Katherine – Western Australia

Adelaide River pub with it's buffalo icon. 

The HEAT

We had a challenging day travelling from Darwin back to Katherine. We took too long to get on the road and the heat is merciless and you feel like you are cooking on the bike. You really have to keep up with the fluids, or you soon know you haven’t, when the headache sets in. 

We had a couple of lovely days in Katherine, spending time with our new friend Lee “the General” and a couple of other musicians, a Harley rider from the Baptist Church and on Sunday afternoon we had a real “get together” at MacDonald’s. Any place that is cool will do. In the evenings we went to the local pub and resorts where Lee was entertaining.

Then it was time to start heading west and our next stop was Kununurra, a journey of around 550 km. The caravan park we stayed at was just at the bank of Lake Argyle.

A few very unique stones are mined in the Kimberly region and one type is called Zebra Stone and they are awesome. Both Graeme and I agreed that we wanted to buy something made from these rocks for our future home. We visited all the main galleries in Kununurra and eventually selected a  couple of pieces that are now being sent to Frances, who takes care of our mail and affairs in our absence.

We have learned our lesson and left 5.30 AM this morning for Halls Creek to beat the heat. That was all good, but the temperatures in Halls Creek is over 40C all week so we ended up at the Kimberly Hotel as putting up the trailer in the “dust pit” of the Caravan park was out of the question.

Graeme entertaining local school children in Halls Creek.

It is very odd that WA do not have summer times as it get’s dark around 6 PM and daylight around 4.15 AM in the morning. Would make sense to shift it a bit, one would think. We are now 3 hours behind Sydney/Melbourne.

We are aiming to head off at 4.30 AM tomorrow morning as we have a long – hot journey ahead of us to Derby.