Katherine to Kununarra

 After breakfast at the local Coffee Club we headed out of Katherine. I must admit the trip through the suburbs did little to dispel my impression of a town that doesn’t enjoy a lot of resources. 

So we hit the road at 7:30 and already it was 30 degrees, there was low cloud ahead but also quite a strong smell of smoke. The smoke got thicker and thicker but no sign of fires other than a lot of charred bush on both sides of the road. We pulled over and wet our buffs which we pulled over our mouth and nose. 

After a few kms the smoke eased but there was still a lot of low cloud. It had rained heavily overnight. I began to notice an unusual number of kangaroos, both dead and alive.  I decided to slow down.  Fortunately all the kangaroos we saw hopped away from us once they spotted us. Someone told me to expect to see more kangaroos after rain as they like the water that collects at the side of the roads and also the green shoots of new growth which sprouts very quickly after the rain. 

Anyway I didn’t want to tangle with one and they are really hard to spot on the side of the road in the grasses. This lasted maybe 50-60km and then they weren’t evident at all. I just started to relax then a big bugger hopped onto the road about 10m in front of us, I hit the anchors and luckily it kept on hopping to the other side of the road, but a timely reminder to stay vigilant. 

We then entered an incredibly beautiful area of massive flat top escarpments and the sun on the red rocks was just beautiful. There were several rivers we passed and the scenes were picture book. 

One funny thing was a lizard maybe 2 foot long ran across the road in front of us, it was on its hind legs with its chest stuck out and head held high. It reminded me of the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland that runs around telling anyone who will listen how busy they are while actually going nowhere!  Anyway it’s just the way my mind works sometimes. 

The low cloud kept the temperature lower and the riding was very pleasant. 

After getting gas at Tennant Creek the cloud disappeared and the temperature soared, because of the rain it is also very humid so we were uncomfortably sticky. 

The scenery was still very beautiful but not quite in the same league as this morning. 

We stopped at a rest stop and drank heaps of water and then soaked our buffs and t shirts from a water tank there. 

We reached the border and after passing through quarantine formalities we entered Western Australia and gained 1 1/2 hours. The lady quarantine officer lamented the humidity and reckoned the rains had arrived a month early. Just our luck. The side roads already look quite slippery so our decision not to camp 30kms off the main road looks to be a good one especially as there is much more rain forecast. 

We are in a cabin in a motorcamp in Kununarra which is by a lake. 

Very pretty but no restaurant so we went to the local supermarket for supplies and after that I watched the rugby with a beer and talked shite with my mate Shane back home in Feilding.