Across the Kimberly, it’s a long haul across. We left Katherine and headed west and in a short couple of miles we were all by ourselves. Being the low season there is nobody traveling he Great Northern Highway. We spent several hours listening to our beloved Australia CD’S we collected in the past travels here, G’day G’day started the set and we finish up with going to have a drink with Duncan. Many might find our road trip boring but we like driving, pointing out the cows near the road or a Kite tail hawk. The hawks need a head wind and are slow to get going you have to allow time for them to get airborne, they like to eat the nights road kill along the highway, the fresher the better.

Cattle graze loose along the Kimberly, they are the greatest fear of hitting and for whatever reason the scavengers don’t like to feast on them luckily when the road trains hit them at night they blast them well off the road, there they lay and their hides become a leather sheet.

Jump ups come next, they are outcrops of rocks and dirt that jut up and usually have a flat top. Having never traveled much out West in the USA I believe they are the same. Water,diesel and towns are few between here, where there’s water there is a town and a town leads to diesel. I believe these are becoming closer together and not in a good way. Some of these far out towns are a little scary as they are still a lot like the Wild West. Watch you stuff. Yet the friendly people are still here, pop in to any store or Roadhouse and you will leave with a new story whether bad or good. We stopped at the Noon Noon Roadhouse for an overnight only to be treated to a valley of thunder and lighting? We were told he best in Australia, the lighting bolts were miles long and the thunder rumbled down the valley like a 100 locomotive’s.

Insane, we woke the next day to beautiful skies and another 400 miles of the Kimberly. It’s not “The Kimberly’s” it’s “The Kimberly” and it’s huge. You wave to every passing car which amounts too one every 30 minutes. You exit the Kimberly like you accomplished something, like the way I felt when I first traveled to Florida a long way from home, it’s hot here. At the Roebuck Road house we turned south. Three hundred miles later we are in the Ore capital of Australia where will will spend a couple of days checking out the huge freighters from China loading up Iron Ore, boring maybe, but I beats the Cross Bronx. Again I will not spell check or reread this, it’s raw writings. Keith and Joy Southbound on the Great Northern Highway WA Australia