The drive from Katherine in NT to Kununurra in WA is around 520km and we had been going to head straight through, but we were very glad we decided to stop a night at Timber Creek on the Victoria River in NT, about half way between the two towns. Not far out of Katherine the striking escarpments that marked the beginning of the Gregory National Park (NT's second largest in area) were amazing along with signs pointing to some of Australia's largest cattle stations.With a population of around 300, mostly indigenous communites, the pub, IGA supermarket, pizza restaurant, and a real coffee machine, with colourful characters running each made our decision easy. The Timber Creek Wirib caravan park we stayed at - owned by the Gunamu Aboriginal Investment Group - was immaculate, shady and very welcoming, with an offer for a free (real) coffee in the morning. Yippee! For those like me who've never heard of Timber Creek until now, the area was explored thoroughly in the 1850s by one Augustus Gregory, who's ship ran aground on the Victoria River, and had to stop for 6 months or so to make repairs. Timber Creek became an inland port for the vast pastoral properties and there was a lot of bitter disputes between the locals and the settlers.We were talked into by some friendly retirees parked near us to book a spot on the Victoria River sunset cruise, and again, very glad we did. After a bus ride in a ricketly old bus built in Adelaide in 1971 to the Big Horse Creek boatramp, for 3 hours we cruised 35km downriver at about 50kph spotting a couple of saltwater crocodiles (one 5m speciman called Mambo!), a few freshwater crocodiles, loads of wonderful birdlife (white-bellied sea eages, whistling kites, corellas, jabiru, brolgas just to name a few), and stopped for refreshments on a pontoon near the Bradshaw Air Force base border to wonder at the incredible sunset over the escarpment before heading back in the dark.