Dropped the car into Sever at 7AM for it’s weld up job, will the repairs never end? The Tanami has sure done a job on it. We got ready and started to walk out to the national park just on the edge of town when I got a call to say the car was ready so we made a slight detour and walked around to East Kimberly Motors. It was really hot walking in the sun today. Forecast is for 36 over the weekend. Had a quick chat with Sever and he filled me in on what they did and I hopped under and had a look. Released my wallet of a few more $$$’s and we drove to the national park with the airconditioning on, much more pleasant.Freshly welded crush cam

Mini Bungles

The Mirima national park is about 20 minutes walk from the CBD and it’s known as the ‘mini bungles’ as it has a very similar set of rock featured to the Bungles. We walked around some of the trails and had a look on the lookout over Kununurra. Some strange bird sat above the car eating some plum looking thing it got off a tree in a really strange way. A quick drive out to the Ivanhoe spillway crossing to test the truck out on the highway. Back in town we booked an El Questro private campsite for the next four days. Back to camp and we installed the camper on the truck for a test run out to the Ord river Dam on lake Argyle, about 70Km away.

The dam was impressive and you can drive across the top of it to a picnic area below the dam that is the start of the Ord river. It is the biggest man made lake in the Southern hemisphere. When leaving we briefly saw a crocodile slink under the surface right next to the boat ramp. Met another Tassie couple in the car park who had a better story than our truck woes, they rolled their camper on their last trip, sounded exciting and getting it sorted by the insurance company was a laugh. They wanted their own repairer (back in Sydney) but the insurance company wanted them to have it checked it was Ok to tow and made them go to Tenant Creek 800Km away. The guy at Tenant Creek could not help them so they then had to tow it to Alice and after towing it over 1000Km they got the OK it was safe to tow it home!

On the way back to camp from the Ord we stopped at a geocache on the side of the road that took us to some more interesting aboriginal art on some road side rocks. Then back in town we stocked up in the supermarket and bottle shop for our next few days at El Questro. We have timed it well in the end for our visit as the numbers are smaller out there now and we will be able to do the big all you can eat baramuni and steak night they have on Saturday nights. We are going to treat ourselves to a nice meal. No coverage for the next few days so watch Spot to see where we are camped. We are both looking forward to the next few days and getting back into it after sitting around here for the best part of a week. Rough plan for the next week or so is to go to the Bungles after El Questro then via Fitzroy Crossing to access the Western end of the Gibb River Road and then onwards to Derby and eventually Broome.