Friday, 19 July 2013

Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek


Saturday 6 July 2013

Windjana Gorge/Tunnel Creek

Up at 6am at Derby Caravan park campsite talthough movement in the camp from 4.30am. Lindsay up and washed at 5.30am – could not sleep as well due to noise of indigenous locals until 5.30am. Yelling, arguing, drunken state – they were not in the camp but the noise was from the town. As we have found noise travels further in the night time when all is quiet. We decided to have breakfast in the park before departure from Derby. Cereal and coffee. Departed 8am after problems with tying off tyres with restraining straps and also tying of the broken riveted latch base for the spare wheel arm. Robert identified using a hose clamp to stop it popping out. We have decided to remove the arm off the rear of the trailer and to strap onto the front of the trailer attached to its spare wheel. We finally got away from town after visiting the local Mitre 10 shop to purchase the hose clamp and multigrips for the job. We were successful with this idea.

Drove to Windjana Gorge which was 144km from the Derby Road turnoff. It took us about 2 and half hours. We had bitumen over several sections and the road was corrugated and very rough. It was a good intro for what we would be in later on in the trip as Paul stated. We decided to uncouple the trailer at Windjana Gorge camp ground and left it locked up. We had morning tea then decided to have an early lunch of tuna, salad and bread. We drove to Tunnel Creek some 35km distance (70km return). The road was very rough and it was good to drive without the trailer attached. The tunnel creek carpark was packed and it was like a coles carpark. We had a heap of people in front of us and had to wait for some time to start our walk. The walk itself was for a distance of 750m underground through water and sand and low overhanging limestone rock. It could have been a surreal experience in the dark but with all the torches from all of the people they looked like glowworms.

We pulled off the road to check out an abandoned building and it took some time to get back onto the Tunnel Creek road – 12 cars drove past each with a dust trail for several hundred metres so you can imagine how long we had to wait. School holidays are on in both WA and NT and most living locally are taking advantage of the cooler weather. That is if you can call 31-34 degrees cool.

We drove back to Windjana and set up our camp. In the cooler evening we decided to walk to the gorge and take some photos. The light was fantastic and the evening sun lit up the gorge and the colours in the rock walls. We all got some great photos including the freshwater crocs. The walk into the gorge was short only being about 500m although there was a walking track that went in several kms. That evening we had Apricot Chicken for dinner – thank you Lucy – nothing left as everybody was hungry. We topped off with beer and red wine. The DEC campground for which we paid $8 each per night had hot showers, flushing toilets and solar. The camp was full and works on a first come first serve basis.

A bonus for all of us was being able to ring through to home via mobiles on Optus but not Telstra. This was an accidental discovery by Paul as he and I have Optus but Robert has Telstra. Paul phoned home first, then I did – we felt sorry for Robert so I gave him my mobile to call home. We later found out from the local ranger that a nearby diamond mine had Optus facilities.

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