Wednesday, 8 August 2018

The Simpson and Kimberleys trip, 2018 Day 23

We were up early with the sun and had some coffee and a leisurely pack up, hitting the road a bit after 7 am. We turned north on The Kalumburu road and found the road conditions deteriorating the further north we went. About the only thing of interest on the road was crossing the Carson River and the number of wild horses that we saw along the way. Kalumburu on a Sunday morning was deserted, we only saw one person walking about. On the way out of town we saw a sign to some WW2 wrecks so we followed this around to the back of the airport and found the remains of a crashed plane. 

We stopped in at a site marked as an Art site but didn't really see anything, then there was a lookout over the King Edward and we made a quick stop at the town Tip to dispose of our accumulated rubbish. Further out of town was an Art site called Turtle Rock Art Site and I was expecting lots of depictions of turtles, what I wasn't expecting was a rock shaped like a Turtle. 
🐢 

The art there was pretty good and Shane was satisfied with it. We then dropped into a boat launching area called Longini and Shane saw a croc in the water so didn't get too close. We continued north on a little used road to the Pago ruins. It must have been a big place once upon a time but there's not much left now. 

We followed the road to a rock shelf overlooking a beach on Tidepole Hill and had some lunch while keeping an eye out for any crocs that may come to visit. 

There was some slow bits on the road and a few river crossings but nothing especially hard. 
Then it was back towards town until we turned off to go and have a look at McGowans camping area, which seemed quite nice and also very full. We continued on north to Honeymoon Bay Camping area which was not bad but seemed to be aimed at people with boats who were wanting to go fishing. On the way back past McGowans I noticed a full sign which directed people onto Honeymoon Bay. As we went back through Kalumburu it had livened up with one person and a dog walking around. As it was getting late in the arvo we weren't sure how far we would get but we aimed for Drysdale River Station to refuel and camp for the evening. Unfortunately we missed the 5 pm fuel cutoff time but managed to book in for the night and even had a cooked dinner and a few drinks before going to setup the cars. 
Once setup the next step was a hot shower as it had been a few days since we had anything but a swim in a creek. As we were late getting to camp we didn't have a fire so we sat around a led light and chatted and wrote up our trip reports. Tomorrow we will head towards Kununurra where we will do some shopping and start to get ready for the long sprint home.

Sent from my iPhone

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