From the Northern Territory – Heading West

Almost 6 weeks has passed since our last post & our ‘blogging office’ is now located at the end of a remote sandy track in the east Kimberley, next to a large, & we think deep, un-named waterhole (which we are calling ‘Big Croc Waterhole’ on account of having seen what we think is our biggest croc to date (& we’ve seen quite a few since we left Dundee Beach)!  We are sheltered on one side by the vegetation growing alongside the waterhole & by a grass & boab covered hill on our other side. Behind us rock slabs with boulders & grass rise away from us, & hide a little grassy grotto alongside the waterhole. A short walk  to the top of the hill reveals that we are in a far larger valley, with extensive grass savannah populated by more boabs, Kapok & other trees. It’s a view which tells us we are where we want to be, surrounded by country as it has always been. No sign of human intrusion whatsoever!  

At the end of our last post we were on the north west coast of the Northern Territory, at Dundee Beach, waiting to hear from a company in Darwin in regard to having a modification made to our automatic transmission. The week we waited was enjoyable thanks to our surroundings, but I don’t do living with the unknown & waiting for others especially well. Unfortunately they did not have the required Allison software to ‘enable’ the modification once fitted, so it is a job which will have to wait until we are near a major city on either the east or south coast where there are ‘proper’ Allison services.  Not what we wanted to hear, but to be honest there was a sense of relief & an end to a week of ‘being in limbo’ once we knew where we stood. For now we will manage with what we have & get the mod done when we can. We won’t be heading south just to get that done, so the likely timeframe is years rather than months. We were ready to move on and now that we had no need to return to Darwin we could think about ‘where to?’

The late wet season was still impacting upon access to most of the places we would have liked to visit in Kakadu National Park and we could see little value in returning to locations we had already explored once or twice before in the past, & only one place of current interest to us was open. Luckily it was at the southern end of Kakadu, not far from the park boundary when going in from the town of Pine Creek. So relatively convenient without lots of extra kilometres from our overall plan of heading west to the Kimberley. The other areas in the north of Kakadu that we haven’t explored previously will wait until we return that way in 2026 when we hope to be visiting Arnhem Land. 

The spot (actually two spots) are generally lesser known & lesser visited than most, but nonetheless sounded very appealing.  Ikoymarwarr upper & lower falls (aka Moline Falls).  These both on the same watercourse, but accessed from two different places about 1 or 2 kms apart along the road. Both had minimal signage, an easily missed low level sign at the upper falls, & no sign at all from the road for the lower falls. For the upper falls parking was a narrow roadside strip with a walk in from there. For the lower falls an unmarked track, the last part very rocky & requiring high clearance 4wd, had a sign close to the small picnic/camping area where we spent the night having visited the upper falls first. I hope the photos below will demonstrate that our approx 120 kms detour from Pine Creek was worthwhile. We thought so.

Our journey back to Pine Creek (& thence to southern Kakadu) from Dundee Beach was a roundabout one, with us first returning to the Reynolds River 4wd track in Litchfield National Park, as we had previously (in our last post) been unable to complete it, as it’s southern section was still closed whilst water crossings were deemed too deep & post wet season crocodile surveys yet to be completed. However with time passed in Darwin & Dundee Beach, that southern section was now open, so we returned – taking the ‘long way’ back to Pine Creek . (If our zig zagging confuses you, or you are not familiar with the locations referred to please have a look at our map – it may help to clarify   https://cuppa500.com/Blog/current-map/ below the map is a list of each location in the order we visited on the map you can scroll through. Click the small bar below the map & then clicking any location on the list will locate the place on the map for you.

The southern section of the Reynolds River Track was very interesting taking us through some wide open plains dotted with thousands of ‘magnetic’ termite mounds. Unlike those elsewhere in Litchfield NP, these were not seen from a viewing platform looking over a fence. Here the track wound through them for kilometres. A very different experience. ‘Magnetic’ is a tad misleading, the name comes from the tall ‘blade-like mounds’ all facing north/south, a means of reducing  temperature in the mounds, under the hot sun. Smart little critters

The main ‘attraction’ in the southern section of the track, apart from the enjoyable drive, are Surprise Creek Falls, very different to the wonderful Tjaynera Falls in the northern section (which we loved so much in our previous post), but nonetheless very attractive in their own right, with great swimming & much easier & shorter walking access. The ‘cauldron-like’ pools in the rock, flow one into the other & then down into a larger pandanus lined pool. Beautiful swimming., but it’s hard to take photos which place the pools into their surrounding context. We had seen photos before we arrived, but found the reality of our surroundings to be far more pleasant than both those other’s photos, & ours show. 

Between the Reynolds River track & Pine Creek/Ikoywamarr falls, we availed ourselves of another night at the Adelaide River showgrounds, where we luxuriated under hot showers & refilled our water tanks with their lovely water.  Taking water onboard can be a little hit & miss when needing to fill with whatever is available, so having a source of known ‘good’ water was as attractive as the showers! All water we have had has been OK in that it has been potable & not made us sick, but some is simply better than others. Often it is bore water, & the best test is the ‘cuppa’ test. A cup of tea which tastes good, without leaving a ’scum’ in the cup is a winner. Not always practical to stop & make a cuppa before filling up though. Generally we find we can last around 3 weeks before we run out of water, but always take the opportunity to top up when we can.

Between Adelaide River township & Pine Creek township (where we would turn off toward Kakadu) our maps showed another ex WW2 airstrip, the Macdonald airstrip, this one set further off the highway than the one we had stayed at further south previously. Our experience at the previous one had been good, so we thought we’d check out Macdonald, and it too proved to be good. We stayed a couple of nights & enjoyed a bit of exploring on foot & did some some needed work on our water pump which had begun to worry us, by providing water in a fast on/off manner (cycling). With the truck parked to provide shade on the water cabinet side I removed the pump & dismantled it, finding a minute amount of debris in one of it’s valve seat areas. Cleaned it up & replaced it with some improvement. The concern was where the debris was coming from though, but nothing I could do about that. The most likely (probably the only) possibility was that it was coming from the tank selector valve, but I wasn’t going to risk removing & dismantling that until we had a replacement. I found what I thought would be a suitable replacement (ie. one which could be fitted without any other changes to the plumbing arrangements) online in Sydney & bought it, with it being posted to our friends in Kununurra. Hopefully to arrive there ahead of us. With a plan B to cover pump failure before we arrived at Kununurra  (to ensure we wouldn’t perish from lack of water) we felt we could continue as we were.

Whilst at the airstrip MrsTea surprised me by asking if, whilst at the airstrip, if she could have her first drive (ever) of the OKA. Having her able to drive it makes a great deal of sense, & is something we had agreed was necessary before we left home.  But until now a combination of anxiety about driving it on both her part & mine, meant that it hadn’t happened. A few times I had asked her if she was ready to have a go, but her hesitation & “I know I could do it if I had to’ response met with my worry about ‘letting her loose on my baby’ maintained the status quo. Here on the airstrip, several kms long & no traffic AND her asking was an opportunity to be embraced. To be honest I was a tad worried, ( would she damage something & would my anxiety translate into criticism resulting in her not wanting to have a second go?) but I needn’t have been. Not only did she drive it very well, but she thoroughly enjoyed doing so, remarking more than a few times how much easier it was than what she had imagined. Multiple trips up & down the airstrip were completed with a huge grin on her face & on mine. When we left she also drove the 10kms or so of narrow, badly potholed access road, back to the highway. Again with the look on her face of a child who has just received their first chocolate easter egg the whole way.  

After Ikoywarmarr Falls we drove a short distance, back out of Kakadu NP, & found a lovely ‘rest area’ at Harriet Creek, which we shared with two other  couples in caravans. Whoever decided that this location for a rest area was a good one should be congratulated. It is well off the main road via a loop access road, a largish space nicely set out on grass among the trees, alongside a pretty little creek. Roadside rest areas are not generally our first choice for overnighting, but this one would, I suggest, make for a very pleasant multi-nighter for folk with their own facilities & who wish to base themselves just outside of the national park with a view to day-tripping into the park. We were surprised it was not packed out. Our ‘neighbours’ had each been there for around a week & were in no hurry to pack up & go, one couple had similar birding interests to us & quiet walks along the creek were quite productive. 

Harriet Creek south to Katherine via Pine Creek. 

From here we had decided to commence moving westward, toward our friends in Kununurra but without a fixed timeframe, so fully restocking with food etc in Katherine made sense, it being the last town large enough to have a supermarket & butcher. A comment worth adding is that we have become relatively recent converts to buying meat from butchers, rather than from supermarkets whenever we can. Years back when we had a small farm & raised our own meat for a couple of decades, but when we sold up we reverted to the supermarket products. It took a camping trip with our now almost 40 year old son to remind us of the difference between the two products. So glad he did. It costs a bit more but tastes so much better…AND for travel it makes sense. We get the butcher to cryovac everything in flat packs & to freeze it as well. This maximises the use of space in our little 35 litre Engel freezer & significantlt extends the periods we can go between need to resupply.

This time there would be a balancing act between ensuring we had sufficient provisions but not having too much in the way of foodstuffs which would not be allowed through the quarantine station on the Western Australia border.  Thankfully butcher supplies are not on the banned list.

So a night in Katherine, post shopping was called for. Sometimes we have done all the packing of the shopping in a car park, returning lots of the packaging to the supermarket but doing so often feels like a hot, under pressure job. Having a night nearby to do this makes it a far more relaxed affair.

Big caravan parks (of which there are several in Katherine) have little appeal, & we certainly had no intention of returning to the so-called bush camp where we had been treated so poorly just a few weeks earlier. Our choice for the night was the Katherine Farmstay. We could deal with our provisions, utilise their rubbish bins & leave for the west with full water tanks too. It was essentially a caravan park, but not too bad as it turned out, on the banks of the Katherine River. It suited our purpose & was an uncomplicated drive to get onto the highway westward the next morning.

The distance from Katherine to Kununurra is one that most folk travel in one or two days, but we are not most folk & the journey took us 10 days. 🙂  

About 100kms west of Katherine we saw the sign pointing to ‘Giwining’ (Flora River Nature Park’). It was a sign which immediately brought up the memory of having driven past it in the past & commenting “Next time we come this way we’ll have to check it out”. We had no idea of what would be there, but slowed to turn off onto the dirt road, which turned out to be about 40 or 50kms to the park. A significant advantage of having ‘internet anywhere’ via Starlink, in these days of all National parks needing to be booked online (which we dislike – much preferred when it was ‘first come first served’) is that, (at least for the less patronised camp grounds), we can check them out first, & if we want to stay, can then book them online once we are there. 

We only stayed overnight, but pleased we had made the spur of the moment decision to do so. The campground itself needed a bit of work, many of the sites were too overgrown for us to get into, & whilst we were there the solar power system used to pump bore water failed rendering toilets & showers unusable.  Nevertheless the water falls in two locations were pretty, & the birdlife and ’Nail-tailed Wallabies kept us occupied, & there was a bit of excitement when we discovered that a croc trap had a 3 metre saltie in it. We also met a couple of kindred spirits, other campers, John & June. (We hope you two might be reading this). Some rangers visited & were told about the captive, saying that the ‘croc team’ would be coming down from Darwin the following morning, to pull the cage trap out of the water, manually ‘wrangle’ the croc, in order to lift it onto the back of a ute, to take it away. Apparently if it was female it would be taken to a croc farm for breeding, but if it were male it would be euthanased. When asked why it couldn’t just stay there in the river, we were told “Because it is a popular fishing spot”! We waited until gone mid day for the croc team to arrive to do their thing, but eventually gave up & put their non arrival down to NT time (Not today, not tomorrow). We drove out, prepared to return to watch the spectacle should we pass the croc team on our way out, but we passed no-one. MrsTea drove again, all the way out back to the highway negotiating the often rough & bulldusty road well. 

Around 70kms further west on the Victoria Highway, we again turned off, this time south onto the Buntine Highway. In the past we have driven part of the western end of this dirt road, & expected that this would be another dirt highway, so were surprised  to find it sealed, albeit it mostly single lane bitumen. This ‘long cut’ would take us to Top Springs (a crossroads with a pub in the middle of nowhere) where we would take a right turn onto the Buchanan Hwy (which is still dirt). Why – for no other reason than to cover ’virgin ground’ (ie. a route we haven’t used before). We think it pretty much doubled the distance to Kununurra. We stayed the night camped out the back of the pub & splurged on a pub meal. OK but nothing special, but MrsTea is always up for an opportunity to let someone else do the cooking. 

Next morning we reduced our tyre pressures & set off along the Buchanan, having examined the maps for potential stopping places along the way. Generally spots where the road crossed creeks & rivers. Each time we were getting close to a creek, we would start looking for tracks & water, but time & again we found little in the way of tracks & every watercourse was bone dry ……… until we reached Dashwood Crossing on the Victoria River. Here water was flowing across a concrete causeway & better still just off to the right was a great looking waterside camp spot. We stayed a couple of nights & found it a wonderful birding spot with 32 species identified, and also had a little excitement when two tiny black piglets came running through our camp. We used to keep pigs on our farm, & know that these piglets could not have been more than 3 or 4 weeks old at most, & so were wary of a visit from an anxious sow, but we never saw her. The howling of dingoes at night made us feel that the cute little piglets may sadly not have a long life ahead of them. Traffic on the road totalled around 6 to 8 cars per day (not that we had seen that many whilst driving) & it was a bit of a game predicting/watching their river crossing techniques. The water over the causeway was no more than 8” deep, some would sit & think about it before crossing, some would just plough in. Some would cross very slowly & cautiously, some would create water spray higher than the car. The funniest was one of the latter, who had a passenger in the front seat, & window open, who got absolutely soaked. He looked over at us laughing & laughed himself. 

As it turned out stopping at Dashwood Crossing had been a wise decision, there were no other desirable camp spots along the Buchanan until we reached Jasper Gorge. We had noticed for the first time on any of the dirt roads we have travelled, frequent empty beer cartons & cans along the side of the road. These stopped after we passed the turn-off to an aboriginal community around 20kms after Dashwood Crossing.  Our first thought was that perhaps there were ‘Grog Runners’ bringing alcohol from the Top Springs pub illicitly back to the dry community for profit, but that seems to make less sense than the more likely possibility of drinkers from the community emptying the contents of what they had bought at the pub before getting back to their community. We felt disappointed, angry even, that the pub would sell beer in this manner, knowing full well how it would be consumed, quite probably with the inebriated drinkers arriving back at the community having spent the families food budget on grog.

At Jasper Gorge there were 3 camping options. An old & now disused site which we looked at & considered. Access was difficult but potentially do-able & we may have given it a go had the single spot the track led to not already been taken by someone else with a 4wd canopy camper.  2nd was a little used ‘day area’, & 3rd the official camp ground which held little appeal other than having a long drop toilet, so we settled for the day use area & stayed 2 nights, & saw only 3 other vehicles come & go. It is probably the first time we needed a sunshade, as sitting by the river was the preferred daytime position whilst the truck was parked elsewhere, in the sun for solar & out of the way so as not to block the track for day visitors. Two trees, a couple of aluminium poles & rocks to hold the guys into the sandy soil (which had laughed at our special sand pegs)  worked a treat. Some good birding & conversations with visitors kept us occupied. At this point we were only near the beginning of the Gorge, which is quite long & viewed as you drive through it. Quite impressive, The official campground is at the other end, which we had had described to us, so didn’t actually see the full gorge until we left. On the second night, in the dark, a car full of aboriginal folk arrived. We were already in bed, but could make them out by the light of the small fire they made within a very short time of their arrival. 3 adults & two children. Before we knew it they had got back in the car & left. In the morning crows were already cleaning up the remains of two small freshwater turtles cooked on the fire. Not sure if they  had them with them already or had caught them in the river there. There is a dreamtime story about turtles in that creek. However they came by the turtles it was certainly a quick & efficient means of preparing & consuming a ‘travel snack’ along the way!

We moved on, slowly driving through the gorge soaking in it’s awesomeness on my 68th birthday. Along the way & after the gorge we observed several mobs of wild donkeys, the first & only ones we have seen since we spent the 2018/19 wet season on the Dampier Peninsula 200kms north of Broome. 

Reaching the Victoria Highway again, we only stayed on it for a few hundred metres before turning off to attempt to follow an un-named track we could see on our map. It looked like it would take us right up to the banks of the Victoria River, about 35kms north of us. An old station track with a gate at the highway end. We named it Cuppa’s Birthday Track. 🙂  It quickly became clear that it hadn’t been used for some time, and quite often we found ourselves in long grass asking “Where is the track” but the adventurous side of that was a birthday present, & persistence always found us the track again, reassured by the fact that we could see our gps position on the mapping apps we have, as we drove. Boabs were plentiful- a clear sign that although still in the Northern Territory that we close to the West Australian border & the eastern end of the Kimberley. MrsTea has Exploroz mapping on an ipad attached to the dash in front of her, & I have an off road Hema Navigator I can watch from the driver’s position. When one said to head left & the other said to head right, when we were getting closer to the river, we were unable to find any track going right.  Exploroz -1 Hema -0 . We believe that we got to within 400-500 metres from the river, but had to give up when the country (& track) began having big washouts, some metres deep which could all but swallow an OKA. Even walking on foot was too difficult, & we turned back without having seen what we know is an immense body of water. It was fun trying though, & we found a good flat place, clear of grass, on the way back to camp for the night. The appeal of just being ‘out there’ knowing it was ‘just us’ was great & one night became two. It was extremely peaceful …….. until we heard the roaring in the sky on our first morning. The roaring got closer until we could make out what it was, but even then we failed to recognise the bizarre looking two aircraft.  Googling what we had seen revealed the answer. They were CV-22 tiltrotor Osprey’s! They had obviously left the military airbase on the northern side of the Victoria River. Later that day both returned. https://www.af.mil/About-us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104531/cv-22-osprey

Back on the highway, passing through quarantine at the NT/WA border was straightforward. We knew a handful of raw vegies we had would need to be handed over, along with the remnants of the jar of honey we had bought way back in Tibooburra. The young quarantine chap as very thorough & professional, ignoring my attempts to be friendly & chatty until he was satisfied we weren’t trying to smuggle in something we shouldn’t, at which point he asked, with a smile “Have you had the OKA long”.  

Finding Ian & Michele’s place a few kms outside of Kununurra as easy & they were expecting us & had several parcels waiting – all online purchases. For the next couple of weeks we enjoyed their exceptional hospitality in their amazing home. We first met them back in 2019 on a remote piece of coastline about 150kms north of Kununurra. We needed work done on our Patrol & had not been treated well by a local mechanic. They ’took us under their wing & ensured we were properly looked after by other workshops as well as enthusiastically showing us many ‘local knowledge’  places by car & by boat. We have remained in contact since, & since we were last there they have moved out of town onto acreage and spent a great deal of effort making it a really beautiful place to be, as well as making it very traveller friendly with several individual private little camp spots carved out of the bush, workshop access & much more. The shaded swimming pool across the lush green lawn from the house veranda & the large boab at the edge of the lawn feel like a ‘resort’ as much as a home.

Again they showed us some more ‘local knowledge’ sights and shared ideas for further exploration of the east Kimberley they love & know so well. Wonderful folk & a ‘very lucky to have’ resource.

Our favourite camp site to date, since we left home in the OKA last March, & up there with our all time favourites was 3 nights spent on the banks of the Keep River, on private station land, not in the Keep River national park, a location we cannot reveal, by agreement.  The following is a piece I posted on social media on our second or third morning there:

“What a lovely morning. MrsTea is still in bed enjoying the cup of tea I made for her. I’m sitting outside in my dressing gown, feeling the warmth of the sun’s first rays as it rises behind the trees over the river. My ‘dressing gown walk’ along the river was wonderful. A pair of White-bellied Sea Eagles being pestered by Whistling Kites, 7 crocs in the water (had 13 out on the bank yesterday arvo), 6 pelicans cruising around, two Black-necked storks (Jabirus) striding around the shallows fishing for Pop-eyed mullet which manage mostly to escape, their bodies almost completely out of the water, skipping forward at45 degree angles. A few egrets pacing the shallows & cormorants ducking, diving & reappearing. Wallabies risking their lives at the water’s edge for a drink, but haven’t yet seen the dingo who came for a drink yesterday morning. Behind me are the chatter of Grey crowned Babblers, the hissing of Great Bowerbirds & the persistent urgent sounding call of the Brush Cuckoo, occasionally drowned out by the Blue-winged Kookaburras. Just a few metres from my chair I can see a pair of Striated Pardalotes bringing what looks like pieces of cobweb to line their nest with. They come one at a time, stopping on a nearby branch to check the coast is clear, before dropping down to their excavated hole in the bank. As I have been typing I’ve heard Julie get up, and soon the sound & smell of the coffee in the moka pot will be unmistakable. I love this travelling lark!”

Getting to & from this heavenly camp spot was on a dusty & rutted track (see brief video).

Use was made of Ian’s workshop whilst he & Michele were in Darwin for a few days for a family wedding. Being ‘on the road’ full time this proved to be an absolute luxury. Not only having tools to hand without needing to unpack everything, but being on a clean smooth floor rather than in the dirt with ants crawling up your pants, out of the fiercely hot sun & with electric fans to keep cool, AND the use of a car to duck in & out of town as needed to get parts! Heaven!  

I fitted the replacement water tank selector valve (& as I had expected the old one was severely corroded & no doubt the source of debris in the pump). In addition I fitted a new UHF antenna & cable (we had found the range on the existing tiny one inadequate to communicate with truckies except when they were within under 300 to 400 metres max. Worked out why the am/FM radio inside the motorhome didn’t work – it’s antenna & the mutilated cabling had not been connected when new antennae were fitted during the ‘cab refurbishment’ at the OKA factory. I reconnected it all but found it still very poor, so had a good 900mm fold down antenna sent to us(from Victoria) & fitted it up on the roof with all new cabling. The result is that we can now listen to AM radio in remote areas & FM when coser to towns- as cleaer as a bell, & similar with UHF communications, but not yet sure of the range, but perfectly adequate for our needs – communicating with truckies on the road & with others we may travel with from time to time off road. 

I also tightned up the fittings for the exhaust brake which had become less efficient over time. Unfortunately that doesn’t appear to have helped & I’m now thinking that the issue may be electric, so will have another look when we are back in Kununurra around the end of the month. 

And so,  we left Kununurra almost a week ago, our plan to take a slow trip along the Parry Creek Road, the King River Road & the Karunjie track, bringing us along the back of the iconic Cockburn Ranges (the red cliffs in the background to almost everyone’s photos of driving across the Pentecost river whilst driving the Gibb River Road, to that crossing itself, before returning to Kununurra. When we next leave Kununurra in early September, we’ll be taking a ‘long way round’ route to the western end of the Gibb River Road, & then along the GRR, to Mt Elizabeth for our pre-arranged wet season caretaking. 

Which brings us back (almost) to the beginning of this post at ‘Big Croc Waterhole”, on our third day at what is our third camp, since leaving Kununurra. The past two nights have had a degree of added interest. It began after dark with MrsTea saying she could see what she thought might be a set of headlights in the distance. Binoculars showed it to be a the frontline of a bush-fire. Our camp here is surrounded by tall thick dry grass, but it is surrounded by previously burned areas, so whilst we have felt the need to monitor the situation, we have not felt at risk. We have been using NAFI online. (Northern Australia Fire Information) which as a satellite of current ‘hotspots’ . From this we have been able to determine that it is a bushfire , not a ‘planned burn’ and that it is slow moving with a main highway between us & the fire, with wind blowing it away from us. So although not threatened, we have kept an eye on it. What seems quite remarkable is that when night winds (which are quite strong) subside during the day, the fire all but dies away with little evidence of smoke. As it gets dark & the winds return, so too do the flames. Another benefit of having internet anywhere. It should be said that bushfires up in these parts tend to be very different to the raging infernos in the south’s forests. Had we been down there & seen a flames within a few kilometres we would have hurriedly packed up & left in the dark when we saw the first flames. With the NAFI software, & a quick scouting exercise finding that areas around us had already burned earlier in the year (& thus almost zero fuel to burn) we felt quite secure, albeit with a watchful eye.

The first night away from Kununurra was at ‘Buttons’ camp , a popular spot by the fast flowing Ord River, off the Parry Creek Rd. A lovely spot, except that too many other folk feel the same, & for us being able to see campers & caravans as far as we could all along the riverbank, & the need to utilise our toilet tent for privacy is not how we prefer to do things, so we moved on after a night, exploring all sorts of side tracks along the way until we found what we have called ’Star Finch Waterhole ‘(on account of seeing Star Finches there). We stayed there a couple of nights after a day that had been a tad fraught at times. On the way I managed to wedge the truck between a large but leaning tree & the sandy track we were on. I misjudged, thinking we had plenty of room until it started feeling like I had the brakes on when I didn’t! Tipping the side mirror revealed we were well & truly wedged. Going further forward was not an option, at least not without greater risk, so I managed to slowly reverse out, pulling thick chunks of bark off the tree as I did.Amazingly no damage at all was done to the truck, only to the 4mm thick aluminium angle I Sikaflexed to the roof (to help keep branches away from the rooftop solar panels) which has now been ‘re-profiled’ for half it’s length. 

As if getting ‘wedged’ were not bad enough – another blooper about an hour later. We had found Star Finch Waterhole & picked our position, & to get into this position I simply needed to reverse back along the track, before again coming forward & swinging off the track to the right. Suddenly ‘BANG’! Instantly I knew I had hit something, but knew the track was clear as I had driven in on it a short time ago. “Is there a low branch” I shouted at MrsTea, who was standing outside the truck. She looked worried but with somehow an added air of mirth which she was trying to keep under control. And then the sound of another crash! Momentary panic & I then flung myself out of the cab to see what was going on. 

I hadn’t checked my rear view monitor as I thought I was on the clear track. MrsTea hadn’t bothered with her usual ’spotting duty’ when I reverse, as she too thought I was on the track. Well I wasn’t on the track & had reversed into a large & very tall tree, which as luck would have it was a dead tree, & it had broken off only a foot or so underground, the second crash was it falling into another (live) tree and it’s top10metres or so breaking off & falling to the ground as it did so.   Naturally I immediately looked for damage to the truck, but bewilderingly found none, until close inspection revealed a tiny mark where the rack that our recovery boards sits on had hit the tree the impact to the truck having been spread by the sandboards themselves. It took only a very short time to stop blaming each other, both of us recognising where we had been remiss. Relief about the lack of damage helped a great deal.

They say things come in threes. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that this will not be the case!

I’m sure some of you might also keep your fingers crossed for us too.  And I’ll try to take more care!

Thanks for reading.

Until next time.

Best wishes from us both.

Cuppa & MrsTea.