The Long Drive

Wednesday, we've just completed the third big driving day on this trip, and the last. We covered 528km from Lake Argyle WA to Katherine NT, nd in our truck, that's about as much as you'd want to do. Our Toyota Hilux, which must be the oldest in Apollo's fleet (140,000km), is happy to do between 100 and 110km/h on a good bitumen road, which means we overtake all caravans (which seem to cruise at 80km/hr), and, despite its age, its been very reliable and performs very well. The speed limit in NT is 130km/hr, but very few vehicles are doing it.

Today's drive was quite dreary, with the only scenically beautiful section being in Gregory National Park and the Victoria River Gorge. Remember, we stayed at Vic River on our first night out of Darwin.

By doing the trip out of Darwin, we will have the opportunity to visit Nitmiluk National Park (Katherine Gorge), and Litchfield National Park on our return to Darwin, but, in retrospect, we could have avoided the dreary Kununurra to Katherine section of the road (both ways) by doing the trip out of Broome. When we planned the trip (a year ago), we chose Darwin probably without thinking it through properly, but we knew that flights to Darwin were much easier to get than flights to Broome. We've since heard that renting motorhomes out of Broome incurs a $500 remote site fee, which is startling, and nice to have avoided.

We are here (in the North End) in winter, peak season, but we are still surprised at how crowded the main caravan parks are. When we first arrived in Kununurra some weeks ago, the parks were full, and we were lucky to get a space in the lakesise park (which we then abandoned when we felt it was too crowded). Everyone says you won't get a space in Broome, but we did, right at Cable Beach, by just fronting up, pretty early in the day. That van park was indeed chockers, but we were lucky. Today, arriving at Katherine, the first two parks we tried were full, and the third, "Shady Lane" only had 3 spaces left when we arrived, and it's now got the "full" sign out.

This park is on the road up to the Gorge, and its in a delightful location, with spacious, shady sites, yet well grassed. Despite this, we prefer the sites in National Parks, where you can sometimes get "private spaces". (Today's photo is of our campfire at our private site at El Questro.) That privacy and seclusion is worth the price of no power and limited facilities. We're going to try our luck at Nitmiluk tomorrow. Having said that, the parks are still quieter than our neighbours in Surry Hills, although you are very close to vans and tents. People are very considerate, even the dogs are quieter!