The most remote remote bit

 

Tuesday 6 July 2021 – The most remote remote bit

We were off to the Kennedy Ranges today to a DPAW site for which you can’t book and it’s first in best dressed.  We were a bit apprehensive about this as it was a long, hard drive to get there only to find the place full and having to drive on to Gascoyne Junction. 

Consequently we were up early and packed up early and decided to just have breakfast in the car.  We were a bit quicker to get ready because it doesn’t take so long to fold up our van as it does H&M so we thought we would make a start as we have to drive a bit slower anyway (as it takes longer for our heavier van to stop in time for washouts etc).  We had only driven up to the main homestead, however, before Larry realised that one of the car tyres was looking very flat so we pulled up on a nice piece of flat land away from the other campers and pumped some air in.  It looks like there might be a slow leak so we will have to keep an eye on it for the rest of the day.

We drove through the creek crossing (which wasn’t very deep although quite muddy coming out the other side) and then turned on the north-south dirt road that will get us through to the Kennedy Ranges.  We drove for a while until the tyres warmed up and then stopped again to check it and actually had to let some air out as it was now unbalanced with the other rear tyre.  After all this fluffing about, H&M had caught us up and we continued south.

It was an interesting road with different road surfaces which were the complete opposite in colour spectrum to Jenny’s classification of bad roads in the Kimberley.  Here a dark red road was like smooth, hard mud and white road was actually sharp rocks and corrugations whereas dark red roads in the Kimberley are dreaded for having the worst corrugations.  The road also wound up and down through plains and valleys and sometimes you could see interesting ranges and rock formations far off in the distance.  It was absolutely deserted though and apart from one or two grader drivers there were no cars to be seen apart from us.  It was indeed the most remote feeling road we have been on all holiday.

Around Lyndon station we were thrown a curve ball as the main road we were on actually required you to do a left hand turn into another road which was still actually the main road so we accidentally continued and headed along a road that would have eventually taken us in a south-westerly direction towards Carnarvon.  Luckily we realised our mistake after only a couple of kilometres and backtracked to the turn-off which had a sign saying it was the road to Mount Augustus (which was another reason we had ignored it before thinking Mt Augustus was a lot further east than we wanted to go).  It did however also have a small wagon sign and this matched the Wagon Way Trail on my map so we knew it would eventually fork again with a road going to Mt Augustus and a road going to the Kennedy Ranges and this was eventually confirmed with a surprisingly touristy sign for quite a desolate road.

We drove and drove and the quality, width, and bends in the road meant it took a lot longer than we had anticipated.  We drove through cattle country with numerous signs warning us of stock on the road (although someone had had fun with the new signs and disfigured the pictures of the cows to look like aliens and changed ‘stock’ to ‘stuck’.  Obviously not much to do out here and certainly not many cars to see you do it!

Eventually about midday we made it to the Kennedy Range NP and drove west towards the Range which is truly spectacular and well worth visiting.  With everything crossed we drove into the Temple Gorge campground and thought we were too late already as there were quite a few caravans/campers etc there already.  The campground hosts came out to meet us and directed us up into a loop we hadn’t seen and there were luckily two or three bays in there and , even luckier, a larger one that would fit our van.   So that was a relief and Larry was able to get the van into the tight spot – you would be hard pressed to get a bigger van in so we are glad of our little XT15 on these occasions.

A quick set up and then we ate the remainder of L’s pizza from Karratha. Although it was only about 22 degrees it was quite hot in the sun and for once, it was actually cooler in the van as there was a nice breeze blowing in from the other side to the door and awning area.

After lunch we all hopped in the Discovery and H drove us northwards to the Sunrise lookout.  We clambered up the slope to the little rock ledge where you are supposed to watch the sunrise but while the sun was overhead it was still spectacular and the cloud formations in the blue sky added another dimension to the scenery.  Larry sent the drone up and it went up a good 150 metres before it cleared to the top of the range.

We drove onto Honeycomb Gorge where it becomes immediately apparently how it gets it name.  Lots of little holes in the rocks where some enterprising people have climbed up and made little rock formations in each cleft.  Or maybe rocks have fallen in there somehow?  It was a comparatively short walk in on a comparatively mild day but we were a bit alarmed to see, in every carpark, big signs saying “PEOPLE DIE IN THIS PARK.  TAKE PLENTY OF WATER WITH YOU”.  We almost felt guilt leaving our water bottles in the car for a twenty minute return hike!

About this time we notice quite a few vans setting up camp even though there were ‘no camping’ signs around and this was also the case at the last gorge we visited, Drapers Gorge, even though this required a fairly bumpy traverse of a creek bed.  I don’t think I would have taken a Jayco Journey through there like those people obviously had.  We walked up to the beginning of the Drapers Gorge walk but it said it took 1-2 hours and we didn’t really feel up to it so late in the day.

We headed back to camp and caught up with a bit of blogging.  It was our turn to cook tonight so it was steak and sausages with potato wedges, corn on the cob and coleslaw.  I think we also managed to knock off another bottle of gin.  The caravan is definitely starting to get lighter this late in the trip!

We were originally going to have two nights here but the plan now is to do the Temple Gorge walk first thing tomorrow morning and then head further south as otherwise we will just be twiddling our thumbs here for most of tomorrow having seen most of the other places this afternoon.  The others want to leave at 7am and I am angling for 8am on the basis that it will still be dark.  I have a feeling I will be out voted...