Where ever I may roam

This time I’m planning on a solo trip from Darwin to Adelaide and I probably won’t be deviating to far off the Stuart Highway. All up I think it will take me less than 2 weeks to cover the 3000km of this leg.

I havn’t done much research into the sights along the way, preferring to wing it. I’ll probably be giving Uluru a miss (Mt Augustus is bigger and you can actually climb it) but I will be trecking out to Oodnadatta to follow the old railway line for a bit.

As the funding is good, I am planning on being in Melbourne for New Years so I won’t be hanging around in Adelaide for too long. Of course a trip to the Barossa Valley will be done before departing.

In 2 days I’m heading down to Adelaide, I was planning on going to Cairns however the weather here is getting stormy and it’s not much better there. I’ve also heard that there are no jobs in Cairns either so I think I’ll save that trip for another time. I was going to stay in Darwin so that I could go through Kakadu on the way out, unfortuantly it wont be open again until April due to the wet season so I’ll need to come back some other time.

I managed to get a new radiator for the troopy for $450 just by ringing around, which I installed yesterday. I also got a new stereo for it, one that is capable of playing music from a USB drive. CDs have trouble playing when driving on corrugations. I have a few other issues to fix with the car, namely the dash loses power and the only thing that works on it is the speedo. Thats this afternoons job, as well as cleaning out the fridge and water bottles.

I managed to get more work with Iron Mountain, doing more QA, which I finished on Friday. I enjoyed working there and I’ll be keeping a lookout for work in some of their other offices.

I don’t know how long I’ll take to get to Adelaide, I have a feeling that it will be a short trip and at this stage I’m planning on being in Melbourne for New Years and then working my way up the east coast in the new year.

So I’ve been in Darwin a little over a week now and it’s been good so far. I moved out of the backpackers and I’m now renting a room off a friend from Perth, which is cheaper and I get my own space. I’ve had a bit of work performing QA on archived documents for Iron Mountain. It’s mind numbingly boring but it is in the aircon and I can listen to music all day. Unfortuantly the job finished yesterday so I’m looking for work again.

A new radiator for the car is going to set me back $700 and I wouldn’t mind getting the aircon fixed, which could probably be over $1000. I may be in Darwin for christmas but I’ll be out of the house at the start of December as the housemate is moving back to Perth.

Well that leg of the trip is over, after 4400km and 20 days. We arrived at 1pm and checked out a few of the backpackers. I checked into Chilli Backpackers for $170/w in a 12 bed dorm and managed to pick the only backpackers lacking a bar. Tomorrow I’ll start looking for a job and this time I think I’ll aim for an office job if I can get one.

We ended up spending 3 nights in Katherine, checking out Cutta Cutta Caves, Katherine Gorge and Edith Falls. Cutta Cutta caves had some spectacular formations inside, however it had suffered some damage at the hands of tourists and the army in the past.

Katherine Gorge was amazing and it would have been worth spending a full day canoing along the river. We ended up hiking into the gorge and a bit of swimming.

Edith falls was also a good spot for a swim, spending several hours there. I swam out to the falls and relaxed for a while.

Today we visited Litchfield National Park, stopping at the Magnetic Termite Mounds and Florence Falls. Swiming at the falls was enjoyable although the fish tried to eat you. I’ll be visiting Litchfield again on the next leg of the trip as there is alot to discover out there.

Damn, it’s October already and it looks like I’ll be staying in Darwin for a few months as the expenses are mounting up. I need a new radiator for the Troopy and I’ll probably have to pay the ATO income tax for last year. I should really look into getting the dole while I travel ;)

Yesterday we ended up a Victoria River Roadhouse after going through Timber Creek and parts of Gregory National Park. The is alot of history around the exploration, development and pasturalisation of the region. The roadhouse was a good place to camp and it provided a much needed shower and water refill.

Things seem to be cheaper here in the NT than in WA, camping last night was $7.50ea, fuel in Katherine was $1.38/L and the caravan park tonight was $12.50ea. Hopefully things continue on this trend as it will mean less time in Darwin.

Tomorrow’s TODO list includes visiting Katherine Gorge and thats about it. We will see a few other sights over the next few days and on the way up to Darwin as we are spending 2 nights in Katherine.

Hooray for the NT! Yesterdays efforts included driving 513km and crossing the border 3 times, as well as replacing a blown tyre at 1pm on hot rocks with no shade.

It is almost as if WA didnt want me to leave with all the trouble that I was having. The road that I took from Halls Creek came out ~15km from the border at Kununurra and it was a great road to travel on, aside from the blown tyre.

On the 28th we visited the Wolfe Creek Metorite Crater and it was worth the 300km round trip from Halls Creek. Within the crater there were several zones, each containing different plants and colours. We spent several hours there resting, photographing and having lunch. That night we camped out at Chin Wall after restocking in Halls Creek.

From here we are going to head into Timber Creek and Gregory National Park.

The last few days have been interesting, after leaving the lookout and driving around Wyndham Point I discovered that the engine was overheating. The temp guage was through the roof. After pulling over I found that the radiator had a leak in it and that it had been losing coolant over the last week or so. Initially I thought that a hose had burst and I managed to blow fuses for the fridge getting the replacement hoses out. I filled the radiator up with water and kept on going, keeping one eye on the temp guage. We managed to get to Doon Doon road house where we stopped for the night to see how it was.
After pulling the radiator from the car I found that it had multiple leaks, several of the quite fast. After trying several methods to block the holes (including gasket goo) the owners of the road house put me onto Stop Leaks, which worked like a charm. I need to put ~1.5L of water into the radiator every morning but it will work well enough to get us to Darwin. Looks like I’ll be working there for a while to get a new radiator.

Yesterday we visited the Bungle Bungles, walking amongst the sandstone domes and through the gorges was spectacular. It was hot and I am starting to wish that the aircon worked in the car, it would make getting to sleep easier at night. The 55km drive into and out of the park was fun, with lots of dips, turns, bumps and hills. It was similar to a rollercoaster at some points.

Last night was difficult to get to sleep as the car was hot and no breeze was around. Today we are going to journey to Halls Creek for a few days and visit Wolfe Creek Metorite Crater while we are there. I’m still enjoying the travel and waking up with the sunrise every morning to new scenery is nice.

We ended up staying another 2 nights at the caravan park as staying at a house didn’t work out. The good news is that the troopy is fixed, it was only the shackle bolts that were bent and it was under $100 to get it sorted.

Yesterday, after waking up at 5:30 and being on the road by 6:00, we headed back to El Questro and checked out a few of the sights there. Good thing that pass was valid for a week after all… Amalia Gorge was a bit of a hike to get through and it was hot as there were minimal trees in the gorge. After Amalia we went to Zebedee Springs, which was stunning. A short walk brought us out to a collection of shaded geothermal pools which were perfect to lounge around in. Some of the more prepared visitors had brought books with them.

Next up was El Questro Gorge which was beautiful to walk though. We only hiked up to the second swimming pool but the crystal clear water was perfect to swim in. We ended up spending alot of time swimming and consequently missed going to Moonshine Gorge, Jackaroos Pool and Emma Gorge. I wasn’t too upset as I had heard that El Questro Gorge was the best and it certainly impressed me.

On the way to the camp site for the night we called into the Grotto, a ~100m deep permant pool. During the wet season there would be some magnificent waterfalls cascading into the pool.

Camping for the night was at a rest stop and it was HOT as there was no air movement. Eventually a breeze picked up as we were able to sleep. The car gets hot during the day and takes a long time to cool down. Today we are going to head to the Bungle Bungles[link to post] and spend a few nights there. I need to rethink how to carry water as the 15L bottles are getting too hot during the day.

I didn’t get to see much of El Questro the other day because after heading to Chamberlain Gorge first thing I saw that the shackle bolts on the front suspension of the troopy had twisted. I’m fairly sure that it happened when the troopy slid off the hi-lift in Broome when I was working on it. Consequently we skipped a section of El Questro and a few other places and went straight to Kununurra. I have it booked in for tomorrow morning to get it checked and fixed, so we will be back on the road shortly, revisiting the places that were missed last time.

While in Kununurra we stayed at the Hidden Valley Caravan Park and spent most of the time lounging about in the shade. The caravan park backs onto Mirina (Hidden Valley) National Park which we hiked through yesterday afternoon after swimming in the pool.

After packing up the tent this morning we went to the Ord River Dam and lake Argyle, where we spent the afternoon snoozing under the trees. On the way back into Kununurra we drove to the WA-NT border and waved at the Northen Territory. We will cross the border in a few days outside of Halls Creek.

In the mean time we will be staying at Cindy’s friend’s place and I am hoping that the car will be fixed with a minimum of fuss tomorrow.

After a long drive, with minimal stops, we arrived at El Questro from Bennett River Gorge. I was not impressed with the entry fee, $17.50 each and then an additional $17 each for camping. I hope that the price will be worth it when we check out the sights tomorrow. The pass itself is valid for one week, which seems a bit useless to me as there is nowhere else to stay around here unless you drive from Wyndham.

Yesterday was crammed with activities, visiting Bell gorge in the morning and having a swim in the waterfalls.

We ran into a bunch of Cindy’s friends from Broome who were on a 8 day trip of the Gibb. After a bit of lazing around in the water we hiked back to the car and headed off. We called in at Imitji to ring for permission to enter Adcock gorge. While there I passed on a ‘Hi’ to the store owners from Vinka, my old boss in Broome, who was there earlier in the year catering for 400+ cyclists riding the Gibb (crazy).

Adcock Gorge was amazing and worth the somewhat difficult drive to get to it. We spent some time just sitting and taking in the sights from a cave under a waterfall which was overlooking a pool. I was to busy enjoying it to get many photos. We also stopped at Galvins Gorge along the way but it wasn’t worth it. We continued to Barnett River Gorge where we ran into Cindy’s friends again and camped the night in a big group. It was fun sitting around the camp fire with a bunch of people, chatting the night away.

In the end I decided to not go to Mitchell Falls for several reasons. I’d heard that the road to it was ‘rough as guts’ and I didn’t like the idea of driving ~450km on really bad roads. A few people had told me that the falls were still spectacular, although quite dry as it is the wrong time of season to be going up there. I will go at some stage but I’ll do some better planning and research first and find the best time to go.

Tomorrow looks to be quite busy as there are many sights in El Questro, however if we spend almost the whole day looking at them there is a free camp site a reasonable distance from here so the travel will be small.