It’s a another big hello to all you avid adventure readers and another exhilarating update of the Trundle Adventures.  After a few unforgettable days in Derby we decided to spend a week in Kununurra to  allow ourselves some time to relax and chill out for a while.  It is strange how you can be on a holiday with all the time you need to get somewhere, with no deadlines on when you have to be there but still find you need time to have some down time to rest and relax.

Kununurra is not a bad place to spend a bit of down time in and we did have a very relaxing week that allowed to do some very strategic planning on the next phase of our trip as we were going to cross the border and really had nothing planned.  While in Kununurra we did do some tourist type activities that included driving around the irrigation areas, buying cheap roadside fruit and driving to Lake Argyle and Wyndham.  Of all the northwest towns Wyndham seems to be the one that has missed out on any development which is a pity as it does have some great areas to look at.

After the great relaxing week in Kununurra we decided to go to Zebra Rock which is just over the border into the Northern Territory (approximately a 70km drive from Kununurra).  Zebra Rock is where they mine the actual Zebra Rock from and make into jewellery, display pieces or table tops if you have up to $15K to spare for a big table top.  The road in is very dusty but only approx. 10k’s in from the highway.  The camp site is not bad when you get there and the showers are “refreshing”(no hot water).  We decided to stay for three nights and this included us leaving the caravan at Zebra Rock and going into the Keep River National Park for a night and roughing it in the roof top tent.

While at Zebra Rock we booked onto the Wetland Safari sunset cruise and I would really recommend this trip to everyone.  Max the skipper was a great host, really knew his stuff and included a swim in Lake Argyle, free flowing beer, wine and nibbles.  We also pulled up on the bank of a river and you could do some fishing for the local “silver perch”, we called these catfish but then Max explained to us by calling them silver perch you could get double the price at the local fish and chip shop in Kununurra.  The cruise was 4 hours in total and at the end we did have the fish and chips which were surprisingly really good, (this may have something to do with quantity of alcohol consumed), but as I said it was a great trip and we would do it again.

The Keep River National Park is a great park to visit and could quite easily be done in a day.  But as we have the roof top tent we now spend extra time looking around and walking the trails.  We stayed the night at the Jarnem campground and did a couple of walks in this small but excellent park.

After Zebra Rock/Keep River it was on the road again to Timber Creek for a huge 170km road trip where I am updating this blog from.  We have decided that we will only update the blog when we have full signal as when we have tried with less it is a real P in the A.  We booked into the shadiest caravan park we have had so far at Timber Creek for three nights and have gone into the Jubbarra/Gregory National Park for one night in the roof top camper again. The roof top camper is giving us a lot of versatility for going off and looking at places without having to worry about a van or another set of wheels behind you.  Thoroughly recommend these to anyone and after a few goes they do not take very long to set up and then pack up when you leave.

The Jubbarra/Gregory National Park is really interesting and it would be great to spend more time looking around.  Some of the scenery is fantastic and a better photographer would do it justice.  We were very surprised to see how much water was still around considering how dry WA was when we were walking to some of the supposedly permanent water holes in our National Parks.  The other good thing about the NT National Parks is that it is only $3.30 each per night to stay and that includes park fees, though some of the roads a pretty crap so that may explain why it is so cheap.

The Bullita Homestead it self is worth the drive just to look at.  They have done an excellent job of restoring this homestead and the stockyards for you to look at.  The stockyards are really impressive and very well restored.  After the night spent at the Limestone Gorge campground we then drove along the Tuwakam Track heading for Jasper Gorge.  This track is only 20 kilometres long but took us nearly 1.5hrs to do.  Around 10k’s was over rocks etc that really slowed you down.  we did see some wild donkeys and brumbies along this track so it made it a bit interesting.  The brumbies were very flighty and galloped of into the scrub before we got very close to them but the donkeys were quite curious and let you get within about 25 metres from them before backing away and maintaining that distance.  Jasper Gorge is absolutely huge and you drive through it for about 20 kilometres to a great billabong at the end – absolutely fantastic if you like that sort of thing.