Our search for somewhere with water took us to De Grey River near Port Hedland via quite a few overnight stops. We left the Bungles on Father's Day with the intention of staying at Sawtooth Gorge (south of Halls Creek) but gave up after 24km of driving on dry, dusty corrugations with no sign of water anywhere and returned to the highway to stop overnight at Mary Pool (no water, despite the name and very windy).
We were finding the heat quite exhausting and decided to skip the gorges (Geike, Windjana, Tunnel Creek etc) and check them out when (if?) we come back up after the wet and do the Gibb River Road at the same time.
We tried another freebie at Myroodah Crossing (south-east of Derby) where there was plenty of water in the river but also a few too many crocodiles and someone had hung a dead pig from a tree, a little disturbing. Instead we continued to Derby and enjoyed fish and chips while watching the sun set over the mudflats near our camp.
We stopped overnight in Broome to stock up on supplies only; we are saving the touristy stuff for next month when we return as Mum is flying in to spend a week with us there, although we did get to see the "staircase to the moon", well two steps anyway, we missed the staircase by a day.
We stopped at De Grey River as people had told us about the pretty rocks there and that we had to take Erin there. Three nights later we had to sort through many kilos of rocks that had been collected as we couldn't carry them all. At least water was plentiful and I managed to catch up on all my laundry.
We arrived at Karijini National Park yesterday as we had been told that it was a definite go-to place. We were sent to the generator loop to set up camp as we run the generator occasionally to top up the batteries, the wind was incredible, there was not a tree in sight and to top it off, we couldn't get a peg in the ground! We had to pack up again and move to another campground with no generators, luckily this campground was a bit protected from the wind (though still very windy) and offered shade.
The national parks here have a total fire ban and no solid fuel cookers are allowed, so no Cobb and therefore no Birthday Cake for Geoff, luckily we had bought a fruit cake so he didn't really go without. Not the birthday that he had in mind, setting up camp once a day is hard enough. An offroad caravan has been on the birthday list for a couple of months now and he has bought the last few issues of the caravan trader magazine. He even has his sights set on bus/coach after seeing one in Kununurra that was completely decked out, complete with two bedrooms. He has been sketching out designs ever since.
After we finally got our camp set up, we walked down to Fortescue Falls and Fern Pool where Geoff and Erin enjoyed a well earned swim, there was no way I was getting in, too cold for me.
I'd love to see northern WA after the wet season, at the moment everywhere is dry, flat, brown and very, very windy. There are a few patches of mulla mulla in flower and the golden senna seeds around but other than that, there is nothing much to see. Fortunately it is pretty quiet tourist-wise so it is easy to get in anywhere and caravan parks are in lower season rates.
