Monday, June 14, 2021

Day 54: Sun 13 Jun - Timber Creek to Alan Kellet Rest Area, 169 km; total towed: 5 612 km

11-30 degC
 
Whilst we knew we didn’t have very far to travel, we didn’t want to linger any longer than we had to. So, after our walks and breakfast we hit the road a little before 8:30 am heading West. One stop was made for mornos at a 24-hr rest area resplendent with three vans of hippies, just waking up, performing their yoga etc.
 
Not long after we pulled into a fairly large, well constructed Free Camp/Rest Area about 25km from the NT-WA border.  As WA has very strict quarantine rules, we needed to cook, eat or freeze all our fruit, veggies and honey before we hit the border.  They are very serious and search every vehicle, especially those with caravans.   We arrived just after 11 am and another bus of hippies was just leaving so we grabbed poll position in the area. It was not long before we were joined by a number of other travellers. Some chose not to stay and moved on quite quickly. The other reason for choosing this rest area was that it has toilets. Well, when Greg went for a visit, he was informed to not waste time as it was clogged as there was no water !! Oh well, it is only 60 km to the border, perhaps we can wait?
 
Lunch was a supersized salad each with left over chicken parmigiana for Greg and cooked chook for Wendy. They really were quite large. After a little rest, Greg went for a walk in the nearby bush and found a large lagoon with lots of birdlife; he's kicking himself for not bringing the binos.  Wendy got down to making roasted pumpkin and sweet potato soup with fried onion.  She cooked the rest of the onions with the mushrooms for Greg’s breakfasts. She used not only the fan-forced oven to roast the veggies, but also the microwave to make a white sauce for the soup, and the stick blender to blend the veggies and onion.  Nice to have the solar power and the inverter, it all works so well when there's no 240v.  We really do rough it sometimes.   Mind you, we were parked in full sun and were pulling in plenty of killer wasps.

After dinner we took our chairs out to the middle of the parking lot and spent half an hour or so satellite and planet spotting.  The waning moon didn't provide too much light so the night sky was absolutely brilliant.  Wendy won the sat spotting comp; seven sateelites all up.   
 
Tomorrow we cross into WA, our third State/Territory for this trip; only another two to go and we will be back in QLD.


Timber Creek this morning


The escarpment behind the campground at Timber Creek

Gates into Bradshaw Training area, 10km from Timber Creek

Bradshaw Bridge, built by the Commonwealth, crossing the Victoria River - 
Greg was involved in the establishment of this Army Training Area while serving in Darwin. 


Victoria River heading West

Victoria River heading East



It was only 3 km on a red dirt road, but we have had enough red dirt for a while

Mornos stop

Cows in the road

Brolgas


Drive scenery




The lake near the rest area

Different sizes and shapes of the Boab trees




Drone shots of the rest area












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