Wilsons on the road: Sunday 2 June 2013

Sunday 2 June 2013 - Digger’s Rest Station

We’ve done a lot since my last entry, but we haven’t covered all that much ground whilst doing it. After leaving Lake Argyle, we drove up to Kununurra and found a nice little caravan park (Ivanhoe Village) where we stayed for five nights. We saw the Kununurra sights, enjoyed a bit of R&R and started thinking about how we wanted to tackle the Gibb. Glenn made a few calls to check out the possibility of picking up some work, but nothing solid came through. I don’t think he was all that disappointed.

We left Kununurra for Wyndham, knowing that we still had to call back through town at the end of May to pick up a parcel (battery charger) and shop before heading out on the Gibb River Road. We ended up seeing Wyndham’s sights in a day and then free camping just off the salt flats on King River Road, the track that leads towards the Old Karunjie track, which starts 6km out of Wyndham. We may have stayed there longer, or gone back into Wyndham, but Yasmin needed some worming tablets so we had to make the 100km drive back into Kununurra. Rather than backtrack again, we decided to spend the next three nights at another free camp just outside of Kununurra, on the banks of the Lower Ord River.

That took us up till Friday, when we packed up and drove into town (again), collected our package, fuelled up, fooded up etc so we were all set to make our way westward. Our errands were finished by lunchtime (the last thing we had to do was get grog – which you can’t do until after noon because the liquor stores don’t open until then... you should have seen the queue at five past twelve!). We were unsure as to where we would spend the night, but decided to drive out past where we bushcamped near Wyndham to Digger’s Rest Station, located a few k’s from the start of the Karunjie.

Glenn will probably kill me for posting this, but along the way to the station, we got ourselves a little bogged. When we’d come through the salt pans the other day, we found a sneaky locals shortcut that skipped the fairly rough King River Road, so we followed that again. Glenn had noticed on the way over that the tide had been in a lot higher than earlier in the week, but kind-of forgot that little detail until we were fairly well stuck in about six inches of mud. Fortunately, after letting the air out of the tyres, we managed to extricate ourselves with the help of Max Trax along with Glenn’s level-headed low-range driving skills. People pay a lot of money to have their feet wrapped in mineral mud – I got a 15 minute session for free!

Glenn was more pissed off at himself than anything, but I think his track record so far is pretty darn good. The fact that he never panics in these situations, just works out the recovery process in his head and then gets stuck into it, by far redeems any ‘bad’ judgment he might make. After rejoining the track, we pushed on until we came to the Boab Prison Tree. Digger’s Rest was only a few kilometres further and it was with some relief that we pulled in and set up.

This station is very different to the last two we’ve been to. It’s much more relaxed, primarily set up for tourists, but without the pomp and polish that the bigger stations on the Gibb River Road are reputed to have. They still run cattle, but I think it’s only about 2000 head, there’s goats everywhere and a pet goat named Ruby tried to sleep in our tent on the first night. A couple of emus, about 70 horses, chooks and a few dogs round out the animal population here. Needless to say, the girls are having a ball.

They operate on solar here and after they learned Glenn was a sparky with experience in that area, he managed to fix a few problems, as well as sort out a dodgy generator. In return we’ve had our camping fees waived and they have fed us a couple of meals too (they offer cabins and meal options for those who wish to pay extra). So that’s all good.

Glenn, Sienna and I went fishing this afternoon (well, Glenn fished and us girls watched) down at King River, but no barra wanted to sacrifice their life for our stomachs today. The blokes who’d been camping down by the river had better luck, catching 4-5 fish both yesterday and today! Sienna has been sporting a fat lip all day today after she pulled the table over onto her mouth last night. Lots of Smarties and a little bit of Panadol helped ease the pain, but she certainly looked a fright this morning!

That’s about all I’ve got time to write for the moment. There’s lots more to tell, plus about 200 photos (I will cull before posting though), but I think we’ll be out of range until we get through the Gibb, unless there’s service at Kalumburu (assuming we make it). So... until next time, farewell!