There is nothing quite like an early morning swim at Mataranka. While Jenny kept sleeping, I headed down for a morning soak. With the steam rising off the pool, it was too good to get out and pack up the caravan. An hour later it was time to get out after having the pool virtually to myself for that time.

One of the first stops of the day was to the Gorrie Airfield, an airfield from the WW2 era which has been long abandoned and the scrub has taken over but there is a geocache there. This also was an opportunity to put the offroad caravan through its paces with skinny dirt tracks, bull dust holes and trees down. It didn’t take too long to get in but I decided to take the shortest track out which ended up not being the quickest having to remove fallen trees and to do some off road bush bashing.

Our original plan for the day was to stop at Daly Waters Pub but as it was just down the road from Mataranka we arrived at lunchtime which is way too early for us apprentice grey nomads, but would be perfect timing for the seasoned grey nomads so we continued on our journey.

The next plan was to stay at Renner Springs after catching up with the guys coming home on motorbikes. We both managed to get phone coverage – us at Elliott and them at HiWay Inn and came up with the Plan B. On arrival at Renner Springs there was no phone coverage and no spots in the caravan park to suit our van and still at least 3 hours of daylight, so we continued on our journey. The bikes ended up staying at Renner Springs but it sounded like we made the better choice to continue on.

Our Plan C was to camp at Banka Banka Station but with still daylight left and only 100 kilometres to Tennant Creek we continued on our journey. There is a pattern starting to form here.

Plan D and the final plan for the day was Tennant Creek. We arrived well before sunset (that doesn’t happen all that often). After refuelling it was around the corner to the Outback Caravan Park for the night.

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It was not our biggest drive but was not far off it with a distance of 650 kilometres to travel from Fitzroy Crossing through to Kununurra. So it was up early to get on the road but not too early. We woke at 6:30 am but decided even though it was daylight it was still too early. We eventually got on the road at 8:15 am.

Again there were plenty of cattle and boab trees in the morning but that gave way to more horses than cattle in the afternoon.

We had a break for fuel and lunch at Halls Creek. At the Shell servo in the Main Street, there was a queue to get to the fuel bowsers but I found the truck bowsers around the back and they were empty so no waiting around here.

Once again we arrived just before sunset – nothing unusual there as we like to use all the available daylight (well in the afternoon anyway).

At least we won’t be doing an overnighter as we will be staying Kimberleyland Caravan Park for a couple of days. The park is nice spot on the water at Lake Kununurra but electricity dropped out a few times both for the caravans and the cabins.

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A pretty cruisey day today with a 400 kilometre drive to Fitzroy Crossing from Broome. The weather was perfect – not too hot and not too cold and a slight breeze.

Apart from the road, there were a lot more cattle, road trains and boab trees of all sizes. Another thing there were a lot of was termite mounds. These ones are different than those in the Northern Territory as they resemble Jabba the Hutt rather than the tall spear like shape.

Single laned bridges started making appearances today and being big has its advantages with cars tending to wait for me to come through.

We stopped for lunch at Willare Roadhouse which has now taken the mantle for the most expensive fuel so far at $1.89 a litre for diesel. The price dropped 50 cents to $1.39 at Fitzroy Crossing.

Today was one of those rare days where we arrived in daylight and it was good to see the Fitzroy River Lodge caravan park in daylight. It is an impressive place with the amenities up on a hill with the sites all radiating out from it. The sites are also grass.

It was a bit overcast for the sunset and a few drops of rain starting dropping. A quick look at the radar and it appears we have driven into another tropical cloud stream. How much water drops this time, we will have to wait and see.

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It was definitely a good decision to have an extra day in Broome but it was more by good luck than good judgement. We awoke to gusting winds up to 50 kph and it continued for most of the day so travelling would have been almost impossible.

Nothing better to do but to check out Broome and its history. First port of call was the Broome Historical Museum which provided a good insight into the history of Broome including its pearling and World War 2 attack.

Following around the coast we visited Entrance Point (with wild weather), Gantheaume Point with its dinosaur prints (although they were under metres of water) and finally to Cable Beach were we went for a paddle in the Indian Ocean. It was not a bad beach but the wind today was not a huge welcome to enjoy it.

Finishing up the afternoon, we used the Jetty to Jetty Trail app to find out a little more history of the town leading into a sunset to the west.

The highlight of night life in Broome is the Sun Picture Gardens which is the world’s oldest picture gardens still in operation. Tonight’s offering was You Can See Me 2, so we grabbed some popcorn and took our seats in the front row. With the sun setting and the moon and stars appearing, the movie started which was only interrupted by 3 planes flying overhead taking off from the nearby Broome International Airport (they came straight over the centre of the screen). A good night out followed up by pizza back in the van.

Tomorrow is another travel day to Fitzroy Crossing and it looks like the wind has stopped for now.

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Today was a big travel day with 600 kilometres to our camp at Broome tonight. Before leaving Port Hedland, we did a quick “mainy” to see the sights of the Port. It very much is a port that moves a lot of raw materials – iron ore and salt.

Finally we are starting to see some animals with cattle and kangaroos (all alive) alongside the road and some points on the road but they didn’t pose any issues. It would probably be different at night.

One of the highlights was coming across a degree confluence which of course had a geocache. For those wondering, a degree confluence is the intersection of the latitude and longitude integers. Today I visited the degree confluence of 20°S 120°E. There are somewhere around 727 degree confluences in Australia but not all are easily accessible.

The wind for the first 400 km was of course a headwind which blew out the fuel economy to 28 litres per 100 km but at least for the last 200 kms, the road swung to the north so ended up with some wind assist.

As usual, we arrived in Broome after sunset but not by far, managing some sunset photos about 40 kilometres out from town.

We have a bit of a rest day tomorrow looking around Broome before making the move toward the Northern Territory.

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After last night, today was totally different. It was still overcast but the cloud base was very high so no rain however there was some wind – head wind in the morning then a tail wind in the afternoon.

A quick look around Newman with the chance to get up close and personal with one of the big mine dump trucks and we were soon headed to the coast.

It was a little worrying as I looked at the fuel gauge – it was going down way to quickly even with the head wind. Then a light bulb went off in my head, I must have forgotten to release the hand brake on the caravan. Lucky we had only gone about 20 kilometres. At least the brakes pads are now bedded in. After letting them cool down before using the brakes again and they are working a treat now.

We passed through some amazing country with the Hamersley Range and in particular the Munjina Gorge.

The Great Northern Highway is a very busy road with a constant stream of Road Trains with 4 trailers hauling iron ore to Port Hedland and returning back to the mines. As they are very heavy, even I could overtake them with ease hauling the Thommo Taj.

It is not often that we arrive at our campsite before dark but we managed it this afternoon with half an hour to spare. After setting up the van at Blackrock Tourist Park (we got the last available site), time to watch the spectacular sunset, then let Jenny loose at the shops.

Tomorrow we head to Broome for a couple of days.

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What a finish to the day, rain and more rain but I get ahead of myself.

After a good night at Kirkalocka Station, we caught up with one of the owners and chatted about their pending trip to Adelaide before hitting the road.

Today was going to be a long travel day with 675 kms to Newman – shouldn’t be too hard but you have to take in a few stops for geocaches. 🙂 Even managed a First to Find in the middle of Lake Austin (which is starting to fill up).

Our travels took us through a lot of mining areas with Mount Magnet, Cue and Meekatharra. Fuel prices were all over the place from $1.45 to $1.60 a litre. A truckie at Kumarina told me to just get enough fuel to make it to Capricorn where fuel was 23 cents cheaper a litre. In the end the fuel economy was very good on that last leg due to the weather.

For most of the day, it was overcast with some misty rain every now and again but the last leg from Kumarina Roadhouse to Newman – only 175 kms, was a shocker. It was dark and we had been warned that the area was rife with cattle on the roadway at night. No problems tonight with a couple of large sky illuminating lightning flashes and down came the tropical torrential rain.

Visibility was down to zero at times and most of the journey was at 50 kph instead of the usual 100 kph. We managed to get through to Capricorn and finally Newman with rivers forming on roads and the CB radio was alive with truckies talking of the numerous floodways starting to fill. I think we got through in time.

The caravan park at Newman was full but they weren’t going to turn someone away in this weather so they gave us a key to a donga which we could plug into and we were set for the night.

Finally I was about to get my rain bucket to work and start filling the tanks with fresh rainwater.

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