West to the East Kimberly

Katherine - Victoria River Roadhouse 200 km
Victoria River - Bullita Homestead 128kms
Bullita Homestead - Timber Creek 62km
Timber Creek - Keep River N.P. 191km
Keep River N.P. - Lake Argyle via Kununnura 111km
Lake Argyle - Kununurra 70km

You can see that we have been on the move since we left Katherine, relatively short distances and short stays. Seven days 'out of contact with the world'

Some amazing facts:

• There is only one settlement (Timber Creek) of 100 people, predominately aboriginal, in the 510 kms between Katherine and Kununnura.
• Lake Argyle holds up to 80 times the volume of water of Sydney Harbour 
• We have not seen a cloud - daily maximum temperatures have been between 28 and 34 degrees
•  The Hyundai is a Time Machine - last Sunday we left Keep River N.P. at 9.30am and after 1hour driving arrived in Kununnura to shop at 9.00 am. That's right, we had arrived half an hour before we had departed - think about that! Merilyn says she has jet lag and will take weeks to recover.
• We are still talking to each other even though we have lived in this van with a useable floor space of  only two square metres (ie half the floor space of a small bathroom) for nearly 5 months.

After leaving Katherine the seemingly endless woodland plains eventually gave way to some undulations and mesas until we were in the beautiful Victoria River Valley in the eastern section of the Gregory National Park. A walk to the escarpment gave us spectacular views of the valley and a second walk took us, after a fair bit of solid climbing, up and along the base of an overwhelming escarpment, amongst Livinstonia Palms, to some rock art.

Next day we moved on to the main part of Gregory (Judbarra) N.P. Before Timber Creek we turned off the highway and after 50 somewhat challenging kms arrived at Bullita near the site of the old stockyards and homestead. This country is quite different to the eastern section of the park - dry open woodland with some huge Boab trees. It felt like harsh country and reading about what life was like in its cattle station days, it certainly was a challenging place to live. I felt somewhat humbled being in an area near Victoria River Downs Station and where identities from history, like Nat Buchanan (drover) and Patsy Durack (pioneer cattleman), have an association.

                                                                                              We discovered that the track to the Gorge we were going to visit had a creek crossing that reqired low ratio 4WD, which we haven't got, so next day we re-negotiated the 50 km back to the highway, explored the settlement of Timber Creek, and spent the night at a roadside stop alongside the Victoria River. We did see one crocodile in the distance sunning itself on the river bank. Timber Creek was quite a pleasant place with aboriginal kids playing on the grass outside the store after school.

On Friday we had an easy drive to Keep River N.P. near the W.A. border. This park has been a real highlight. Good camping area, two wonderful walks, plenty of space, some new birds - how about a White Quilled Rock Pigeon - and a lovely campfire at night.

Sunday saw us crossing the border early, shopping at Kununnura and back and set up at Lake Argyle before lunch! In the afternoon we explored the area, almost had a swim (water temperature a bit too cold), and booked a river trip on the Ord for the next day.

The river cruise of 21/2 hours was very enjoyable. There were only 8 of us, the driver was very knowledgable and supplied us with good information about the area and the Ord River Irrigation scheme. We saw freshwater crocodiles, birds, and wallabies on the rock cliffs. Sometimes we travelled quickly and other times we just drifted and took in the grandeur. In the afternoon we drove to the Argyle Downs Homestead which had been moved and rebuilt on its present site befoe the valley was flooded. It was the home built by Patsy Durack for his family and featured in Mary Durack's book Kings in Grass Castles.

The past 2 days have been in Kununnura, doing domestic and touristy things. It has been very hot - 35 today, and there has been a lot of smoke from fires in the surrounding hills. We have enjoyed learning more about the Ord scheme, most of the land is now taken up with production of Indian Sandalwood, the extracted oil from which is used in perfume production. It is not harvested for 15 years, the first harvest here will be in 2 or 3 years, so the land is tied up for a long time. Fruits and vegetables are also produced and they plan to try cotton in the new area which is opening up soon.

Kununnura - we are camped below the right hand hill.

We are off again tomorrow and will probably be out of touch for another week.