We are in WA!!

On Saturday morning we had an early departure from Darwin and drove the Stuart Highway to Edith Falls, which is just north of Katherine. We missed out on Edith Falls on our last trip to the Territory, so we made sure we didn't drive past again. We camped at the National Park campground for the reasonable cost of $18 per night. The falls have an upper and a lower plunge pool, and we had heard that the lower pool was still clsed for swimming because of damage caused by the massive floods the Edith River had back at the start of this year. We remember reading about the river flooding so bad that it washed away a section of the Stuart Highway and a section of the railway line. Driving along the road out to the falls along the river, and then walking down to the lower plunge pool, it is hard to imagine what it would look like with THAT much water flowing through it. It would've been great to see in flood. The lower pool had just been open before we got there, so swimming was allowed, but the lower falls were barely running and it was really just a rock pool... The next morning we took a walk up the hill, which was quite steep and rocky, to the upper pool. Here, the falls are flowing well, and the pool is much more attractive for a swim, especially after the walk to get there. I went for a dip in the not-so-warm water, swam through the small rapids and under the waterfall. Another beautiful spot to be, swimming under a waterfall in the brilliant sunshine under a blue sky. Tick that one off the list as well. :) We meandered back down the hill to the campsite and spent the rest of the day sitting in the shade reading a book, so, all in all it was a bit of a lazy day.

Monday morning saw us getting up early, packing up and driving into Katherine for a food top up and fuel the Pajero. Before leaving Katherine, we took a drive out to an aboriginal art gallery on the Gorge Road that Kathy wanted to visit again. We visited it when we were here in 2009 and there were some good paintings in the gallery. Kathy thought that if there was something there that she liked, for a reasonable price, that she might buy it for our next house and as a momento of our travels. To say the least, we were disappointed with the gallery. The artwork was not as good as it had been 3 years ago, the dot-paintings have given way to brush strokes and nearly everything has a rushed feel to it. You get the impression that the paintings are being churned out quickly to flog off to the tourists, at silly amounts of money. After being there all of 20 minutes we left, drove out of Katherine on the Victoria Highway and headed for WA.

We had intended to go into the Gregory National Park, near Timber Creek, camp for a few days and explore the four wheel drive tracks. The campsites are accessable only by 4WD, but unfortunately the tracks are very narrow and not suitable for trailers of any sort. So that was us out... We continued toward West Oz and eventually stopped at a free camp on the side of the road. It is a popular spot by the look of it, we were joined by quite a few caravans and motorhomes. We had a reasonable night sleep, only woken by the odd truck going past. There was one k*** who decided it would be a barrel of laughs if he laid on the truck's horn about 2 kilometres before the campsite and continued to lay on it until he was 2 kilometres past the campsite... at 2am. Well, he probably thought it was funny.... This morning we packed up again, and after a quick and painless quarantine inspection at the NT-WA border, we were in Western Australia!! The scenery on the road into WA is awesome. We went through some great scenery in the western part of the NT, but it keeps getting better. Huge, red rocky outcrops on the sides of mountains, huge boab trees, just great.

We stopped at Kununarra at the tourist info for a bit of... well... info. Then we found a place to have lunch, but then remembered to adjust our clocks and found we were having lunch at 11:00. Oh well, we were hungry. We decided to find somewhere to stay for the night and figure out where to from here. The Kimberley is a big place and we are going to need to do some back-tracking here and there in order to see what we want to see, so we need some sort of a plan...

After a drive along a corrugated, rocky dirt track looking for one of the Camps 6 book's free camps that didn't seem to exist (we met another couple on the track going the opposite direction looking for the same camp...), we drove to Wyndham and parked in the caravan park. We will stay here two nights, look around town, and then head to the Bungle Bungles on Thursday. We have booked our campsite there already and cant wait to finally see the place for ourselves. After the Bungles, we will double back to Kununurra and then hit the Gibb River Road.

The Kimberley region is one place we were really wanting to visit when we were planning this trip, so we are excited to be here and are looking forward to exploring it.

Hopefully it is everything we hope it will be....