Monday 12th, Tuesday 13th, Wednesday 14th August, 2024
We didn’t do much on Monday, but did walk out to a nearby café for lunch and I bought a caravan step to replace our damaged plastic step. I’ve always wondered if they are useful and it’s very handy that it’s height adjustable, has black grippy strips and is quite wide and deep.
It was hotter in the afternoon and we were able to put the air conditioning on to help cope.
On Tuesday morning, after packing up we went to a car wash to give the Sherwood a good clean. We can now see out of our back window, and we tried to wash down the solar panels as much as possible, given that we can’t actually see on the roof. Stephen had to do the spraying as he has extra height.
Then we did a big shop in the local Coles, enough to last a few days.
Ivanhoe crossing has been on my list of things to see. We’ve watched Youtube videos of cars driving across, and hoped to see this live. However, the crossing is blocked off at the moment, probably because the water is a bit high. It was still interesting to see, particularly as people were right down near the water despite croc warning signs.
There is a café a few kilometres away on the road back to town and we enjoyed lunch under beautiful, leafy trees.
Our first overnight rest stop was at a place called Bow River Bridge. We loved the drive through the ranges to that spot and although it was not the best rest area (due to sloping down so much) it had a good view of the last of the ranges we would see on the road. Although the landscape changed to hills with grass and trees, not so spectacular, we still really enjoyed it. Most of the creeks we crossed have at least some water in them and we passed through quite a few of the one lane bridges which make the Great Northern Highway seem not really up to the task.
There was evidence of the destruction of a low level bridge across the river, which had been replaced by the high level bridge we drove over to get to the campsite.
The last couple of days have been officially about 33 degrees maximum, but we find that if we can park under shade there will be a cool breeze, which makes taking morning tea and lunch breaks very comfortable.. We have been arriving at camps at about 4.00 p.m. and the cool down happens by around 5.00 p.m. Sunset is shortly after.
We are presently at a free camp about 15kms off the highway near Halls Creek called Caroline Pool. It has a beautiful water hole and just a few campsites. We chose a spot fairly near someone’s campsite and they invited us over to sit around the campfire before dinner. We enjoyed an unexpectedly interesting chat, fairly wind ranging.
I had put some chicken patties in our little frying pan on a low heat and they gently cooked whilst we were outside. Eventually they were ready and we left our neighbours to have their own meal. It was chilly outside, though the campfire helped us to cope. We were still in our short sleeved tops and shorts.
We still have about 700kms to go before we get to Broome, but as usual we are enjoying the journey so much that we don’t mind that it will take about three days, at our slow pace of travel.