6• Coen – Katherine

Rough roads continued back to Laura so when Jean-Philippe decided to take yet another shortcut towards Dunbar and the Gulf of Carpentaria – only tiny dots on the maps – Armande got worried. We tried to get information about the track condition with little success. Thanks to Jean-Philippe’s optimism, we chose tho tackle it and found ourselves on the best dirt road we haven’t seen for quite some time. On top of that, it shortened our journey by nearly 400km compare to the road further south.

On our way to Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) NP we bush-camped along a few beautiful rivers, unfortunately all too often populated by crocodiles.

As we were about to do our routine check before crossing one of these rivers, we noticed two campers on the other side waving frantically and yelling not to set foot in the water and just get across. Once on the other side we found out that a 14foot “salty” and a bull-shark have been spotted by locals amongst numerous freshies.

We decided to set camp there and enjoy the rest of our Swiss National Day. It was later that night, as we were sharing some snaps with our only and very helpful neighbours, that we saw, in the beam of a car crossing the river, the huge croc going upstream! It was definitely not an illusion due to the snaps! Thanks again Meg & Pete!

On a sad note, we unfortunately have to report our first road causality after having avoided many: a roo. One more bump on the road, but this one still shakes us today!

We thought we had left the worst road behind us in the Cape but had a booster-shot approaching Lawn Hill. We ended up with a shattered rear windshield which led us to shorten our stay in this beautiful gorge to rally Mount Isa for repairs. It turned out to be the annual rodeo weekend and we had some trouble finding a place to camp. On the another hand, it gave us the opportunity, after a few failed attempts, to finally get together and spend a great evening with Fabienne and Jean-Luc, also touring in the area.

We decided not to go back to Lawn Hill where we had planned to do some more walking and headed for Katherine. As soon as we passed Camooweal on the QLD/NT border, we found ourselves surrounded by emptiness and dusty plains. We then stopped at Limmen National Park where we were blown away by very old geological formations called “Lost City”.

We finally dusted ourselves in the many hot springs (34°, the ideal temperature for Jean-Philippe) before reaching Katherine. Even our car and camper-trailer got a clean-up and almost regained their original colours.