Heading West- Victoria HWY

It’s been a while since I last posted mainly because we have been off grid. Access to Telstra is somewhat unpredictable. Miles and miles of “No Service” and then suddenly the phone comes alive with the dulcet dinging sounds of missed calls and messages that were sent days ago. With the next turn in the road the dreaded “No Service” quashes any hope of chatting or connecting to someone, anyone.

We headed down the Victoria HWY making our way towards Kununurra for the Ord Valley Muster.  On our first night, we stayed at The Big Horse Campground in Gregory National Park. Big river flowing near the campground and croc tracks on the river bank so we were very careful not to venture too close.

The following day we drove down a well graded road to Zebra Rock Mine which is about 60 kilometres from the Western Australia border. The camp hosts, Ruth and Kim do a terrific job running the place. It’s lovely to stand and walk on green grass and not have red dust under your feet, up your nose, in your hair and down your throat. We had planned to stay two nights at Zebra but it was so relaxing we stayed a third night.

Relaxing involves reading books, Christine’s crossword puzzles, playing backgammon, listening to the local radio when you have reception, sitting by the fire, chatting to fellow travellers or having a long overdue shave.

From Zebra Rock we did a day trip into Keep River NP. The road was generally well graded, some soft sandy spots and corrugations. The campground at Keep River is beautiful and the views are amazing. It’s clearly a popular place for campers as the camping spots were nearly full by mid morning.

Now here’s a bizarre situation. Turns out that the whole of WA operates on Perth time. So when you drive across the border from NT you wind your clock back 1.5 hours. We’re in Kununurra, it’s 5.30pm and it’s pitch black. So gin o’clock came early today!

Speaking about border crossings. There’s a round the clock quarantine check at the NT/ WA border and it’s taken seriously. Today an inspector checked all the cupboards and both fridges in the van and car. The firewood which I had collected weeks back and was saving for that special night when we finally hit the west coast was prohibited from entering.