Parry Creek Farm

Alan’s put the pressure on to keep our blog up to date, but I seem to be busy doing other stuff all the time.  He’s faithfully keeping you all informed on our travels, but it’s time for my contribution.

He’s filled you in on the Gibb River Road, but I thought I’d add a few more points on how the journey panned out in a different way.

For example – what went on inside the caravan during its 1,200 kms of corrugations and dirt.  Each morning we had to secure the van, keeping in mind that the van is about 95% dust proof:

1.       Cover the bed with a fitted sheet so we didn’t get a 5% film of red dust over our bedding.

2.       Secure the top cutlery drawer.  The knob had broken, and after seeing the drawer on the caravan floor with knives, forks, spoons, tongs, egg flip etc scattered everywhere it was time for a solution.  Alan screwed a hook on either side of the drawer, which we wrap a piece of strong elastic rope around.  Problem solved.

3.       The oven door was a similar issue and solved using elastic again.  It flings open, and baking trays, muffin and pizza trays etc leap out of the oven and onto the floor.  Then the door closes as if nothing ever happened.  The fridge has also been known to spew out a few things and then close again so we insert a screw into a convenient (existing) hole in the frame of both the fridge and freezer door and they stay jammed shut.

4.       Beer needs to be relocated from the top shelf to the bottom shelf.  Therefore much less mess when the lids work themselves loose and spray beer all over the food below.  The girls reading this are probably wondering why the beer can’t just live on the bottom shelf instead of being shuffled around every morning.  Men will argue that beer belongs on the top shelf where it’s coldest of course!

5.       Everything with a lid in the fridge door needs to be tightened so that garlic, ginger, chilli, mayonnaise etc doesn’t turn into a marinade mix covering everything else in the fridge.

6.       Make sure the Nescafe lid is secure.  We’ve cleaned up loose coffee granules (dust) out of the cupboard so many times, but it makes no difference how tight you screw the lid – it can still work itself off.

7.       Take down the table and secure it under the bed along with the cappuccino machine.

8.       Put the liquorice and liquorice allsorts back in the glove box of the car.  If left in the car they melt – see picture below).

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9.       Make sure that the roll of paper towel is secure somewhere and doesn’t unravel so we end up with a kilometre of absorbent towel through the van, although this is good if it comes into contact with the leaking beer bottles J

Once all of the above has been done, we can start our day’s drive.

After we’d got to the other end of the Gibb River Road it was tar to Wyndham and only 7 kms of dirt to camp at Parry Creek Farm.  We weren’t allowed to wash the car or van there so we cleaned up as best we could and did what everybody else does there – drove to Parry Lagoon and went bird watching.  We sat in the “bird hide” overlooking the lagoon and watched as brolgas danced together, Jacanas stepped from one lily leaf to the other and marvelled at all the other bird life around us.

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Afterwards we wandered around the creek at the campground and stumbled across a snake crushing a bird he’d just caught.  This just happened to be right next to a rusty crocodile cage on the bank.  It’s a pretty scary place up here, but the scariest was the shirtless Aussie version of ‘Fat Bastard’ (Austin Powers) who was so fat he couldn’t walk, but rode around in his motorised scooter.  He had to sit and gather himself together before he got up and squeezed through the door of his caravan.

Just 80 kms down the tarred road from Parry Creek Farm was Kununurra.  Now was our chance to get everything clean as they welcomed washing of cars and vans in the caravan park.  We stayed for 4 days and by the time we left everything was sparkling.  We had haircuts by a lady staying in the caravan park - she cut our hair in the shade outside our van, while her husband crawled underneath it checking out the Kedron’s off road features.  His dream is to own a Kedron so he was a kid in a candy store. 

Now we were out of the dirt it was time for a pedicure, so we sat outside with our feet in buckets of warm soapy water and massaged them into the marbles I’d bought from the Kununurra toy shop.  Pink feet again and all soft and smooth - bliss!

We rode our bikes to the Pumphouse Restaurant overlooking the Ord River and had a lovely lunch on the balcony trying to spot the pizza eating crocodile who lives nearby. 

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The east Kimberley is home to the Argyle Diamond Mine so I had a quick look in Kimberley Fine Diamonds to check out their selection of white, yellow, champagne and pink diamonds.  After ogling over 2 spectacular bright pink .25 carats at $245,000, I realised that t    he tiny ones in my ring were good enough and I’d find something different to spend the money on (if I had it).

Once everything was clean in Kununurra, we made a pact that we weren’t going anywhere near dirt roads for the next few thousand kilometres and headed east towards Darwin.  We’d spent 5 months in WA and have come to love the place so it was sad to be leaving it behind and crossing the border into the NT. 

We’d planned to camp a few days in one of the national parks on the way to Katherine, but even though we got there around lunch time the place was jam packed full of grey nomads.  We reluctantly moved on and stayed at the Victoria River Roadhouse instead.  Last time we visited Alan wanted to buy the place – it’s an absolute gold mine with most people travelling between WA and the NT staying there for the night and eating and drinking in the bar.  You may have read Sarah Henderson’s book ‘From Strength to Strength’?  The property Bullo River Station is just near here.

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Some of the grey nomads are intent on free camping wherever they travel, which means that they’re happy to set up their vans in a dusty roadside stop and stay the night(s) listening to the road trains thundering past – content knowing that they’re not paying anything for a night’s accommodation.

Our deal to stay off dirt roads fell apart when we decided to drive 45 kms into the Flora Nature Reserve to camp, hoping to escape the hordes of grey nomads.  Halfway in we interrupted 4 stockmen moving hundreds of cattle across the road.  We drove straight through the middle of the herd, stopping for quite some time while the cows contemplated which side of the road they wanted to be on - the grass is always greener!  It was exciting just watching these guys riding and controlling the cattle.  The life of a stockman couldn’t be more different to what we know as work in the city.  In fact we talked one guy at the bar at Victoria River Roadhouse, who was a contract stockman with his 4 horses over from Longreach, Qld.  He was pretty drunk, and misunderstood something I said to him, so he ignored us for the rest of the night.

We chose Flora Nature Reserve as it had 2 waterfalls and a river so we could cool down and have a swim.  The road in wasn’t too bad and Alan climbed into the van while I drove so he could see what goes on inside.  Off I went while he hung on and reported back to me using our 2 way radio.  It seems that it’s no wonder normal caravans fall apart, considering the movement of everything inside our off road beast.  He confirmed that the oven door tries it’s hardest to fly open and that the whole section incorporating oven, drawers and cupboards actually moves while the van is going over corrugations.

We found a campsite and by the time we’d set everything up it was stinking hot so we walked down to the waterfalls we could hear from our van.  The only problem is that now we’re in crocodile country, so we could only look at the water then walk back to the van and sit in the shade with our feet in buckets of cool water.

We’re in Katherine now, and we cleaned the van yesterday – again.  We’ve just ridden into town alongside the river and back along the other side.  While we were peddling on the bike track we passed a few people running (it’s about 35⁰C) as part of a triathlon today.  We stopped to chat to Roy and Marg who’d just phoned, and were passed by one of the runners.  We rode onwards to the bridge and found he’d just collapsed.  A couple of race organisers were with him, and we all tried to move him to a more comfortable position.  He was mumbling incoherently for about 20 minutes. We couldn’t get him to have a drink or make any sense at all.  The traffic on the one way bridge was stopped and an ambulance called which arrived in no time.  He was still out of it so the Ambos put him on oxygen and took him to hospital.  Thank God he collapsed near the road and not on the bike track as it would have taken some work to get the ambulance to him. 

Tomorrow we’re heading towards Darwin but stopping at Edith Falls, part of Katherine National Park.  We’ve arranged to meet up with Roy and Marg in Kakadu for a couple of days where we’ll enjoy a few cocktails together.  It’s Margaritas this time as we drunk all the ingredients for the Harvey Wall Bangers last time we met in Broome. 

It will be the last time we see them as they’re heading south eventually back to Perth and we’re continuing north to Darwin to meet up with Justin and Mel who are flying up to stay a few days for Justin’s 30^th birthday.  Can’t wait to see them!

We’ve made a commitment that we’ll be home in time for their House Warming / 30^th Birthday Party on 6^th October so we’re in a bit of shock that our holiday will actually come to an end soon.  Well a couple of months anyway!