Newbies

MONDAY 1 JULY 2019

A very different vibe to this campground with the feeling that there are a lot of families that are just embarking on their Gibb River Road adventures.  Some still have a little learning to do about campground etiquette such as:

1.        Open and/or close gates as you find them or as instructed to do.

2.       Drive VERY slowly through campgrounds so that you don’t cover your fellow campers in your dust.

3.       Do not let your small children scream around the campground after 8pm.

4.       Do not let your small children scream around the campground before 7am.

5.       Do not drive off in the morning (in a dust cloud) leaving your campfire still smoking (and what’s more smoking out your neighbours).

After the hire camper brigade had left, us seasoned campers tut tutted at each other and then settled in for another fluffy omelette and cups of tea.  Eventually we decided to get ourselves sorted and go for a drive to find what delights Mt Hart offered.

We drove up to Annie’s Creek which offers an ‘exciting deep creek crossing only for the serious 4WDers’.  We figured due to the poor wet season it wouldn’t be that deep and drove down to the crossing to find a couple with a Landcruiser pulled up and standing dubiously at the water’s edge.  Larry promptly hopped out, threw off the thongs and waded out to see just how deep said deep creek was.  It came up to about mid thigh (on Larry) so nothing that serious so we hopped back in the Jeep, set it to highest clearance and drove easily over.  The Landcruiser couple felt suitably embarrassed into following saying that would never live it down letting a Jeep do what they dared not.  They easily made it across also and continued on to a gorge another 20km down the track.  We decided we couldn’t be bothered going that far so hopped out near the creek to view a large boab tree with a strangler vine growing through it.

 

Jenny then followed the hiking path across the creek and back to the main carpark so that she could video Larry coming back across the creek.  At one point the front wheel dipped and the water was up over the side steps so that was exciting!

By now it was late morning and getting warm so we headed to Dolomite Gorge which has a couple of nice swimming spots.  The first one is about 200m along a rough, rocky path and the second about 1km in along a VERY rocky path and involving two creek crossings.  Suffice to say, we decided the first pool was perfectly adequate for our requirements and was actually quite idyllic with a small waterfall and little darting fish.  We had it to ourselves for about half an hour before a couple of families joined us.  They were nice enough but it was all a bit crowded in the water so we made our way back to the car and then noted that one of these young families owns the giant Dodge Ram and family sized Bushtracker (about $300,000 worth combined) so they must be pretty wealthy for so young a family.

We got back to the van and had a late lunch at our creekside camping spot and it is such a lovely spot we stayed in our chairs reading and drinking tea and relaxing while our swimming clothes dried out.  We then went for showers and did some chores and Larry sold another few sets of his patented reverse blower system (if only he got around to getting the patent and making up kits to actually sell we could probably retire on the proceeds so many people ask about it).  Late afternoon we drove up to Sunset Hill and got prime position at the front of the deck for the sunset.  We were shortly joined by half the campground and it was quite a little gathering for the sunset which the eastern staters thought was spectacular while we just thought it was ok.

Back down to the homestead for our pre-booked and paid for 3 course meal.  We had double checked when we booked in yesterday that they had our booking but of course tonight they had no record of it and were all flustered when a couple showed up when they only had two tables set up – one for the coach load of oldies and one for a large group of two families travelling together.  They couldn’t have been more apologetic and swiftly set us up in the bar area with our own private dining area and free drinks to make it up to us.  So in the end we did alright as we had the telly and could watch the news and chat to the nice barmaid from the UK and had a lovely meal of freshly made bread with babaganoush, a yummy main of chicken and interesting Yorkshire pudding type things and dessert of lemon syrup cake all washed down with free grog!

Back to home base and thankfully the campground was reasonably quiet and not giant campfires right next to our van as dreaded.