Timber Creek Pub
As previously mentioned, we headed to the Timber Creek Pub last Monday night for dinner and free entertainment by the Tamworth award winning country music band, ‘The Boundary Riders’. It was a great night, and I could even sing along to the Johnny Cash songs! (Stuart always raises an eyebrow at my country music knowledge)... As it turned out, we were camped right next to the band in the caravan park, and the next morning, Stuart spent almost an hour having a good yarn with the band members.
During the show, the biggest truck that either of us had seen pulled up delivering fuel. A quick count of the axles and we worked out that it was an 86 wheeler – which is a HUGE truck! I had a chat with the driver who said it was the biggest truck on the road that he was aware of! Apparently it was a tri-drive truck pulling four full size trailers, all on triple axles! (How’s that for truckie lingo!)
Michelle tackles Tuwakam!
Stuart here! I had to butt in at this point, as Michelle decided on the drive into Gregory National Park, that it was blokes park, given an emphasis in the brochure on 4WD’in and fishin! So I decided that she needed to experience it like a bloke!
First up – a bit of off road driving! We headed out on the Tuwakam Track which is a 20km long 4WD drive trail through to Jasper Gorge. The trailhead said it would take about 3 hours to drive out and back, which seemed a little excessive, until we got a couple of km’s in! This particular track needs a considerable about of low range rock crawling, which had Michelle a little nervous about damaging the ute! But she did really well and made it all the way through to the gorge without even a scrape!
On the way back to camp, I also informed her that she needed to collect some firewood, climb up and stack it on the roof, unload it, light the fire and cook the snagger’s on the bbq that night! So we picked out some good firewood on the side of the track, broke off what we needed and climbed up and wedged it into one of the kayaks for the trip back to camp! Back at camp, she unloaded it, set the kindling and lit a blaze! She also didn’t burn the snaggers either! All that was left for the day was the washing up which was left to yours truly!!!
All in all, she did a pretty good job for a sheila (just practising my country twang!) although I must say she had a pretty good teacher!
Bullita Trail
Our second day in the ‘blokes’ park we (that is, Stuart) drove the Bullita Stock Route. A 97 km 4 wheel drive track that was previously part of a stock route used to drove cattle from the stations to Wyndam to sell. The track was again quite rocky with two river crossings and a steep jump-up. Heaps more low range driving! It’s amazing to see the changes in the country as you move through it at a slow speed. The track passes a huge historic boab tree where the drovers used to camp overnight , and one of them had carved the words ‘Orient Hotel’ into the tree.
We also had a quick look at Limestone Gorge, which was pretty much closed due to floods washing away the road in – there’s not much of it left! It was listed in one of our brochures as a spot for a swim, but due to the road being washed out, it’s no longer checked for estuarine crocodiles (salties) so a swim was out of the question – even though it was really inviting with crystal clear water!
The next morning we visited the Bullita homestead and cattle yards. This was set up really well for tourists to learn about the history and how the station was run and the difficulties people faced living in such a remote location. Displays included transcripts of long letters from stockman and wives living on the station.
Victoria River Roadhouse
1st July was Territory Day, celebrated as the one day it’s legal to purchase fireworks and set them off!! A little crazy! We spent the night at Victoria River Roadhouse where they put on a bbq and fireworks display off the back of a ute – including one that fell over and shot directly into the crowd of people watching! Thankfully no-one was hurt, and everyone had a good laugh...then moved further away! The statistics from Territory Day ‘Cracker night’ are quite bewildering. In Katherine alone there were 60 blazes and two car fires – one in a ute when a firework hit its trailer load of mulch and another that shot into an open car window! The front cover of the newspaper had a 15 year old boy putting out a blaze with a stick and saying how great he thought his first Territory Day was! I have bought 2 NT newspapers now, they are a good laugh!
Anyway, Stuart enjoyed the Victoria River area with some fishing (no luck) and legally driving his car at 130 km per hour (no – we didn’t have the trailer on at the time!). The state-wide speed limit is 110km unless otherwise specified – the first ‘otherwise specified’ we saw was 130km which is the speed limit for the Victoria and Stuart Highways!!!
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