Back in Exmouth, when we made the decision to extend the trip to include Term 3 as well as Term 2, we tossed up the idea of driving back to Victoria and then heading North as quick as possible. (winter seemed too daunting!) or flying home from Broome, Darwin, Alice Springs or Cairns. It seemed most logical to head home from Darwin. (In an airplane of course!!)

A rough itinerary was made which said we catch a plane home on 19th July. And that was all!!!

If you’ve taken any notice of our previous posts, we aren’t very good planners or itinerary writers.

So after some bad planning, we found ourselves with a bit too much time up our sleeves to catch our flight.

So we ducked into Keep River national Park which is just over the border into NT. It had quite spectacular scenery on the 30km drive off the hwy to the camp. It reminded us of the Gibb River Road scenery on one side of the road and it is said to be much like the Bungle Bungles on the other side of the road. But once we got to the camp, there was really only quite long walks (4km rated difficult), so we gave these a miss as it was pretty hot (around 35 degrees) and we figured the pack horses (Mum and Dad) might night make it!!! So we just had a lazy camp here instead.

So we then went to a free camp near Timber Creek on the Victoria River. These popular free camping spots fill up so quickly. We got to this one before lunch and struggled to get a free spot! Those coming in later end up either having to keep going on further or just wedging in next to other kind campers. The kids like these camps as well as caravan parks as they can go a feral! And generally we don’t have too many people want to camp too close as they see 3 little kids playing or riding near by and that scares the oldies off sometimes!!

Next stop was Victoria River Roadhouse. This was our cheapest Caravan Park yet. $25/night. It was a pretty cool spot. The first place we could throw Noahs boomerang (Thanks Barry and Linda) with out risking losing it into croc infested rivers or other forms of water and also avoiding hitting someone’s  house, caravan, car or worse still taking out some old granny!!! There were helicopters coming and going, the RM Williams big truck camped just near us. It felt like we were in a bit of cowboy country! It was around here that the TV show “Keeping up with the Jones’s” was filmed, so we kept a close watch out for “Milton” and “Little Milton”. We did see one of their road train cattle trucks pull in.

 

It was a sad day leaving Western Australia. We have LOVED it and have made some amazing memories with the family. We also realize that it will most likely be a long time before we are able to visit again!

We really enjoyed Kununurra visiting the Sandalwood Factory, Zebra Rock, Feeding the fish at Zebra Rock, eating bananas from HCJB, Hidden Valley, Fishing below the Diversion Dam and other rivers. Having our real neighbours from Jindivick pull into the site next to us in Kununurra was a bit strange, but very nice to see some familiar faces. Becs brother Jon flew into town for a few minutes as well to refuel the plane he was on. It was surreal to see his plane fly directly over head and the kids waving franticly at Jonny!

Our last place in WA was Lake Argyle. The only word I can thing of is stunning. We swam in the freezing infinity pool which was pretty cool. (Literally as well!!). Noah and Steve hired a boat and cruised doing some fishing. Noah loved this as we caught many catfish. The neighbours were disgusted that we threw them all back. Apparently they are a delicacy around this area, although they had to change their name to “Silver Cobbler”, as they taste much better that “Catfish”