Campsite at Grove Hill
Post 27th December 2012
Well we left Grove Hill Yesterday. Xmas day was dodo, it was hard for Stan being his first xmas without Mary but there was plenty of food, I made a 1/2 turkey in the camp oven, bloody hell!! Getting the fire to light was a chore. Took several cups of fuel & a warning from Joe not to use petrol before I got it alight lol. Anyways got the colas going & cooked turkey to perfection moist & fully cooked, don't know if I can repeat that effort. Made some orange sauce to go with but it didn't turn out as good as usual because I ran out of oranges and used bottled OJ.
http://womansday.ninemsn.com.au/food/everydayrecipes/1054434/duck-breasts-in-sticky-orange-sauce (I skipped the grand marnier too 'spensive! )
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| Our camp @ GH see all the bits we had to remove? |
The boys spent the day working on Dorothy they couldn't get the last pulley off the timing belt back plate, they kept heating it with the blow torch but the bastard would not come. After several hours of swearing and sweating they finally got it off & replaced the water pump.. Ready to go again.
Yesterday we woke up early after several days @ Grove Hill we were itching to go. Set off about 6:30am to arrive at Katherine. We picked up a few supplies and headed down south to Daly Waters, we didn't stop, because we have already been there several times but it is worth a visit if you've not been. We turned East and headed towards our 1st camp Cooee Hill. It was very hot and about 2pm we bloody well lost a tyre from the trailer bugger. I think the roadway was too hot & we pushed the trailer too hard, should have stopped for a cool off @ Daly Waters. Anyway had to change the #@$% tyre, I climbed into the back to get the #$%%ing jack out, bastard won't budge %%%^^% &&^*$% heavy thing!!! Got it out in the end took 3 goes to get it positioned to what I thought was right under the axil of the trailer, but get the bugger jacked up and remove the flat tyre only to have it start slipping off!! Oh no, had to dig a little hole to get the spare on. Hot, hot hot, get everything back together, don;t worry about packing up right & drag ourselves off the Cooee Hill. Absolutely exhausted, somehow managed to cook dinner after a shower, thank God for camp showers!
Today we had a sleep in and headed down to Boolaroola, bugger me what a hole! there is nothing there, the caravan park looks yucky & there is not even a park where you can eat a sanga or have a rest… drove right on through town and didn't bother to stop diesel $1.92/litre. We did find a nice park about 40km before Boolaroola but there was no camping and it was too hot to walk around in the middle of the day. We are camped at Mitchell Creek tonight. There is a good campsite on the Darwin side of the creek, just before we camped there was a car load of aborigines with 3 men sitting on the roof rack, no coppers out this way! There was a big rain storm just as we set up camp we hid in the car till it let up - lightening all around us, the rain was pelting down. Got the camp set up afterwards but the bloody mattress got wet, we have a leak in the back door. It worked out ok as there was plenty of time for the mattress to dry out before bed. You might ask are we having fun yet?? I think so… we did find some big red claw in the creek, put them in the freezer for 'ron.
Posted: 29th December 2012
Another 2 days on the road. Yesterday we woke up refreshed after a bit of a sleep in, the night was cool due to the evening's storm. We're on the dirt road now so it is much slower going, the creeks are up because of the storm. We crossed a few creeks without incident when we came to ??? river. It was up quite high and there were not tire marks across on the other side. Someone before us had turned around so we decided to try the alternate route. The route took us through some aboriginal land, it was not marked on the map as needing a permit but when we started to drive there was a waring sign saying that this was private property and prior permission was needed to enter. However there was no gate or keep out sign so we decided to risk it, it was the only way to get across the river. The community was about 45 klms down the road, as we got closer I was getting worried imagining that we would get chased off, just before we arrived there was a big sign saying something about a $1000 fine for a first offense, then another sign saying no alcohol allowed or they would confiscate our car, I was ready to turn around but he who shall not be named says 'its ok we're only passing through'. Then there was a closed gate, but it was not locked so I reluctantly jumped out and opened it. We finely get to the community, another sign saying no alcohol or gunga, there was no-one around, and everything was very tidy. 6 big tanks (60,000l each) full of diesel and an air strip. There were signs saying 'keep rubbish in the dump'. There was lots of machinery looked like a cattle station. I've seen a few communities but not one like this. Anyway we came to a store and a T intersection??? Map had said go straight ahead so we were stuck. Driver calls out to a very respectable bloke standing at his car, 'which way to the river mate?' the man comes over with a smile and says down that way through the gate & cross the river, then you can keep going. With that he waves us on…. The river was still up a bit but we could get through the road was very rough, black soil, creek crossings (goat track) for about another 45 k or so. View was quite spectacular.
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| Goat Track |
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| Some of the views |
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| More of the goat track |
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| Pretty Billabong |
After we got back to the main drag we thought we would make camp at Echo Gorge & ??? Cave, however when we got there the creeks were dry and we couldn't find the cave, I took some pix of the gorge. We came to a creek crossing near Redbank mine there was water in the creek but it was contaminated so we had to go on. Everything was dead around the creek. Near the border we came across an old deserted station, I think it was a gaol (forgot to take photos), there were so many wallabies there they were almost tame, I got within 2 meters of a baby one before he hopped away. We considered camping but there was not water so we crossed over the border. On this leg of the journey there were heaps of cows and wallabies every where, we saw some emus and big birds that are grey with red heads. We finally camped near some water, not the best camp the water was not flowing but was clean enough for a wash. A big storm came over but missed us. The boss cleaned some long chicken legs that he had found & stuck them in the freezer.
Today we did a few more klms we made it past Hells Gate, the road was really slippery with wet bull dust, luckily I have a private driver! I offered to drive but he prefers his own driving so I get to be passenger, I think I'd really struggle if I had to drive. We crossed some very wide rivers here is a pic on one. There was some very nice scenery I did remember to take photos this time. We are camped on a river, it crosses over the road so i had cool off sitting on the road, lovely. We know we're out of the territory now, no march flies and bugger all normal flies.
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| Hell's Gate Road House (I think we're on way out) |
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| We went through 2 rivers like this one, depth about 40cm |
