The Katherine

Well here we are in Katherine in a shady caravan park with green grass and a licensed bistro and saltwater pool. the cv joint has been replaced with a complete driveshaft and a service completed. we noticed a small leak from a power steering pipe so a new one has been ordered and is being fitted now. The RACV supplied a hire car for the week and covered the accommodation costs too. Gotta love total care. Even though the car is 11000 k over its warranty, Toyota covered all parts and 50% of the labour cost. Healesville Toyota, where we bought the car, covered the other 50% under their extended warranty. Fantastic customer service.

The first time I can legally do 130 in Australia and we're limping along at 80 with a broken cv! There is plenty to do and see in The Katherine area. We did an amazing dinner cruise on the Katherine Gorge.

Katherine is a major supply town for the region, so has all the supplies and amenities you require. The people are very friendly and similar to the roads, straight and dusty! The blacks sleep on the side of the road and fight and scream at each other regularly. Seems to me they look after their ancestoral land by throwing VB cans all over it, but what would I know.
we visited the Katherine museum which was excellent and is housed at the old airport, which was Australias first international airport. We watched a very good dvd on the 1998 floods that reached 20 metres and claimed 3 lives. The weather is pretty warm here, 40c today and we are now officially in 'build up' season when the humidity rises before the wet arrives. Might need to turn the fridge up a notch. Oops, xxxx gold freezes before VB. might turn it down again!

This is the plane that started the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
Next stop Kakadu!

leaving paradise.....but we will be back

The time had come to leave Lorella. The cv joint was due to arrive in Katherine on Friday, so we packed up and left in the morning for the 600k or so drive to Mataranka on the Stuart Hwy. we all loved Lorella, and even after such a short stay I was hooked.
We decided to head north from Lorella instead of backtracking, this took us past the Lost City, an amazing rock formation, a bit like a mini Bungle Bungles I'm told.

We only intended to walk a short distance into the Lost City, as we had a big drive ahead on rough 4wd tracks, but we were all so mesmerised by the rocks we walked the whole loop even though the temp was already well in the 30's.

So we finally left the Lost City and remembered we had a disaster on our hands. Both Nev and our beer fridges were empty.......So we headed for Roper Bar, an aboriginal community with a supermarket and diesel ( world record price for this trip so far, $2.20 litre) and NO beer. Another dry community. A bloke could die of thirst in these parts.
Ah well, on to Mataranka, only another 190k. A very close run thing, the bottlo closed at 6.00, we arrived at 5.50, phew. One slab of golden delish ( xxxx gold to you mexicans ) one slab of VB ( Violent Boong as it's known to the locals ) and a tub of margarine......that will be $130.00. Worth every cent when a bloke hasn't had a drink all day and it's nudging 40c.
We stayed at a great campground called the Teritory manor where they had a licensed bistro that was very good. They even made real coffee, the first we have seen for a while. Nev and Leanne had to leave next morning as work beckoned, but Jo and I decided to stay an extra night.

This was in the campground Bistro
We visited a small museum in Mataranka that was very interesting, and then had a beer in the pub that was even more interesting!!
The following morning we headed off to Katherine, but not untill the campground owner showed us his barramundi.

He has around 6 in an ornamental lake, all pets. The park is for sale if anyones keen, making a tidy profit too.

It's funny what the heat makes you do. We found this natural spring in the middle of the road, and our own webbed feet pillow princess couldn't help herself!

One Million Acres

We left Heartbreak Hotel early next day for the short drive, approx 130k to Lorella Springs Station. A reasonably rough track, we stopped to help a car with a wrecked tyre, but they were all good and a little further someone else was stopped with a broken leaf spring. But we still got to Lorella around 11am, just in time for a beer! Lorella Springs is an extremely remote million acre cattle station, now providing adventure tourism. The owner, Rhett rushed out to greet us with great enthusiasim when we reached the end of his 30km driveway. Nev and Leanne were trailing behind us a bit, probably Leannes photography stops! so we had a beer with Rhett at his bar while we waited.

Rhett has owned Lorella for nearly 20 years, and such is the scale and ruggedness of the property, he has only ever seen 20% of it! It has been featured in a few 4wd magazines, and the day we were leaving Rhett was taking his backhoe and a couple of 4wd's to push a track through to a billabong that has only ever been  seen from helicopter.One of the 4wd mags tried this and managed 11k in a day and ran out of spare tyres, and had to be rescued! He expected it to take a week!!
There are a series of hot springs and billabongs on the property that stretch for almost 100k to the Gulf of Carpenteria. One is right in the campsite.

Because the cruiser was injured we couldn't explore much, but there are thousands of k's of 4wd tracks through the property and you can drive right up to the Gulf and camp. Untill recently nobody had ever been there. This is from his website.
Much of Lorella and its coastline is untouched and approx 80 km or more from the homestead campsite and can only be reached by EXTREME 4WD Driving by HIGHLY PREPARED and EXPERIENCED DRIVERS
However, we did explore one of the billabongs by row boat.

We saw 4 crocodiles on this billabong, all freshwater which are considered harmless. This was the smallest and he let us get pretty close.

It just isn't camping without a fire, even when the days reach 38c! Jo did an awesome lamb stew and damper on this one.

The bull chaser. Every station has one.

I checked the cv joints but they wouldn't fit the 200! I think an old girl like this may be a better bet than our precious 200 series.

We climbed to the top of this rocky hill where you can see to the horizon. Everything we could see is Lorella Springs, and we could only see a third of it! The station is bigger than some european countries. This is one of the most amazing places I have ever been and I am real keen to get back there. I am already planning next May, or as soon as the roads are passable after the wet. If you needed to disappear this is the place. The only way in during the wet is by helicopter and we mat a lady there who has volunteered to stay and caretake during this wet. Just imagine how many slabs of beer you would have to cart in!

Unexpected Adventure

When it came time to leave Adels Grove we decided to avoid the main tracks and take the 'trail less travelled', directly north, plenty of creek crossings, dust and rocky roads. After a couple of hours travel we came accross a steep rocky hill, off the track to the left, that led up to some kind of monument. I thought it a good idea to try and reach the summit to check out the monument. In hindsight I should have dropped the trailer off at the bottom........but I didn't. The cruiser was climbing well, then a bit of scrabbling, then BANG......no more drive. We managed to get the car and trailer off the steepest part of the hill so I could assess the problem, and after a quick look underneath it was obvious we had exploded an inner cv joint. So out with the high lift jack and tool box and under the car on the spinifex I went. I removed the front tailshaft which allowed the centre diff, once locked, to drive just the rear wheels.
So we are on our way again with the front driveshafts rotating but not driving. A quick sat phone call and a cv joint is on its way to Katherine Toyota, eta 7 days, woohoo. All part of the adventure!!
We could have gone the direct way to Katherine, about 700k, some sealed road........but more fun was to be had on the dirt roads via Lorella Springs Station.
We travelled through the dry aboriginal community of Doomagee and over the NT border to our overnight stop at Robinson River.

some clown croc-spotting!

Next morning, with the cruisers front end making some pretty scary noises, we made for Borroloola in time for lunch and a much needed beer top up only to be met with disaster. Because Borrollola is an aboriginal community we couldn't buy beer untill 2.30pm, aaaggghh. So we pressed on to Cape Crawford and the fantastic Heartbreak Hotel in time for a late lunch and a fridge top up. In fact we liked it so much we stayed the night and enjoyed a great performance by Rod Dowsett, a country/blues singer.

Lawn Hill

Lawn Hill national park is in north west Queensland and is well worth a visit. For a few bucks you can hire a 2 man canoe and explore the sensational gorges.

When we got there, three people were in front of us and were getting aboard a 3 man canoe. We tried hard not to laugh, but instead of sitting in the middle, as instructed, they all sat to one side. The canoe tipped over quick as a flash. No photos, sorry!

Our canoe was faulty and wouldn't start, so we had to paddle the bloody thing! And someone had removed the esky.

Adels Grove

On our way to Adels Grove in the Lawn Hill National Park we passed through some stunning scenery and  saw some crocs, only freshies, on the Robinson River.

You gotta give way to these guys!

Plenty of road kill!

Ahh another pub. The Gregory Downs Hotel. Be rude not to stop. And we wouldn't want to upset them by only having one beer!!

When one of these road trains is barrelling towards you on a dirt road, you just get out of the way. They stop for nothing. We were told this truck uses $2000.00 of diesel a day!

Adels Grove is a privately owned and run camping ground on the border of Lawn Hill national park. They have a beautiful fresh water river with some rock falls, heaps of shady camping, donkey hot water showers, and a licensed bar and bistro.
We spent hours floating down the river in innertubes, cooling ourselves from the inside and out as it is now over 35c.

Doing it tough!

We even did some white water tubing!
This was a great spot, we spent 4 nights here, they had a bush walk up to a rocky hill where you could watch the sunset. If you held still there was even mobile phone reception there, and they built me an office!

The long pants and boots were a good idea

only a python, but still gave us a fright!

The sunset was worth the hike.

Normanton

We only intended to stay in Normanton for a quick re-fuel and a coffee, but before we knew it, it was after 10am, and there are 3 pubs in town.......so we stayed a while!

We went for a walk around Normanton while we sobered up enough to drive and met Krys, a lifesize
replica of the largest croc ever shot, 8.6m, and shot by a lady at that!

We finally left Normanton and were quickly back on gravel roads again on our way to our overnight stop on the banks of the Leichardt falls.

Loved this poster on the wall in the Purple Pub. We were drinking beer in there at 10.15am, bad I know but we're on holiday, when a blackfella,( known as soldier) came to the bar and knocked back a double brandy in double quick time!