12th August 2008

This morning was quite an early start, 0630. We had packed up after a very windy night. The wind was buffeting the Karavan. This stop is a noted place for the wind. It was a fairly quiet location so we cannot have it all.

Our overnight location was about 90 kilometres from Fitzroy Crossing. It took about an hour to get there. There was some road work we had to slow for. The roads are mostly very good in this area. The roads are much better than some of the more populated areas.

We arrived in Fitzroy Crossing which must get a lot of water around as a lot of buildings are up quite high off the ground. The river crossing indicated that a lot of water flows through in the wet season.

We stopped at the Shell service station and had to manoeuvre around a 4 trailer fuel road train that was unloading. We had a coffee and a good break here after topping up the Bravo with diesel at a similar price to Kununurra.

As we were about to depart, one of the local aborigines approached us with his paintings. He just said paintings and indicated in his back pack. We did not enter into any dealings.

After this, we drove out towards Derby on the Great Northern Highway for about 42 kms. At this point, I had decided to lower the tyre pressures as we would be travelling on some rough gravel roads. I dropped them to 30 psi on the Karavan, 35 psi on the Bravo rear and 25 on the front. This has given us a much smoother ride over corrugations but at a reduced speed.

Our first destination for the morning was Tunnel Creek. It is amazing place and well worth a visit. There is some history at this location not only geological but also human. An aboriginal man, Jandamarra, used this as a hideout and it was a considerable time before it was found out. The tunnel is about 750 metres long and to access it you have to wade through water of varying depth but it was no deeper than about 35 cms. There are aboriginal paintings at the end although they are not very large. There are stalagtites, along with other limestone activity, in the tunnel along with a large colony of bats and larger flying foxes. To see these features it is necessary to have a good strong torchlight not only to see the features but also see where you are walking.

After our visit to Tunnel Creek, we made our way to Windjana Gorge Campsite as there is not camping at Tunnel Creek. It is a busy camp area with the allowed locations not outlined very clearly. We set up initially in the wrong spot and the nervous ranger asked us to move to another location. It has turned out to be even better. This campsite has flushing toilets, cold showers and good underground water.

Just around sunset, we went into the start of the Gorge to view the life in the Gorge at that time. Wow, we saw so many freshwater crocodiles and also barramundi. Sadly, there is a no fishing sign as we walked in. It was really nice to see all the wildlife. There were many bird species, too. We followed this with our habit of a red wine or two before and during dinner.

Our neighbours for the night were two German families, with their children, from near Heidelberg. One of the children spoke excellent English but the parents were not so good. We did chat to them quite a bit. It is amazing the numbers from Europe we keep running into. They are from all types of professions and not all back packers. So when we see a Britz rental van it is almost certain to have people from Europe in it.