Tour Australia

We left Katherine today and headed west towards Gregory National Park. We made a stop in at the Victoria River Roadhouse for lunch and made it to the Big Horse Creek campground in the Gregory National Park by the afternoon. This campground is just off the Victoria Highway and is next to the Victoria River, making it a great stop for caravaners.

That night we listened to the local Park Rangers talk about the National Park and made plans for the next day.

The next day we got going nice and early and made our way back to the entrance to Gregory NP and headed to the Calcite Flows which is nearby to the Limestone Gorge. On the way out to the Calcite Flows we stopped in at the Tufa Dams which are in the creek adjacent to the road. These are really interesting and almost look like some sort of man made dams. It is hardly a walk and just a quick stop so it is worth having a look.

Not far up the road is the Calcite Flows. The walk takes you a short distance up the hill to a lookout. On the way up you will see some signage and information about the eroded limestone rocks. Once you are at the lookout it is unfortunately still a fair distance from the calcite flows so it left us feeling a little disappointed.

We then headed down south further to the homestead. This is a really interesting place. There’s plenty of information and some first hand stories. Nearby to the homestead is the old cattle yards which is also worth looking at.

After looking at the homestead we exited the national park and drove back towards our campground on the Victoria Highway. Before reaching the campground we went up to some lookouts which overlook the Victoria River and Timber Creek (the town).

We then drove past our campground and went out to Gregory’s Tree. Gregory’s Tree is a massive boab tree inscribed with the date “July 2nd 1856”. Gregory’s camp was at the site of the tree in 1855 and 1856. The area is of significance to the Aboriginal people as well.

We went back to the campground, hitched up the caravan and headed on to Keep River National Park. Keep River is right on the NT/WA border and just north of the Victoria Highway. We stayed in the closest campground to the highway, called “Goorrandalng” which is around 16km of unsealed road.

The next morning we did the walk from the campground which takes you up to the base of the escarpment. It was only 2km long but has some amazing views. It was a beautiful walk and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The track is well sign posted and has a lot of good information along the way.

We then headed up to the Jarnem campground and did the Jarnem Loop walk which takes you up to the lookout and back down via Nigli Gap. It was very hot and much of the walk is exposed to the sun. It was a very nice walk and has beautiful rock formations and views along the way. At the end of the Nigli Gap in the cave there are some aboriginal rock drawings. It was around 7km return and definitely worth the effort.

On our way out of the national park we did the very short 200m Ginger’s Hill walk which takes you up to a traditional hawk-hunting hide. It is a pretty interesting way to catch food and worth a look.

We left Keep River National Park and headed west. We crossed the NT/WA border, including going through the fruit fly inspection station. This is a 24hour manned fruit fly inspection station. There are many types of fruit and vegetables that are prohibited so it is worth your while to do some research. The gentleman at the station was very helpful and allowed us to turn around and stop in at the rest area adjacent to the inspection station to prepare some of our vegetables to be allowed through.

After passing through we made our way into Kununura and restocked some of the fruit and vegetables we lost. We also purchased a 4 week Holiday Pass for the WA National Parks and booked in to a local caravan park.

That afternoon we jetted into Mirima National Park for sunset. We were slightly late but luckily still caught the last of sunset. It has some great lookouts to catch sunset and we would recommend watching from there.