Day 22 - Friday 13/7/01
Start -
WyndhamStop -
King River (
bush camp)
Trip Odometer - 37.3km
Stopped time - 1.1hr
Moving average - 38km/hr
Moving time - 58mins
Max speed - 2.09hrs
Another morning of fluffing around... After lifting
camp we fuelled up –
Wyndham is a good place for this, with prices usually less than
Kununurra. Being our last opportunity to stock up before the
Gibb River Road and
Kalumburu Roads, we did a wander through the
supermarket, which was
well stocked with meats, fresh dairy products, bread and other basic supplies. And the
bakery had hot pies, fresh bread and rolls and sweet pastries like apple turnovers with cream!
As we’ve previously done the
Gibb River Road, we planned to drive from
Wyndham to the Pentecost Crossing via the Karunjie Road that runs along the
King River then follows the Pentecost before meeting up with the
Gibb River Road at the Pentecost Crossing. The turnoff is on the RHS just 6km south of
Wyndham. The first 25km is on very good dirt road with sign posts to some worthwhile sights such as the
Moochalabra Dam, Aboriginal
Cave Paintings,
King River Crossing, Boab Prison Tree and finally at 74km, the
Gibb River Road at the Pentecost Crossing.
There is a fabulous
bush campsite with
bins under a huge
boab tree at the
Moochalabra Dam, and lots of great fishing camps along the
King River (RHS). These are not marked, but following any of the numerous tracks off to the right will lead to decent camps between 10 – 200m off the road.
We chose our
campsite at the last RHS track before the rocky crossing of the
King River and the Prison Tree. This track winds around the river for 1-2km to a hilly
camp on a double bank above the river.
The
King River is known by the locals as the best spot to catch decent barra so David had prepared himself by purchasing a cast net for catching baitfish. The
King River was his first use of it after buying it in
Kununurra for $56. His first cast was a beauty, bringing in a bucket-load of
mullet for baitfish. But after fishing for a while from the
camp Colin and David decided that this wasn’t the ideal barra spot and decided to drive back along the
King River in search of another
fishing spot. Sandy, Leah and I stayed behind under the shade of some lovely trees at
our camp.
A few hours later the boys returned but without fish – Dave had returned his unused
mullet to the river at
our camp before heading off and was unable to catch any more bait because he snagged the cast net on a submerged tree at the next spot – he was VERY disappointed to say the least!
Camp oven dinner had to do.