Day 3 of our trip
We swagged it under the stars but were awoken at about 4.30am when it started to rain - huge freezing drops of rain. There was a choice of putting up shelter, sleeping in the back of the 130, sleeping under the 130, or driving on. I was feeling quite refreshed and declded to drive, letting Andrew have a nap.
We stopped about 2 1/2 hours later, at a roadside stop 45kms out of Threeways where we boiled the billy for a nice hot coffee and cooked breakfast. The weather was still bloody freezing, for the Barkley.
Our stop before Threeways. The gas cooker can be seen in the lee of the rear tyre
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/3543/nov2009116.jpg
We drove on through Threeways, Elliot, Dunmarra. Mataranka. 'the Gove turn off', Katherine, Pine Creek and on to Darwin, arriving there at a bit after 4.00pm. We went through a severe rain storm on the outskirts of Palmerston, one of the heaviest I have ever encountered. We had to hurriedly close the vents into the rear. Other than that, the only leak was onto the drivers accellerator foot, because of a hole through the firewall which we forgot to plug (The spot where the cable used to go before the drive by wire accellerator.
We met Sharon and Alfred at the Palmerston turnoff.
Sharon had booked us a cabin at the Lee Point Caravan Park, which was quite nice. The next morning we went to the Shaws Transport depot to pick up Alfred's new Honda quad. They bought the quad in Perth and had it trucked up to Darwin. There were no similar quads available locally and also it was far more cost effective.
Day 4
Unbeknown to us the quad was wrapped and packed in a framed container, which was too large to fit onto the trailer. We had to dismantle the crate and re-pack it on the trailer.
http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/4176/nov2009134.jpg
Due to repacking the quad we were a bit late leaving the Shaws depot in Darwin, then had to drop off Alfred & Sharon's hire car, pick up all their stuff from the hotel, pick up a few more supplies before heading south towards the Gove turnoff (the Bulman track) which is about 4 hours south of Darwin
We got to the turn off a bit before 5.00pm. a bit late to be tackling the road really, but what the heck, we had a few willing experienced drivers. Gapuwiyak is a bit over 500kms from the turn-off, all but the first 55kms are dirt road.
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/2966/nov2009139.jpg
I have travelled this road over 20 times and know a lot of the pitfalls, so decided to drive the first leg to the Minarou River. As it turned out there had been about 4 inches of rain in much of this area, so the drive was quite interesting, with many washouts and huge puddles.
An intersting thing was as we approached the Minarou, we could see several fresh water crocodiles swiming very close to the actual causeway over the river.
Due to poor light we took no pics of the road in, but it would have been interesting. At times the muddy water off the road came streaming down off the roof after going through large culvits amd streams. There were literally hundreds of them. The Goyder river crossing, which closes this track for up to 6 months of the year, was a non event.
After several driver changes, we got onto Gapuwiyak at about 12.30 (NT time) or about 2.00am Sydney time - which we were still on.
Day 5
A few pics of the car at Sharon and Alfred's after the trip in.
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/8326/nov2009157.jpg
http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/8835/nov2009159.jpg
http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/8590/nov2009155.jpg
The inside of the tray was absolutely spottless - no dust or mud. Yes, a third of the track in was thick dust as the rain was patchy.
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/8773/nov2009169.jpg
The 130 went like a dream from Sydney, yes we had a few hick-ups, all in areas which we didn't work on, other than the wheel nut issue.
We made it up here on pretty good time - almost 5,000kms in 4 days including a stack of crook dirt road, leaving us with a lot of free time. Sharon and Alfred had taken the rest of the week off so there was heaps of time for exploring. Our flight back to Sydney wasn't for another 6 1/2 days
To be continued ....................
Erich
