The Kimberley - Via Dawin & Bali.

Ok, so we didn’t head for the bumpy Gibb River Road just yet. While in Kununurra we couldn’t  resist dirt cheap flights to Bali and booked a 9 day holiday departing from Darwin. It was a 10 hour drive, 800km back to Darwin but well worth catching up with friends when we arrived. Ed & Jodie that we had met at the Roper River were now living in Darwin and we were very lucky to stay with them before flying out. It was also great to catch up with Leigh and Katrina and the kids!

Ed & Jodie kindly offered to babysit the dogs and the camper trailer, although it was extremely hard to leave them. It would be the longest time we have left the dogs but they were in very good hands... too good in fact. When we returned home they had been spoilt rotten, put on heaps of weight and eating 4 times as much. Good on ya Ed!

Bali is another story... it was the first time both of us had been overseas, we were excited and looking forward to some luxury. An eye opener to say the least... the details will have to wait for another blog, we’ll be here all week! An enjoyable break, interesting but one we’re not in a hurry to do again and vomiting publicly through their airport we made a quick escape home!

We ended up spending another week in Darwin. I was still ill and had passed the bug onto Ben and it sure wouldn’t have been fun getting sick in the camper. We got a new exhaust, new tires and stuck around to help Ed & Jodie move into their new house. We were very lucky to have their hospitality and look forward to them visiting us one day. Thanks for putting up with us guys!!

For now though, there’s nothing like back-tracking. It was on the road again, an overnight stop near Timber Creek, back across the border for inspection and on to Kununurra where it was great to catch up with Tony and Shannon for an overnighter. Ben worked for Tony & Shannon while we were in Kununurra and we had to get out of there before we were convinced to stay!

Welcome To WA, East Kimberley, Kununurra!

Wow, what a spectacular drive it is across the WA border and into the East Kimberley region. A brief stop at the gorgeous Victoria River and then on to quarantine. Boy did these guys take their job seriously... and rightly so. The NT/WA border has 24 hour patrolled quarantine, no fruit and veg, pests, cane toads etc are to be carried further, although I can’t imagine anyone would purposely smuggle a toad?? Luckilly for us we were prepared for this and used up all of our fresh produce but our word wasn’t enough. We had to lift our boat and open all the boxes on the trailer to be inspected, and honest Ben had to dig out his cast net from the deep for them to check. With everything approved we were in....the much awaited WA and only 50km to Kununurra.

As many of you would know by now, there was an abundance of work in the Kununurra region and due to the Gibb River Road not yet being open we decided to stash some cash for 2 months. After trying 2 other caravan parks we ended up setting up house at the showground... a fantastic place, loads of space and great for the dogs.

Ben and I both started work the first week we arrived, Ben as an electrician and myself back in recruitment. It truly was nice to be back in a reutine, making money instead of just spending it, and using my brain again! It wasn’t all work of course, we wanted to use Kununurra as a base to see many of the surrounding attractions.

Many a weekend was had at the Keep River, about 80km from town and great  Barra fishing. We both caught some decent fish here and the drive is extremely picturesque with burning red ranges, rice fields and irrigation channels on the way. We were lucky enough to meet up with Ruth and Stewart again when they spent a few days in Kununurra. As the Keep River was one of our favourite spots we took them for a drive. The boys put the boat in and we all got onto a few  Barra. By this stage I  was giving them away!! We spent a bit more time and had a lovely dinner with Ruth and Stewart before they continued on their journey west.

We couldn’t leave town without a visit to the Hoochery Rum Distillery (just a taste of 75% rum nearly dropped me), and Lake Argyle. I don’t think you could prepare yourself for the size of the lake nor the amazing colours. We decided not to spend money on a cruise or flight this time around, we could already see so much from the drive.... it was something! There were also a few trips to the renowned “Ivanhoe Crossin” although it was still closed to traffic due to high water flow. Ben caught just a few small Barra here.

I am not sure if “Lucky” is the right word but Ben was “Lucky” enough to visit a number of local communities in the region. Most involved driving to remote indigenous communities, on one occasion a flight to Kalumburu and a few to the coastal town of Wyndham. I still hadn’t visited Wyndham as yet, so Ben decided to take me for a weekend drive. Quite disappointing really, there isn’t much to the town itself, but the 5 rivers lookout if definitely impressive. It is no wonder this region see’s so much flooding in the wet season. On the way back from Wyndham we took a drive towards the Cockburn Ranges to the “Prison Tree”. I great drive and super tree, of course I convinced Ben to jump inside for a photo!

I can’t forget to mention how nomadic our life was in Kununurra. I know you are thinking “well you are travelling” but in this one small town in 8 weeks we managed to stay in 5 different places. As mentioned our first month was spent at the showground where caretaker Troy looked after us and the dogs very well. Unfortunately we had to move out of the showground the week of the show and we moved to camp behind the office store where one of Ben’s mates Mum worked. From here we went back to the showground for a few days before caretaking a spectacular home on acreage just out of town, the dogs had friends to play with, I had a bath to relax in, Ben had fresh eggs every day and we were all very happy. Then, as lucky as we are, we were able to stay in Ben’s   boss’s unit for cheap rent the last 2 weeks.. awesome!

For the foodies out there, surprisingly there a a few nice cafes in Kununurra these days. The Mango Cafe in the middle of town is great, good food and good coffee. One place i really enjoyed however was “The Pumphouse Restaurant”. It quite literally is the old pumphouse on the edge of the water and the tables are seated around the old pumps inside as well as out on the verandah overlooking the water. It’s a beautiful place, very interesting and alot of history. I would recommend for breakfast over dinner.

It’s hard o fit everything from the last 2 months into one post... but alot of it was work. I can’t help but think there is alot I have missed. As our time in Kununurra draws to a close, it’s both tempting not to stay longer and exciting to see more of the Kimberley. Fortunately for us, the Gibb River Road was now open, as well as the road north the Honeymoon Bay and Kalumburu, get ready for dirt dirt and a bit more dirt!



Keep River Barra!




WA Quarantine Border Inspection




Ben fishing at the Ivanhoe Crossing. Still far too high to cross.




Rice & Ranges, Kununurra




Bear & Xena's new home for a while.




Ben in the boab prison tree near Wyndham.




More rice & ranges.



The Adelaide River War Cemetery & Katherine

On the road towards Katherine we stopped in at the Adelaide River War Cemetery. A truly moving experience with an ghostly beauty. We quietly wandered the site, reading the names of many soldiers that had lost their lives during the war, as well as civilians that died during the Darwin bombing, many as young as 16. Reading through a long list of names we found both POWELL & THOMPSON’S, we felt extremely humbled and forever grateful for their sacrifices. There is no way you could leave this site and not feel extremely lucky and proud to be Australian, as we did.

For a short time it was a quiet drive on to Katherine as we both reflected on our visit to the cemetery, but as you know, I never stay quiet long. We arrived at Springvale Homestead where we were to camp for the next few nights. A beautiful place to stay with alot of history. We enjoyed a cup of tea and scones and walked through the old stone homestead (in true grey nomad style). Mostly we used our stay here as a base to explore the Katherine area.

We decided to head out for the day, first stop Cutta Cutta Caves. It compulsory to take a guided tour of the spectacular caves and well worth the extra information along the walk. We slowly crept further and further into the caves admiring the beautiful stalagmites/stalactites that shined a crystal white as if covered in diamonds. We even learned of history of the soldiers coming into the caves during the war and blowing the beautiful formations off for fun, you can still see the results of it today.

I was excited about heading the to the Katherine Gorge but that soon deflated when we arrived. There isn’t much you can do that isn’t expensive there. All activities at the gorge, including flights and boat tours must be booked through one agent when you arrive. Unfortunately we had just missed the last boat tour which was $75 each for 2 hours. Our only other option was to do a flight and we decided to give it a miss. We walked to the boat ramp and I have no doubt the rest of the gorge would be spectacular, however I still can’t get my head around how inaccessible some of these place are, hence no photo's of this one sorry. They are NATIONAL PARKS and we should be free to visit them, so frustrated and with no bushwalks to take us exploring further we returned to camp to prepare for our trip across the border in WA tomorrow!! We knew there would be many more spectacular gorges where we were heading.

Entrance to the Adelaide River War Cemetery

The Historic Springvale Homestead

Litchfield National Park

Deciding for various reasons to give Kakadu a miss this time around... we were bound for Litchfield NP. A short drive south of Darwin we passed through the small town of “Rum Jungle” before arriving at our camp ground. Really... who comes up with these names... imagine living in the “Rum Jungle”. We stayed at the Litchfield Caravan Park just outside the NP due to travelling with the dogs. It was a huge improvement on Darwin hospitality. The manager was very friendly, the grounds were excellent and we had the unpowered area completely to ourselves. They also told us to let them know when we go to the NP for the day and they will keep an eye on the dogs and make sure they have plenty of water. Highly recommend and we really enjoyed our stay. The NP itself is beautiful but like most things the secret is out! We always heard people saying “go to Litchfield, its equally or more beautiful than Kakadu and less crowded.” Not these days.... there is no entry fee into Litchfield, unlike Kakadu, and nor should there be. It was beautiful but busy. The main Wangi Falls area is a excellent place for a picnic, view of the falls and a cold swim in the waterhole, however being so close after the wet season and for risk of crocodiles it was closed for swimming when we visited. Florence Falls was gorgeous and a bit of a hike up and down hundreds of stairs... a bit disappointing when it was so crowded when we got there, presumably because the other swimming hole was closed. Not willing to fight the crowd to get into the water we opted to head for a swim at the cascades. Again beautiful but it seems such a shame to visit these places and have them be over crowded. I can’t forget to mention the very interesting old tin mine ruins and ant beds. We had a great time exploring but Ben was starting to get the Kimberley itch.


Huge Termite Mound



Old Tin Mine



Florence Falls



Wangi Falls

Disappointing Darwin, NT.

After 2 nights in Mataranka we were packed and on the road to Darwin. We decided to continue through Katherine and stop there on our way back to WA.

It wasn’t a good start to our stay in Darwin. We arrived at Coolalinga Caravan Park, the only place in all of Darwin we could stay with the dogs. There were 2 other places that only allowed small dogs! You can imagine the earful the poor lady got that tried to tell me “big dogs are more trouble!” Coolalinga was very uninviting and I tried everything to try and find somewhere else to stay... no luck. We set up camp in an overgrown desert like park, 20km from Darwin City, paid an additional $2 night per dog, had rusty water and no power some nights... quite amusing looking back on it.

The hospitality in Darwin was disappointing. While we originally considered staying in Darwin and gaining employment, we soon decided to stay for 1 week and continue to WA. However we still did lots of fun things in that week.

We were able to catch up with friends Leigh and Katrina that now live in Darwin. They took us to the local Ski Club for a Sunday session. What a beautiful place..... relaxed, waterfront, amazing sunset and a place locals frequent. A great night.

We visited the exquisite parliament house with it’s tremendous white structure and grass so green it looks artificial. The Mindil Markets couldn’t be missed, all the food stalls you can think of... but that’s about all it was good for. SkyCity Casino was a winner with a sumptuous and affordable seafood buffet but no luck in the roulette!

Ed & Jodie (Friends from Roper River) had arrived in Darwin before we left, it was great catching up with them over a drink at the Humpty Doo pub. The pub itself wasn’t what  I expected, from all reports I thought it would be more like the Daly Water Pub with memorabilia and a real country feel. However, it fell short and had the ambiance of any other pub.

The water precinct and man made lagoon is beautiful and much like Brisbane’s South Bank but as soon as you head away from the water, boats and sunset there isn’t really much else to see. Although we weren’t wrapped with Darwin itself, it was great catching up with old friends! Leigh and Katrina’s recent visit to Bali inspired us to book a trip of our own and we processed our passport applications before hitting the road again. A trip to Bali was now on the horizon and we had both been offered employment in Kununurra, East Kimberley, Western Australia. So, on the road again!

Darwin Ski Club... Perfect spot for sunday session.

Sunset at Darwin Ski Club

Darwin Waterfront



Darwin Government House. Waterfront.



Mataranka Thermal Pools

It was slow packing up and leaving the Roper River today. The company was good and we were having a great time, but there were other great places on the horizon. We didn’t leave the Roper River until late and were only heading to Mataranka today. A small town between Tennant Creek and Katherine, smack bang on the highway. It was surprising driving into town, it was quiet, clean and tidy, a huge contrast to the road we had just driven. Littered with broken down cars and green cans. Ben is already planning a trip back to claim some car parts... most cars are left roadside because they have a flat tyre or run out of fuel, many brand new... no-one returns for them, within 48 hours they have been stripped of parts and turned onto their roof! It makes my bloody boil.. but don’t get me started again!

Mataranka is famous for the thermal pools and we were looking forward to a relaxing swim. The crocs weren’t too friendly on the river! We stayed at Mataranka Cabins and Camping, a comfortable and dog friendly park. Just 500m away was the Bitter Springs Thermal Pools, a more natural creek with stairs built into it. You are able to drift with the current and get out at different spots, however there was still alot of water when we visited making it a little dirty. We had a quick dip and gave the drifting a miss.

Not far away is the more famous thermal pools accessed through the Homestead Caravan Park. Entry is free and it is on the edge of Elsey National Park. We enjoyed a lovely swim here but it is quite busy. They have built a beautiful pool like area, lined with pebbles and steps for easy access. The water is warm, continually flowing and extremely inviting!

The pools at Mataranka were special but the best part about Mataranka was bumping into Stuart and Ruth again. We had originally met at Ayres Rock Resort and it was great to catch up for a drink further up the road. We swapped stories over dinner and looked forward to catching up again soon! My faith in good Aussie hospitality and friendship has certainly been restored in the last few weeks.

The Roper Bar & Tomato Island

As hard as it was to leave our overnight stop at The Daly Waters Pub, Ben was keen to get onto a Barra! Most people would travel to the famous Roper Bar via the turn off from Mataranka but not Ben. Don’t be surprised....  but of course we took the back road. An unsealed, rough road through stations that took us about 7 hours to travel 350km. That is not a typo!

Luckily, we left Daly Waters Pub early enough to get to the Roper Bar in the afternoon. We had decided not to camp at the crossing itself, but continue along the road towards Borroloola and camp further out on the river. With sun getting low we didn’t travel as far as first planned, about 50km from the Roper Bar we pulled into the “Tomato Island” campsite.

We were expecting a remote and isolated camping experience out here. No people to be seen, privacy, silence.... little did we know. Tomato Island must have had at least 30 other campers, most of them set up for a long stay. There are no facilities and no water but a boat ramp and plenty of room to camp.

As we arrived people welcomed us. We soon found that most people camped here were war veterans and they generally stayed and fished with their wives for the entire dry season. They soon invited us to attend “Happy Hour” where at 5pm every afternoon they all bring their chairs and gather around “The Circle”, sometimes a fire and share their stories about the fish that got away. Monday nights was “Spud Night” and everyone bought their own spuds in foil, tossed them in the fire and cooked their meat on the bbq. It wasn’t long before we realised that “Tomato Island” was more of a community than a campground!

The river here is beautiful and the wildlife abundant. Everyone was catching loads of Cherabin (fresh water prawns) mostly using them as barra bait and keeping the large ones for eating. We didn’t eat any of ours unfortunately and there is a good story behind that! After losing our stash of cherabin to something breaking our pot one of the locals very kindly gave us a 20L bucket full. We hadn’t been catching many fish and people were starting to feel sorry for us! He told us to eat whatever we didn’t use for bait. Ben was out fishing with the 20L bucket over the edge of the boat to keep the bait alive, in a huff and angry that he hadn’t caught his long awaited barra he pulled up anchor and took off forgetting to pull it in. Quickly the rope was snapped off and the bucket of cherabin disappeared! Later that afternoon the locals asked us how we went and said “at least you can eat the left over cherabin”. We didn’t have the heart to tell them we’d lost them all!

We caught a few barra in the roper but unfortunately they had gone off the bite a bit while we were there, but the people sure made up for it. We made some great friends here. We didn’t go without a feed of barra either; the locals looked after us with some beautiful big fillets. It really is such a family here and the welcoming hospitality of the locals is warm and rare.

Although we came for fishing, one afternoon a big boar walked right passed our campsite, can you believe it! I called Ben and we collared the dogs, letting Bear go first. We couldn’t hear a sound and I got quite worried, Bear was on her own as Xena was yet to get her collar on. Finally Xena and Ben were on their way and Bear was holding the boar on her own. A few cuts and bruises but both Ben and the dogs were very proud of themselves. There was a real buzz around the campfire that evening.. finally we had a story to tell.

I know I’ve said it before, but all good things must come to an end. We were leaving “Tomato Island” after 5 nights and heading just up the road to the old crossing. A beautiful area where the water forms 4 tiers of cascades, eventually running off into the river. We decided to camp out here for the night with Ed & Jodie, another couple we had met at “Tomato Island”.  They had told us about the Barra they had caught from the waterholes and Ben was keen to give it another try. Ben finally caught a beauty that we cooked up for dinner that night and we all caught a few more in the morning. More importantly, we formed a great friendship with Ed & Jodie and enjoyed a few drinks around a campfire. Magic!

Back on the road, it was time to say goodbye to new friends and hit the road to Mataranka.

P.S We did cross the Roper Bar in the car... impressive with a lot of water flowing over it. I wasn’t getting out for a photo, too scared the car was going to wash away. Bugger! By crossing the bar we were in Arnhem Land but that was as far as we went.

Wild donkey on our way to the Roper River.

Our Tomato Island Campsite.

Ben fixing his cast net.

Silly Pig!

Finally a Barra worth keeping!