Up at 6:20am and on the road before 8 am. Chris had suggested we trued a new setup and keep the food storage drawers in the camper so that we did not have to unpack/pack them up, this saved some time in the morning.
Road is good then 50 odd Ks out from Home Valley we strike road works where they have a stop and go, we had to wait 15 minutes before we can continue on. They have laid a new road base of gray rocky material and are in the process of grading and compacting that. 15Km before Home Valley we come up to a Nissan Patrol towing an Ultimate doing around 30km/hr, painfully slow, you can feel every bump every corrugation on the road. No way to pass with a winding road all the way to Home Valley.
Drive into Home Valley and book a campsite for 3 nights on the Pentacost River where hopefully I can do some Barra fishing. We a driving out to set up camp when who do we see driving in but Jeff and Helen, they have just packed up and are on there way to El Questro. We drive down to the river and setup camp, campsite is dry with dead grass and dusty underfoot. 14 combined loos and showers though, a bit of a change from many places. Flies abound, sticky ones that want to crawl into your eyes.
The day is still cloudy and the ranges over the Pentecost River are dull instead of being alive and beautiful. The river banks a muddy and the only real spot to try and fish is at the start of the campground where a creek joins the main river. The river is tidal here and we've heard that the best fishing is towards low tide. Nothing is caught by anyone apart from a few catfish.
We lunch at the restuarant, a burger, the biggest chunk of meat I've ever seen in a burger, all we need for dinner is some noodles.
There is not much you can do at Home Valley unless you want to fork out big bucks for their few tourist activities. We looked at the walks but all seem to be exposed with no cover so we decided to give them a miss. The occasional salt water crocodile can be seen on the far bank of the river.
Run the car for an hour to put some charge into the battery as there is no sun to power the solar panels.
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