Sun 16th, Mt Elizabeth to King Edward River

Up early, CT battery is alarming, it is still connected to the car via the Andersen plug. Looked good last night should not be happening.

Fill up the tanks with water. Have to disconnect the bleeder hose and shut main inlet to get any speed into the refill otherwise it just pours out.

Good road continuing on the GRR. The Hahn river looked really nice for a stopover with tracks both sides of the road.

Pull into Drysdale Station and order a hamburger. It is to die for! I have the delux model and Chris has the standard one. Don't go past without having one. Drysdale no longer offers a tyre or breakdown service.

The Kalumburu road is good all the way to the King Edward River turnoff. The road into the camping area does deteriorate and is moderately rough.

We get a camp on our own at the King Edward River campground, nice looking river, can swim, will go to the Mitchell River Falls tomorrow.

The car auxillary battery is alarming immediately the car is turned off, it is dead however the car fridge still seems to be running. Will check the car fridge temperature tomorrow morning. This fridge has all our meat in it. This explains why the CT battery has been drained overnight, have to disconnect the car Andersen plug when not running it.

Chris lights the fire, I make a Thai chicken & potato red/green curry, enough for 3 nights prob. Have a fireside dinner, Mike and Sue drop over having eaten the worse meal ever, a tin of refried beans with a packet of Indian vegies.

 

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Sat 15th, Mt Elizabeth Station

10C overnight, the coldest so far. Up early for the 7:45am tag along tour start. Jeff and Helen are off to Miners Camp near Drysdale Station intending to do a flyover of the Mitchell Falls.

We take off on the culural tour led by Phil in the lead vehicle, we are the only tagalong. Home made cookies with fruit juice for morning tea at a river crossing.

We stop to look at Aboriginal art aound a rocky outcrop, some Bradshaw drawings as well as modern art.

Bradshaw figures

Lunch at a water hole, skull and bones overseeing the pond circa 1900. There is a major aboriginal artwork here that was touched up and ruined under a government funded program. Disgusting someone should be shot! The so called touch up was by non-local aborigines and did not use traditional art methods, rather it was done with acrylic paints which are already peeling and don't look like aboriginal rock art.

Gov't Funded Art Destruction

Some quotes from Phil: on a bushfire "black lightning", on how much booze to bring to the Kimberley "whatever amount of booze you are planning for the Gibb double it".

The Bradshaw paintings are dated to 17,000 years ago, they are not part of the culture of modern aborigines. Apparently the area became very arid for 10,000 years and supported no life

Bradshaw Art

We get back to the station after a very enjoyable tour and I manage to buy some home made cookies like those we had for morning tea from the office.

While backing up the car to be able to re-hitch in the morning I manage to remodel the arse end by backing into a tree in the blind spot on the right hand rear corner. Mostly damage to the plastic rear mudguard.

 

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Fri 14th, Charnley to Mt Elizabeth Station

Up at 6:20am for breakfast and a pack up. On the road at 8:15am. Stop at Mt Barnett roadhouse for diesel ($2.40/l), an ice cream, fresh tomatoes/lettuce/potatoes and a box of hot chips and wedges for an early lunch. Barnett no longer has tyre or breakdown repair.

Drive into Mt Elizabeth station and checkin ($18ppn) then setup camp. No intention of doing anything this afternoon as Chris wants to rest her swollen ankle and sore bum. I catch up on the blog which has been sadly ignored while I haven't been feeling the best. The only fishing on Mt Elizabeth is the same as Charnley for Sooty Grunter (Black Bream) and catfish. I'm not going to pull the rod out for them.

The Mt Elizabeth campsite is not as nice as Charnley. There is some grass but it does not seem to be actively watered as happens at Charnley. There are flushing loos, gas hot water showers, one water tap, rubbish disposal and fires permitted. Firewood is not provided but can be picked up from outside the campsite on the property - not particularly convenient. There are two gorges (one over a rough piece of road) and a small homestead walk. Cultural tours are run but at the moment the next one is on Sunday, not sure yet if we will be here for that.

Talk to Mike and Sue and they decide to book the cultural tour for tomorrow, it is now on so we go down and book as a tag-a-long.

 

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Thu 13th, Charnley River Station

Pancakes for breakfast for a change this morning.

Couple of jobs to do this morning before we head out to some of the station's sights. Get the solar panels properly positioned so that they get sunshine instead of shade for most of the day while we are out. Set them up for some early sun, just before we are about to go I check the battery status display monitor. There is nothing coming from the panels. Check the display on the panels controller, it is blank, ie not getting any power from the battery. Pull out the multimeter, there is a break in the negative link to the Andersen plug. The solar panels a dead and need a repair job.

Decide to use the folding ones instead, I put them in the sun and test, all is OK, I move them into the shade where shortly they should get a full days sun.

We visit the Donkey Pools a series of pretty pools in a creek with water lillies, birdlife and a few aquatic animals. Unfortunately Chris stumbles on some rocks while turning and finishes up on her behind with a twisted ankle and a sore backside.

Next is Dillie Gorge, on the way in we pass a sign saying upper Dillie Gorge 200m, we continue onto the car park where we walk down to Dillie Gorge. We are in the middle of a couple of low level gorges with big water holes and not a lot of good water access for swimming. We have lunch and then relax in the rapids joining the two pools.

Following lunch we return to the upper falls sign and make our way into that gorge. Pretty, birdlife around but no good water access. We sit and watch quietly for a while before making our way back to camp.

Down stream.

Up stream

Cows on the road that won't get off!

Get back and the first thing I do is check the camper trailer battery after yesterdays fiasco. The camper trailer battery is reading dead, the foldable solar panel cable has become dislodged when I did the last shift. All we can do now is to connect the camper trailer to the car and run the car for as long for as long as we can until our camping neighbours return, the car has had a reasonable run so hopefully the connected pair will survive the night.

The wiring on the bloody solar panels that we bought though Modcon have now broken at the Andersen plug end through movement. The negative has gone and the positive has only days left. All I can do is affect a repair by rejoining the wires using solder. Ideally I need a new Andersen plug, add one to the spares list!

Communal fire again tonight.

 

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Wed 12th, Charnley River Station

Slow start to the morning, I haven't had a a good night with the remnants of my cold.

We do Grevillea Gorge, a pretty Gorge with high walls and a good waterhole which flows over a flat rock at the end then down another water fall to a gorge below.

Lower Gorge

After this we do Lilly Pool, a lovely rock enclosed billabong with water lillies and lots of ambience. It is just a little bit upstream from the gorge.

Get back to the campsite and the solar panels are in the shade and look like they have been so for quite some time. The CT batteries have a pathetic charge. Link the car and run it for a while to squirt some charge into the CT batteries.

Communal fire at night. We keep running into the same people who are travelling in the same direction as our paths criss cross. People from the other direction are cross examined as to road conditions and places they have been. The fires are a great gathering point.

 

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Tue 11th, Silent Grove to Charnley River Station

Up at 6am, get packed up and on the road early. Fuel up at Iminji where the diesel is cheaper than where we are heading, only $2.29 a litre!

Good road to the station, setup camp and spend the afternoon relaxing. Nice campground surrounds with lots of shade and wldlife. Good flushing loos and hot showers plus fresh water. Campgrounds have their own BBQ fireplace plus there is a large common fire pit. Firewood is cut and supplied by the station.

Communal fire at night.

 

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Mon 10th, Silent Grove & Bells Gorge

In the morning I follow Jeff into Iminji seeing as how he now has no active spare tyre and may have to leave the car there for some time. He is first cab off the rank and is being fixed up immediately so I return to camp.

Chris and I relax for a while then drive off to Bell's Gorge which has a nice walk in to pretty waterholes at the top of a cascading waterfall into the gorge. We cross the river and walk over a stone hill and then down into the pool below the gorge. We swim and spend time chatting to fellow travellers in this very pretty spot.

We turn to camp and start talking to some more Queenslanders who also come from Buderim and have an AOR Quantum hybrid camper trailer. We ask forma look and get shiwn over it, very nice setup.

More Queenslanders, our end of the campsite is tottally Queenslanders. Wherever we go they seem to be 60% sunshine coast people with the rest from Brisbane. We've now met four couples from home, Buderim.

Jeff and Helen decide they are not going to do the Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary which is where we are supposed to be going next, Chris is of a similar mindset, I reluctantly agree.

 

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