SATURDAY 15 JUNE 2019
We were up early and did without coffee so that we could
pack up before the flies got too friendly and so were headed out of camp just
after 7am. We tackled the corrugations a
bit faster this time and found that it was actually better as the car rode over
the top of them. Still very rattly
though and at the first gate opening we opened up the caravan to check for
collateral damage. Larry’s fixed drawers
were still in place and the taped up drawer and shower screen were also
behaving themselves so we relaxed a little and drove onwards. Still a very long and bumpy road back to the
bitumen and we were thankful to finally hit the highway and were then very shortly
in Halls Creek. First port of call was
the diesel pumps as we had used a lot of fuel getting down to Wolfe Creek. In retrospect, it would probably have been
better to leave the van at Halls Creek and just take the Jeep and do a day trip
down to the crater but, oh well, you live and learn and we can now tick off
that particular ‘been there, done that’ box.
Whilst Larry was pumping up tyres etc, Jenny went over to
the cafe/tourist office and bought well deserved coffees/iced chais and then
back in the car for another 3 and a half hour drive up to Wyndham. We stopped at Warnum for lunch of roadhouse
fare. We noticed that both here and in
Halls Creek every caravan was sparklingly clean – not even dust on the tyre rims
– so we felt quite superior with a our dusty van because we are experiencing
the ‘real north’ and not just pootling along the highway from caravan park to
caravan park.
Onwards up the highway to Wyndham. I had a memory of this road being pretty bad
on the last trip – particularly between Warmun and the turn-off to
Wyndham. Well what a difference 3 years
makes. Serious money on infrastructure
has been spent up here. The road has
been raised, there are new bridges over every stream likely to flood during the
wet, kerbs, culverts, new large slip roads and rest stops. On the road in to Wyndham there is a whole
new cutting through what the locals call “Maggies Jump Up’ and a new
carpark/lookout constructed. Apparently
they shaved 14 metres off this hill.
They have also taken out dangerous blind corners and added overtaking lanes. As we went through they were doing the rumble
strips onto the edge line – cool seeing how these are dropped out of the
machine!
We passed a funeral procession heading out of Wyndham to the
cemetery that was at least 300 cars long and wondered if anyone was left in
town! Soon after we were pulling up at
Paul and Deb’s and parking the van up in the same spot as 3 years ago. After setting up Braydon, Deb and Paul’s 11
year old grandson, came down to visit.
He was staying last time we were here but didn’t really remember us so
we dug out some photos from our blog and he finally remembered when we he saw a
photo of Ben. We watched the rest of the
Dockers game on my tablet as Braydon’s cousin plays for them (first Wyndham boy
to be on an AFL list!) and so were happy that they had a win. (Larry not so much as he hadn’t tipped
them). We then kicked Braydon’s footy around
and his sister Mikala also joined in, before we headed up to the house for
dinner, drinks and a catch up.
Had a lovely evening and we managed to get through a couple
of the bottles of red wine we had brought with us but Paul A very
warm night so it was good to have power and be able to run the air conditioner
in the van for a while to cool it down before sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment