Katherine to WA Border

My blog from Katherine to Broome is going to be fairly sparse, although I will blog about Lake Argyle and Kununurra. One reason is we headed west pretty quickly as we all had gastro and were feeling too miserable to get out an explore this amazing country. (There is a plus side in towing a large caravan complete with toilet... when you are all sick it sure comes in handy to be towing it!) The other reason is, that unless you are prepared for some serious off-roading, there really isn't a lot to see or do in this stretch and a fair bit of it is either Aboriginal land or cattle station so access is restricted/prohibited.

Katherine to the WA is around 500km. Given that none of us were feeling great and Rory doesn't travel long days at the best of times, we decided to break it into two legs. We spent one night at Timber Creek. Timber Creek is the only "town" between Katherine and the border, and to be honest, there's not much of a town there. The drive is quite nice. It's an easy drive with pretty scenery. You do need to be a bit watchful as the further west you go the more wandering cattle and horses you see. We didn't have any problems but a couple of times the cattle were quite close to the roadside so it's worth slowing down in case they decide to cross/spook.

One of the best parts of this drive is that you begin to see boab trees. These trees are so unique. They are native to Madagascar and believed to have come to Australia drifting on the ocean. At this time of year they are without leaves, which makes them even more interesting I think. Tilda and I were trying to decide if their roots underground mimic the branches above ground.

On the way to Timber Creek you cross the Adelaide River and it is seriously so beautiful! Not quite worth the drive just to see it but if you're heading that way it is a very, very pretty river (unforutnately I didn't get a photo of it). There was no one behind us (or anywhere near us... this road was so empty of traffic) so we slowed right down on the bridge for a very good look. There is a roadhouse there, which we contemplated stopping at, but the kids were calm and quiet so we took advantage of that and just kept driving. The drive from here is even prettier as you can see the deep gorge of the River across wide, open plains, dotted with varying quantities of termite mounds, stunted trees and scrubby growth. The ridgeline/cliff provides an interesting and pretty backdrop to the journey.

At Timber Creek we decided to do a bit of exploring, the main reason being that Greg wanted to go and see Gregory's Tree - a boab tree that was carved into on 2 July 1856 as a monument to his landing by explorer Augustus Charles Gregory. You can still see the carving as clear as anything today.

Greg at Gregory's tree

As you can see, Rory wasn't impressed by it 

We also stopped at Bradshaw Bridge to check out the Victoria River. Tilda and I spotted a crocodile in the river, which was pretty cool even though we have seen so many already.

View from Bradshaw Bridge

View from the lookout above town

View from Policemans Lookout (and below)