Thurs, 1st Aug, 2024 King River Rest Area, south of Katherine to Bush camp at ‘Jurassic Park Escarpment’, Central Arnhem Road, NT

Overcast and cool morning, 16 degree minimum with a light breeze.

Sent off messages to Joan and Roz for their birthdays using Anne’s starlink wifi.

Ron and Jenny headed back into Katherine to sign some papers for the sale of a block of land that have just come through. We relaxed for the morning then had a cuppa and packed up camp. The sky is clearing now.

Mike got out his coin & relic detector and found some old bottle caps that have the same signal as $1 and $2 coins. He had used it at the van park and scored about $40 so worth the effort.

Steve chatted with a young couple who were from Clifton Beach. They are on a 6 month trip with their 8 month old daughter, Darcy and two dogs! Good on them. They just had 3 weeks in Gove with family and managed to catch a few fish though it was very windy. The road wasn’t too bad but there were some rocky sections. They drove straight out yesterday, 10 hours. We are going to take 3 days as we aren’t booked into the van park till the 4^th.

Ron and Jenny arrived back and we headed south a bit to the turn off onto the Central Arnhem Road. 675km to Gove/Nhulunbuy. A new road to mark off in our map book.

Onto a one lane bitumen strip which was a pain with a lot of oncoming traffic. Busy road as the Garma Festival starts tomorrow through to Monday. We looked into going when we got there but the tickets are very expensive.

Travelling through Beswick Station. Past Maranboy Community and opposite the Police Station area we spotted a 6 head stamper on a small hill. I had phone reception with my aerial and looked it up - an old tin mine. Will have to check it out on the way back.

Crossed a couple of little creeks which had water in them. Normal scrubby trees and grass with lots of recently burnt sections. Up and down low hills.

Spotted a heap of donkeys not far from the road but blurred my photo!

One lane bridge across the Waterhouse River that goes down to Mataranka then into the Roper River.

Through Beswick/Wugularr - usual community views of dead cars, smashed buildings etc.

Onto dual bitumen for a bit then we pulled up to let air out of the tyres as the rest is gravel road.

Light corrugations and sections with harder rocky sections but we cruised along nicely. Plenty of traffic heading in so we let them pass us and lots heading out too.

Big white puffy clouds are coming over and we got a few spits of rain on the windscreen.

I saw something walk across the track ahead of us and thought it was a cow but when we got there we saw it was a buffalo. He took off into the bush when we got close so I missed getting a photo.

Up and down hills then along a ridge. Great view over the plains below.

Further along we pulled into a rest area called Jurassic Park on Wikicamps. It is on top of an escarpment with magnificent views. There is water below us so there is plenty of birds tweeting.

We set up camp and had lunch in the shade enjoying the view. The photo doesn’t show it but the rock drop down to the dirt is about 80 feet then it descends down into the basin.

Ron got out his binoculars and they spotted some more buffalo and donkeys which we can hear too.

The others chose to park along the edge of the viewing area.

Steve went for a wander and found a donkey skull. On the other side of the track is another valley with a creek.

There is a smoke haze coming across from the north. Max of 32 degrees in the camper.

Relaxed in the shade by the cliff edge reading our books. A few cars pulled in for a look then continued on. We noticed a herd of buffalos come out of the bush below us heading to the pool of water. Managed to get a photo of them with my trusty little camera.

Moved over to the others van for drinks - I don’t think they liked the drop-off! Another chap pulled in and parked further along from us but didn’t come over.

Had dinner under the stars and spotted one satellite zoom across the sky.

Nice cool breeze blowing but I hope that settles down by the time we want to go fishing. The donkeys call out every now and then.