Kununurra to Darwin

Kununurra to Darwin is a long stretch of not much. So you point the car east and keep going until you reach Katherine, then north towards Darwin. Mind you the drive is very spectacular through the Victoria River Ranges.

Our free camp in-between Kununurra and Katherine, at the Mathison Rest Area

I saw Mt Bundy Station on Wikicamps while I was looking for somewhere "off the beaten track". It turned out to be a property north of Katherine on the way to Darwin.  The camping was great and a very friendly place.  We came across a family with 4 kids we'd camped next to at Middle Lagoon.  We had a few drinks and lots of laughs while they told us of the problems and breakdowns they'd had towing their Jayco Outback caravan across the Gibb River Road. 

Mt Bundy Station, just near Adelaide River

And they have saltwater Crocs in their river (Adelaide River), so no swimming

They have Water Buffalo, bulls and horses

Every night has a different theme. Maximum price for a beer is $5. Beef  and gravy rolls were $3. Bargain

We headed out to Grove Hill Hotel for lunch. The hotel is made from junk

Their beer is guaranteed the coldest in Australia, even their fresh limes were frozen!

See the junk? They aren't kidding

Before reaching Darwin we stopped at Tumbling Waters Caravan Park at Berry Springs for a couple of nights.  The springs are a popular swimming spot and really lovely. 

Berry Springs

We also wanted to visit Dundee Beach as we'd heard so much about the camping there - some good, some bad.  We had lunch at the pub and wandered around.   It was great to be back at the ocean again, and we realised just how much we missed it after being inland since leaving Broome.

Dundee Beach, we didn't camp here, too many midges!

But we did enjoy lunch at Dundee Beach

We headed out to Shady Camp, which is a famous Barramundi fishing spot that features in the Kedron movies. We knew the fish wouldn't be biting but we wanted to see this place, hoping to see some of the many crocs that live here.

Shady Camp freshwater side of weir

Shady Camp, salt water side (low tide)

At high tide the Barra jump from the salt water side of the weir to the fresh water side to spawn, and the crocs wait there for their dinner. Easy pickings for them

Shady Camp was anything but shady, and also one of the several wonders of places up these parts where there's endless amounts of very fine dust. So we decided not to camp there, besides there being nothing to do but sit around in the sweltering heat and dust.

Instead we back tracked a few kilometres to Point Stuart Wilderness Camp, which was in three different places according to our various maps and Wikicamps. Not just a little apart, majorly apart. So the maps up these parts are very inaccurate.

Point Stuart Wilderness Lodge turned out to be just down the road from Shady Camp where we could camp on green grass with electricity for $35! A bargain, compared to in the dust and heat for $7.70. A very nice camp which is really popular camp with fishermen during either the run off, or build up for barramundi fishing.  We couldn't believe we were the only ones here, as there's accommodation and camping for about 300 people.

Point Stuart Wilderness Lodge, near Shady Camp

Bonus - they have water you can swim in, Shady Camp doesn't

They have a Saloon, but as we were the only ones there we decided to drink our own beer

After Point Stuart we headed into Darwin, to a place called Saddle Park. The guy here offers horse agistment, caravan storage and limited caravan park facilities. It's about half the price of any caravan park in Darwin, and closer to town than most of the others. What more do you want?

Every afternoon at 5pm its Happy Hour & the campers gather around for snacks and drinks. Very sociable.

Today it was Morning Tea, with fresh home made Cup Cakes by one of the wives. Quite civilised

All the boys went for a Guinness at the local Skimpy Bar.  The wives stayed behind and enjoyed not having them around!

We fly back to Sydney for nearly 3 weeks on Thursday. Leaving the car and caravan in storage at Saddle Park in Darwin. So our next update here will be after 24th August.

We'll be heading home via outback Queensland with Bailey. But due to rain in Queensland we're not sure which way we'll be able to come home. Many of the roads we are considering using are still closed, so they have to dry out and be repaired before we'll use them. So watch this space.