As we left Barn Hill and turned onto the Highway, there was definitely a strange noise coming from the rear axle that was quite worrying. Luckily, we were able to pull straight into a large day rest area. Jonathan took a look and thought it might be a wheel bearing. We had taken out break down cover through Ken Tame which is specifically designed for motorhome travellers and gave them a call. It was decided to send a tow truck and take us back to a mechanic in Broome.
Luckily when you break down in your motorhome, you can have a brew up and lunch while you’re waiting!
As we’ve discovered before, the mechanics in remote places are very resourceful and quick to find the issue. They stripped down the rear hubs and discovered a disintegrated handbrake calliper. They took it out altogether so the van was driveable again but as it was beer O’clock aka closing time, we’re going to head back there in the morning to get the parts ordered.
The good thing about coming back to Broome was that we knew a good place to stay and headed to the Pistol Club again for the night.
On this stretch of coastline, the beach side camps are down unsealed roads off the highway. Barn Hill is 9km down a well graded road and easily accessible to 2WD vehicles. The unpowered sites have the ocean views and are first come, first served. We were lucky enough to get a fabulous spot.
There was a path down to the beach and dogs could run off leash.
The road in
Lots of interesting rock formations
And this bit here is called a ‘stick out’
The boys check out a rocky overhang
Pink mulla mulla
The park laid on plenty of entertainment for travellers with a bowling green being particularly popular with the grey nomads. One of the most popular pastimes was to sit along the back of the vans with drinks and nibbles at sunset and swap travel stories.
There are also plenty of stars when you’re in a remote place.
We’ve become a bit more savvy when booking into a campsite now and ask to choose our own site. Quite often the powered sites are very expensive and you’re crammed into a small space with no views whilst the unpowered sites are spacious and in the best spots. This was the case at the Lakeside Caravan Park, Kununurra where we chose a lovely spot by the lagoon in the unpowered section. The only downside – at night we realised just how many crocs were in that lagoon when we shone a torch.
Ivanhoe Crossing
This is just outside of Kununurra and worth a visit. It’s a concrete causeway across the Ord River. Water flows over it year round but in the dry season it is a challenge for people to cross in their four wheel drives. There are saltwater crocodiles at the crossing and the waters are extremely dangerous but it’s still also a popular barramundi fishing and swimming spot.
Celebrity Tree Park
Ask visiting celebrities to plant a tree in your park and put up a plaque. Here’s Princess Anne’s tree:
There were also trees planted by Baz Luhrmann, John Williamson and John Farnham.
The park also has an impressive Boab Tree. These are common in the Kimberley region. The trees store water in their bottle shaped trunks. The boab nuts are edible and the seeds can be ground down to make flour.
If you have a four wheel drive vehicle, one of the iconic off-road challenges starts here. The Gibb River Road is around 650km long and takes you across to Derby .
The Mindil Beach Sunset Market is held every Thursday and Sunday. This was listed as the must do market in the tourist brochure, mainly because you can buy dinner from one of the many food stalls and then sit on the beach watching the sun go down – with hundreds of other people though! It reminded us of being on the beach during the total eclipse of the Sun in Cairns in 2012.
We didn’t buy our dinner from this one. We had a very tasty Bangladeshi curry
What a journey it’s been, all the way up the Stuart Highway from Adelaide to Darwin, with a detour to Uluru.
We arrived in Darwin on Tuesday and are staying at a Barramundi fishing and conservation park on the outskirts. It has everything to keep the 2 ½ Bradshaws happy. Winston can run around off leash with the owners’ two corgis and have a cooling dip in the lake. There’s a tinnie for campers’ use which Jonathan takes out to try and catch a Barra for supper. It’s lovely and peaceful and I can sit reading, watching the birdlife and taking photographs.
The new Barramundi lure – designed to mimic a cane toad
At the Darwin Italian Festival – missing my little Fiat.
Darwin’s year round temperature is consistently around 32 degrees C and the seasons in the Top End are referred to as Wet and Dry. May to October is the peak visitor time during the dry season when the night time temperature can drop to a cool 20 degrees. We’re also now in croc country. The crocodylus porosus or saltwater crocodile is known as a ‘saltie’ in the Top End and it’s definitely at the top of the food chain. The highest concentration in Australia is around Darwin and the river systems to the south. After being hunted nearly to extinction, they are now a protected species in Australia and there is estimated to be 200,000 of them in the wild.
We saw possibly the most famous saltie of all – a 5 metre male called Sweetheart who is stuffed and on display at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.
Whilst I can’t say I’m a fan of salties, I did feel sorry for old ‘Sweetheart’. He terrorised boaties in the 1970s, and in 1979, it was decided to catch him and keep him in captivity. They gave him a sedative but thought it hadn’t worked as he was still active. What they didn’t realise was, it had shut down the system which prevents crocs from drowning. Sweetheart became tangled underwater and slowly drowned.
Sweetheart then went on a tour of Australia to promote the Northern Territory, though I’m not sure how telling people you’ve got dangerous saltwater crocodiles persuades them to visit!
The other particularly interesting exhibit at the museum tells the story of Cyclone Tracy which devastated Darwin on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 1974. The cyclone reached wind speeds of over 200 km/hr and destroyed over 70% of buildings in the city. Seventy-one people lost their lives. They have a dark, sound proof booth where you can hear a recording of the cyclone at its height.
Jonathan flew to Australia with his mum in January 1975 and can remember their plane being diverted to Darwin to pick up evacuees.
A real surprise on the highway. The pub must be making thousands of dollars every night from drinks, pub meals and the campsite. Mostly grey nomads there and the pub knows how to entertain them for the night with a beef and barra bbq and live Aussie country music singalongs. It was nice to sit in comfy chairs with a cold beer at the end of a long hot day though.
Daly Waters, the ‘town’.
Christine from Taiwan stapling her knickers to a beam.
Travellers have left all sorts of things hanging around the pub such as hats, thongs and underwear.
Bitter Springs, Mataranka
Bitter Springs is in the Elsey National Park. It’s a thermal pool where the water rises from underground at a fairly constant 34 degrees C. Dogs not allowed of course but the pool is only a short walk from the campsite where we’re staying. Reception hires out noodles and masks and snorkels. It was a lovely refreshing swim in this dust and 30 degree heat.
Jonathan went off fishing in the nearby river but after spotting this freshie lurking in the water, he decided an afternoon lounging in the hammock was much safer.
We’re now only 110 km South of Katherine and 424 km South of Darwin.
A historically interesting stop with more info about the building of the Overland Telegraph line.
Wycliffe Well
Claims to be the UFO hotspot of Australia.
Has a caravan park that’s fairly run down and some alien souvenirs at the shop. Someone quipped on Wikicamps that Wycliffe Well was probably the last place aliens would visit.
The Devil’s Marbles/Karlu Karlu
These are 393km North of Alice Springs. They are huge, rounded boulders, scattered over quite a large area. According to Aboriginal legend, the boulders are the eggs of the Rainbow Serpent laid during the Dreamtime. To the first English people who saw them, it looked as though the Devil had emptied his bag of marbles around the place. Geologically I believe they are called a ‘degraded nubbin’.
Tennant Creek
The town has a population of around 3,200 and is 70% indigenous. It was interesting to read an article written in The Guardian this week that said people in the town are diagnosed with infections and diseases that have been eradicated from the rest of Australia for nearly a century. An African health care worker said the town reminded him of his home in Zambia.
We stopped at a very nice caravan park but that’s the best thing I can say about the experience. The only part of town that showed any signs of life was the pub which absolutely stank as you walked past.
Tennant Creek Caravan Park. The view from our van.
A visit to the Alice Springs Telegraph Station was a must do.
The Bradshaw family had lived there from 1899 to 1908 when Thomas Bradshaw was the station master. His eldest daughter Doris later wrote ‘Alice on the Line’, about their time at the station which I had just finished reading. To get to Alice (which was called Stuart at that time, after the explorer) from Adelaide, the family could only travel by train as far as Oodnadatta. The rest of the journey took two weeks by horse and buggy.
Travellers complain today about corrugations in the road when they’re in their 4 wheel drives but the Bradshaws would have had a body jarring journey in the heat across the gibber (stony) plains. Thomas and his wife went on to have three more children while living at Alice Springs which must have been a frightening experience so far from any medical help.
The supplies for the station came once a year by camel. Imagine the size of that shopping list.
The West MacDonnell Ranges are fantastic for Astro photography. Alice Springs does offer a gentle glow of light pollution, but overall the area is very dark and the magnificent red ranges make for a great backdrop to a nightscape!
Here’s a multi-shot panorama of the range behind us on the campsite with the milky way rising:
And no stop would be complete without a star trails image taken over two hours whilst we chilled out to a movie!
And finally, for my Northern Hemisphere family and friends. As we move further North, it is possible to see old familiar constellations. Alice Springs is on the tropic of Capricorn, several degrees higher than home, and as a result, the whole of the “Big Dipper” manages to peak over the horizon! I have highlighted the main stars to make it clear 🙂
