Judy & Brian Tour Oz

A long tedious drive today from Broome to Fitzroy Crossing, battling the buffeting winds and negotiating the big stretches of roadwork in progress trying to fix the damage from last wet seasons flooding. The Fitzroy River Lodge is like an oasis though. I don't know where they get the water from but the sprinklers are on most of the time. The place is almost lush. This year they are allocating sites, not a find your own system like they had last time. Apart from the IGA , there is not a whole lot to see or do here in the town itself. All the action is 20km up stream where they do the tours of Geike Gorge, which we are giving a miss this time. We retired to the van and I went for a 2.5 km walk around the perimeter of the park. One side of the park is on the Fitzroy river, which must be spectacular in flood but a bare trickle at this time of the year. The erosion done to the bank here is quite evident, they may have even lost one of their glamping tents to the flood waters. Upst...

Got away early for our big run of 480k, and ran right into roadworks for the first 100 – rats. Took 1:30 instead of 1 hour, made it a longer than necessary day. Stopped for fuel at Halls Creeks and slid right on out of a rather seedy looking town. Just kept going and going, the road from HC to FC is actually rather good, they probably got sick of rebuilding it after every flood and built it up and proper instead. We keep checking out the free camps along the way, some are no more than a dirt carpark, others are a bit more elaborate with a single long drop toilet even! We heard that one of them, Mary’s Pool, had 100 vans in it last night – don’t even think about how that long drop coped. The smell! The flies! The filth! Ergh.. Only for the desperate I’d reckon.  Anyhow, we did finally get to stop and take some snaps at a place called Ngumban Cliffs, although I’m sorry to have missed a few along the way. Couldn’t even find our park at Fitzroy Crossing. We rang them and t...