Day 55: Mon 14 Jun - Alan Kellet Rest Area to Kununurra, 61 km; total towed: 5 673 km

11-34 degC

Yay, we finally made it into WA!

After a very dark and quiet night (only one road train all night), Wendy was trying to slow Greg down a bit as we would gain an hour and a half when we crossed the border. However, he was up walking before sunrise and we were on the road a bit before 8:30 am (NT time). Because we had done such a good job of cleaning out all fruit,veggies, and honey, and we had our G2G (COVID Declarations) passes all ready and waiting, it only took us about five minutes to be granted entry at the NT-WA border.  A friendly Police officer checked the passes, and the quarantine officer checked the car and van.There was a bongo van in front of us that was pulled aside for further investigation.

First thing we did when we arrived in Kununurra was restock the fridge at Coles.  Maybe with fruit and veggies that had come from NT or Qld, ha ha.  Mornos followed in the van in the dust bowl of an RV car park. We then rang the van park to see if we could book a site and were told the internet was down so she couldn't even see what was available. We took a chance and drove there, and were pleasantly surprised when we were able to book a powered site for three nights AND get a Seniors Discount- bonus!  We are happy to pay the $42/night as other parks are charging up to $80/n for an unpowered site.  Only snag was we could only check-in after 10:30 am and it was then 9:15 am WA time. We parked in their visitor carpark, and whilst Greg went for a ride, Wendy caught up on a few admin tasks. We were finally set up on a nice grassy site (#802) just before 11 am. A rest followed our lunch, then as it was still only 1:30 pm and a little warm to be out and about, a load of washing was done. Greg is getting pretty good at this book reading caper and sat down with his book whilst Wendy did some more admin. 

We set out on the bikes about 3 pm. 19 km later we were back at the van park. Not sure how long we will be able to stay up until tonight, but hopefully we can get over this 'state-lag' thing pretty quickly.

Sunrise at the rest area/Free Camp

Signs at the WA border

Parked up waiting to be let into the van park

Lake Kununurra

Lilly Creek Lagoon jetty up close

The wider picture

Lake Kununurra, part of the Ord River scheme

Lagoon near the Discovery Parks van park

Greg's iPhone photo - he only ever takes one shot

The Old Gantry Crane 1963-2019, used to maintain the Kununurra Diversion Dam gates

The old gantry crane and an old dredge

Someone has a sense of humour - a cute little Mercedes

17 places marked as camping spots for this visit to WA, with plenty more to visit 

that aren't marked; have already removed about 25 from QLD and NT

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