Kununurra up to Darwin

Justa short update as we havnt done much in the last few days.  We left Kununurra and stayed at Lake Argyle for a night, did a sunset cruise which was good, it really is a huge lake and we saw last years high water mark, which was the highest its ever been, it got to the equilavant of 42 sydney harbours in volume - Impressive is one word that comes to mind.

                                                   Ivanhoe Crossing at Kununurra  - closed for the last 2 years

                                                  Knickers and Raz on lake argyle

Leaving lake argyle we decided to try and make Edith falls just past Katherine and stay for a couple of nights - we arrived at half 5 to find it closed as it was full, so we made a dash back to Katherine and stayed at the big 4 for the night.  Earlier in the day we had a slight delay when I felt a slight vibration and about 1.5 seconds later a huge bang and a shudder - Yep blew a left rear tyre on the highway - not nice, second tyre for the trip gone, i guess thats part of travelling i suppose.

we're now at Mt bundy station on the adelaide river which is a nice spot, some big crocodiles here, they spotted a 5.5m saltie yesterday, Raz and I went looking for some but they were hiding from us.

Off to Darwin today for 5 days, hopefully get some fishing in and catch up with some friends.

cya.

Gibb River Road

Sorry about the long delay in updates but we have been travelling along the Gibb river road..again and without reception for a couple of weeks.  We travelled the GRR last year but as we enjoyed it so much we decided to do it again.  After my timing belt service came up in the Hilux while on our way to Cape Leveque, we decided to pull into Broome again to get it done and the new tow bar was also supposed to be replaced.  Well the T-Belt got done however the new tow bar was the incorrect one, so on goes the old one...again and $827 later, and $750 on new tyres for the trailer aswell,  we are on the road to Windjana gorge, leaving Broome at 1830 for the 280 odd km drive in the dark to Windjana, We arrived there at 1030pm to find our friends Brook and Vikki all set up, so we pulled up and as quietly as possible set the trailer up for the night,

We spent a couple of days there, Brook and I did Tunnel creek before settling back to drink a few of Queenslands finest (xxxx) and hopefully watch the Maroons cruise to a 7th straight series win against the blues, unfortunately that didnt happen, cant wait for the 4th July and see them smash the Blues.

                                                   
                                                  Tunnel Creek


So after the dissappointment of losing to the blues we packed up and made our way to silent grove camp ground which is the camping point for visiting bell gorge....what a spectacular place bell gorge is.  We only stayed 1 night here as we did the bell gorge walk in the afternoon that we arrived, after blowing a tyre on the way in to the gorge we throughly enjoyed our night there.  Minus the fact i was now down to 1 spare tyre and would need to replace the blown tyre soon as possible, at $400 ish a tyre i was not keen on that, however it needed to be done.

                                                 No plugging that tyre.......Bugger!!!

                                                  Bell Gorge

Next stop saw us staying at Mt Elizabeth Station for a couple of nights.  On the way we stopped off at Galvans gorge which is a ripper of a spot for a swim.  It is a beautiful spot for a stop off and a swim in the middle of the day, we pulled into Mt Elizabeth later in the day, it's a top spot for a nice couple of days doing nothing although we did go on a gorge walk after an interesting drive in and seeing a snake on the wlak in.  It's called Wunumarra gorge, absolutley stunning.

                                                                  Wunumarra Gorge @ Mt Elizabeth station

                                                    The Beginnings of my camp oven lamb shanks

                                                  Yum Yum Yum

Onwards to Drysdale from mt Elizabeth with plans of heading upto the mitchell plateau.  The drysdlae road this year was absolutely terrible, last year it was the best road i drove on up here, anyway when we got up to Drysdale it was decided that we would take a flight to get up and have a look at Mitchell Falls, not the cheapest option but we got to see a hell of a lot that other people do not get to see if they just drive up there.  we got to see kings cascades, prince regent river, donkins hill falls and the amazing mitchell falls. 

Whilst at Drysdale we bumped into a mate of mine that i worked with in Karratha, after a dinner and a few beers we said goodbyes and planned on seeing them at home valley in a couple of days time.  Little did we know we would see them a whole lot earlier than expected.  While driving out of drysdale to go for a swim at miners pool we were stopped by a couple who advised us that John had had an issue with his car down the road, so off we go on a rescue mission to see what went wrong, 50km later we find them and ther engine has expired in the 100 series cruiser, so the mighty hilux towed him and thier camper trailer back to Drysdale.  The hilux has a new name after that 50km tow probly towing around close to 4 tonne.  new name for the Hilux is Terry tough lux.

                                                  Terry the tough lux towing John and family back to Drysdale

                                                                    Kings Cascades

                                                                   Donkins Hill Falls

                                                                   Mitchell Falls

We left Drysdale after a freezing last night there, the coldest night we've had so far on this trip.  we ventured on to Ellenbrae station for soem Scones with Jam and cream. Then we kept on going towards our next stop at Home Valley station which we planned on staying at for 3 days, Brook blew a tyre about 30km's out from Home valley which unfortunately could not be repaired so we had to change it out...amn are those 18 inch tyres and wheels heavy..., we remembered Home valley from last year and it seems as though Raz did aswell, as she went flat out at the kids play area for about 2 hours before expiring at the dinner table, so off i went and put her into bed.  Brook, myself and John and a bloke by the name of dean whi we have met on the road all wnet on a barra fishing trip on the pentecost the next day...to no avail sadly...oh well, there is always next time.

there was a little surprise installed for me at Home valley when i discovered all my wheel nuts on my front wheels were loose and i was missing 2 of them....that could have ended in tears, so out with the rattle gun and wheel brace and rechecked everything was tight befor emoving onto El Questro.

We're now in Kununurra for a night as the ute is having a wheel alignmen tomorrow before we head off into the NT.

                                                  Me and Raz doing Marshmellows on the fire

                                                  Cockburn Ranges

                                                   Where the rich and famous stay at El Questro

                                                  Good looking set up that is

                                                  Knickers and Raz blowing bubbles at Zebedee Springs

                                                  Believe it or not his namer is Moo and loves Lollies

                                                   Another blown Tyre

Arrival of the Arelette's and Cape Leveque

Friday saw us in Broome still waiting for my new towbar to arrive only to be told that it was not going to arrive now until Monday at the earliest,  So we had already booked Cape Leveque for 3 days spanning until Tuesday morning, therefore the towbar will be done when we arrive back in Broome, along with the timing belt service that is now showing up on my dash.

Knickers and I took Raz down for a play in Broome on friday arvo while we were waiting for Brook and Vikki to arrive only to recieve a text message saying i might be needed on standby with a jerry can of diesel, They had enough to make Roebuck plains however when they arrived there was no diesel at roebuck, same as we discovered in halls creek and fitzroy crossing when we were there last week.  So the decision was made to head out to roebuck with a jerry of diesel to top up the 200 series, of course I arrived hanging my head out the window with the camera to take a pic of the 200 on the side of the road, Brook then decided to five us a full mooning as we were doing a u turn...thankfully no pics of that!!!!

Saturday saw us refuel in Broome before heading up to our favourite place...Cape Leveque, It's just truly spectacular we reckon, if you've never been i would recommend putting it on your list of places to visit...the beaches are pristine, sunsets are amazing...it's just unreal.

Went out to one arm point today to see the aqua cultural centre, basically because i just really love anything to do with water, and it's good to see Azra checking out the fish and turtles.  I remember the boat ramp at one arm point from last year, certainly is a ripper and not for the in experienced i reckon.

Well we're trying to get Azra to sleep at the moment and man is she driving us insane today, so off i go to tend to her for a bit.

Here's some more pics

We're still having a ball and enjoying every minute of it.

Broome - Duncan Road- Ord Valley Muster- El Questro & back to Broome

Well it's been about a week since the last update, I picked the girls up from Broome last Tuesday night, it was good to see them again. So Wednesday saw us heading towards Halls Creek to link up with the Duncan Road to take us to Kununurra for the Ord valley muster on Saturday night, only for us to come across a stricken couple 30km's south of the Willaire roadhouse, 2 destroyed tyres saw them going nowhere, so it was my time to do a good deed and help them out, Ended up having to run the mans wife into Derby (80km's away to help source some new 33" tyres for thier troopy)  The guys at the tyre shop in Derby were good enough to sort her out and get her back to her husband.  We only made it as far as Fitzroy Crossing for the night.

Thursday saw us hit the Duncan road and stopping at Marella gorge for the night, what a cracker jack spot that was, had the place to our selves, but bloody cold.  After packing up on the Friday we landed at Kununurra to join up with our friends the Aldridges and Jones for a few days and do the Ord River Muster which saw me dancing away to Kasey Chambers and Paul Kelly, was a great night and one I'll remember for a long time, my type of shindig it was.

Sunday we had no real plans set so we decided to hang with the Aldridges and Jones and head to El Questro for a couple of days and let Raz play with the other kids before we went our separate ways again.  Us boys went and did the walk to elquestro gorge late in the afternoon, we all trekked in with our slr cameras looking very professional yet very amatuerish, after a couple of lessons from Jonesy i managed to out do myself and get a couple of ripper pics of running water over the waterfalls at El Questro gorge.  On the Monday I took the girls and the Aldridges came along to do the walk to Amalia Gorge, It was a good walk, some minor challenges with passing the kids up and over a few tricky bits, but worth it in the end.

Tuesday morning and it was time to leave the friends for 1 last time and head back onto the black top to kununurra and restock and make our way back to Broome, stopping at Mary pool for the night just west of Halls Creek, one of the best overnight highway camp spots i've stayed at, and head upto Cape Leveque this Friday for a few days and Middle Lagoon, and meet up with the Arelette's after i get my tow bar replaced, (thats another story).

One thing i will say is, keep an eye on your trailers that your towing about the country side, today we saw a couple towing the skin cancer trailer around, we saw them at Fitzroy crossing, they left 5 minutes before us, we saw them 20 minutes later after thier drawbar on the 6 tonne trailer broke and rolled thier tailer on the highway, we came across them no more than 2 minutes after the accident, they were very lucky they were not injured as the old bloke driving did a great job to save the truck from rolling, he came away with just a saw arm and a fright.

We are having a great family time together, alreadty have some great memories to take with us,

enjoy the pics,

until next time
Slippery Knickers and Raz