big Horse Camp Ground, it wasn’t anything special and was nearly full by the time we arrived.

We thought we should explore a bit of the park and took a drive to Limestone Gorge and did the Calcite walk. It was alright but not worth 47km drive.
Glenn did however see his Gouldian Finches.

Day 74 –Tina’s to Vince Connoly Crossing at Limestone Creek - sunny 34

A day of travel since we had seen this part of the country before, we did have a brief stop at Adelaide River, had a coffee and took a few photos of ‘Charlie’ the Water Buffalo from Crocodile Dundee.

Anna's oasis

Our accommodation for the night was at Limestone Creek and since we had stopped so late in the day the rest area was getting full.

Day 73 – Tina’s Place - sunny 34

Cullen Bay is very yuppie, it is where you go to catch the ferry to Mandorah, we went to check the times and ended up having lunch at Yato, Greek Restaurant, very nice. Off to the the free museum and art gallery, the kids weren’t that interested but Glenn and I were impressed by the displays and the Cyclone Tracey Exhibit.

Ahhh Look out Mate.

The Mad Scientist.

While grabbing a an ice-cream in town we saw a notice that a Greek Festival was happening.We thought this would be fun to go to.

So we took the kids to Aquascene first where the fish come to your feet for a feed. The kids loved it but the price you pay for an adult is a rip off.

This reminded Paige of the cooking on the movie Nims Island.

Greek feast was a lot of fun, we had a feed, and were entertained by some dancing and then Dora the Explorer came on to entertain the kids, they went nuts, they were on a massive high for the rest of the night, especially after a feed of the best desserts.

Day 72 – Tina’s Place – sunny 33

Waiting for the bus.

The car had to have its 40,000km service today, so we dropped it off at Casuarina Ultra Tune and caught the bus to town.

The kids loved the Python.

Most of the morning was spent at Crocasaurus Cove. The kids had a ball and would have been even better if we knew that we could swim next to the crocs for free. It was a great day the kids were able to hold a baby crocodile, olive python, blue tongue lizard and western south eastern dragon (well Paige assures me that is what it was called).

Fishing for crocs.

Lucky its mouth is taped shut.

They also got to go croc fishing, were they put a piece of meat at the end of a rod and they jump for a feed. To be honest we thought the place was going to be an over the top and priced tourist attraction, but we ended up thinking it was worth the money.