Rain, Rain and Roadhouses

Sunday. It rained most of the night at our Turkey Creek campground, leaving it an even muddier mess this morning. Our plan for today was to drive to Kununurra, do some shopping, and then drive to Lake Argyle where we would stay a couple of nights. But the weather was so bad on the way to Kununurra, tropical downpouring rain, which looked quite set in, that we eventually decided to stay the night at a motel in town, in the hope of riding out the weather. We've checked in - it's going to be very luxurious to have a real bed and a real bathroom tonight. The forecast is for more rain tomorrow, clearing Tuesday.

Last evening, the whisper at Turkey Creek was that the road into Purnululu would be opened today (Sunday) despite the official statement of "no review before Monday". We guess this batch of heavy rain has put paid to that rumour. We're very glad we managed that helicopter ride over the Bungles yesterday - walking in this magnificent national park will have to await another visit.

Our friend Cindy from Skykomish wondered how the isolated roadhouses of the Kimberleys received their "gas", petrol and diesel to us Australians. Today's photo shows how - it's of a huge road train pulled up in the boggy forecourt of Turkey Creek this morning.

Those roadhouses have been quite interesting - apart from the fuel and goods travellers buy there, they seem to have become centres of their communities in one way or another. Almost every roadhouse has a family of aborigines hanging around outside, enjoying the chairs and the shade of the awnings. Often these people will try to sell tourists some artwork, but, from what we've seen, they're asking too much money for very mediocre stuff. The aborigines seem to all have money, and look like heavy consumers of soft drinks and chocolates.

This is not news, but many of the aborigines are affected by alcohol, and loud arguments and physical fights are common. One such fight only this morning seemed to discourage a whole busload of people from getting off a Greyhound Coach at Turkey Creek. We had thought the local community was dry, and maybe it is, with this particular group being from elsewhere.

All Roadhouses sell premade food and some basic provisions. Signs say "ignore the use-by date, because the goods have been frozen". If there's hot food, it's almost always of the "pie in the oven" or "baine marie" variety, but some do it better than others. The Victoria River Roadhouse (NT) prepared meals from a menu in the evenings, although we didn't sample them. You could do short helicopter flights of the river gorge from right outside that roadhouse. On the Gibb, the Mount Barnett Roadhouse (diesel was $1.95/L, the most expensive we have bought) had a large and comprehensive general store, but stock levels on may items was low. They were expecting deliveries soon. The Imintji Roadhouse was next door to the mechanic who repaired our flat tyre. The couple running that place were obviously expat Queenslanders (judging by his Maroons shirt and flag), and had just taken over the business. They were very friendly, and sold us some fresh sandwiches, but were "too busy" to make hamburgers etc. We didn't stop at any of the roadhouses near Broome, and, on the Great Northern Hwy, we actually spent the night at the Turkey Creek Roadhouse, and enjoyed some very tasty baine marie tucker.