Great Northern Highway

17 April 2012

April 12th

One last look at the beach and we’re heading back to Broome. By now Claire is familiar with all the car storage system, fridge, etc. She knows inside out where everything is stored, even came up with cool ideas to improve our lives. And she’s a lot more relax when I fly through the sandy tracks. Looks like she even loves it 🙂

Back in Broome at the supermarket, refuel and oil filters. Off we go, east, heading to what appears to be a great campsite, at least on the map. Bad luck, the road is closed., completely flooded. It’s tempting to try crossing but at the sun is already pretty low, it’s not a great idea to get stuck in the middle of a flooding river at sunset. We turn around and go bush-camping a bit further.

We enjoy this bush camping, even if we’re forced to eat our dinner in the car, as all the insects in the area have chosen our lamps to have their picnic. In the middle of the night, I hear a stoomp-stoomp noise which awakens me, then I realise this is what a kangaroo sounds like when it’s jumping around and you’ve got your ear next to the ground…

April 13th

A rather cold night, I should have taken a blanket from the bag on the roofrack. We’re off to Fitzroy Crossing, further east. The tourist information desk points us to Geake Gorge, they’re open they said, and there’s a 3h bushwalk you can do, just ask the rangers when you get there…

Right. No rangers, nobody, and the 3km bushwalk turn out to be unmapped, with the first few hundred meters in deep soft sand. No crocs, just the beating sun and a ton of flies. Nope, let’s turn back, this is pretty disappointing, even the gorge aren’t that spectacular…

We camp a couple of hundred kilometers down the road, at Ngumban Cliffs, which offer a spectacular view on the area. The sunset is just awesome, and we stay up for a couple of hours watching the shooting stars. It’s amazing to see the Milky Way that bright, with no light pollution. Something I’ve always loved about the Southern Hemisphere.

Distance today: 351km, total: 11796km