In the Morning after our overnight camp at the road house we were surprised to see that we were driving on a sealed road until the last aboriginal town, then we were back to the red gravel which continued for several hundred kilometers until we were well into the NT.
We had noticed that a few places selling fuel had sorry no diesel signs displayed on pumps, so every chance we had we refueled the ute.
We passed through a aboriginal community and then 98 klm further along the road we arrived at Hells gate road house to re fuel yet again.
At hells gate this old man came out and refueled for us , we had a chat about living so remote and about the airfield situated across the road and when I asked how much use it had, he said he had a lot of survey aircraft using it over the past few weeks. When we asked about the road conditions in the direction we were heading, the same story that water was knee deep and keep to the right when you cross one river as you will disappear .
Both prior to and after the hells gate service station the road was surrounded by large rocky outcrops which was a nice change of scenery at about 12k east we saw a Dingo on the road in a dip, must have been getting a drink, but he vanished when looked up and saw us.
We were about 12 Klm from crossing the NT boarder when we saw our first vehicle approaching, we had just crossed a very deep dip with water in it and a vehicle appeared over the hill with a off road caravan in tow. I stopped and he stopped and we both turned our motors off for a bit of a chat.
when we asked about the knee deep water crossings, and the keep to the right water crossing, he said that he has seen nothing and no water crossing was more than running board deep.
He was driving the road on this own , he was meant to have a tag a long tour behind him with people from Perth, but, he had waited for several days near Darwin, only to be told that they were not coming, He said no worries as he had already spent the deposit Money they had paid. He also said that he has passed about six vehicles that were on the way, most towing caravans or boats.
With the new road information from some one who just travelled the road and knowing now their would be no river crossing problems, we pushed on over the Nt boarder, to meet three of the vehicles coming our way.
We crossed a nice shaded creek called Kangaroo creek and stopped in a nice shady spot for lunch.
The 40 min we rested, we saw not one other vehicle go past in any direction.
Back driving again we did get more traffic on coming another three vehicles heading east.
All day we mainly saw only a few cattle, however, we did see six Brumbys on the road at one point early in the morning and late in thee afternoon two kangaroos went by. one big one was hopping at full speed and went straight across in front of us, just 2 seconds faster and we would had met.
At the final river crossing before we got to the sealed road again in the town of Borroloola a road crew were just starting to put fill in the river.
We Looked around the small town and decided we still had a few hours of day light so we headed on down the road to a service station and camp ground at Cape Crawford.
T and M
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