Gismo Queen and her King

Day 8 - Porcupine National Park to Mount Surprise

Today we tackled the Kennedy Developmental Way. The section we started yesterday was a little bumpy, with shallow dips for floodways. However it was all bitumen, obviously trying to encourage the cityfolk to visit Porcupine National Park. I didn't notice any damage to the van until I went to have a shower last night and discovered the shower door had lost a pivot pin - obviously from the bumps. Luckily, I found the pin on the ground outside the van door this morning so we replaced it and taped the door down for the expected much rougher road today.

About ten kilometres north of the Porcupine Gorge National Park turn off, the bitumen ended, but the gravel was very good and the road very wide. We were optimistic as we drove along, only seeing a Subaru car. Another 12 km along and the bitumen was back! We couldn't believe our luck! That was shortlived as the gravel came back. This went on in sections for the whole 195km. If all the gravel had been as good as the first section, it wouldn't have been a problem. But we struck corrugations, sand, potholes and everything else that could happen to a gravel road.


About 100km in, I saw an approaching dust cloud and knew a road train was coming towards us. We pulled off to the side and got a courteous way from the driver as he passed us in a cloud of red dust. We were soon back on the way, contending with some good sections of gravel, some excellent sections of bitumen (randomly in the middle of nowhere) and some very ordinary sections of rocky corrugated gravel. It took us 3 3/4 hours to travel the 195km and as we pulled into the Oasis Roadhouse at The Lynd, we were looking forward to lunch and continuous bitumen for the rest of our journey. A quick check inside the caravan initially revealed no damage - until I stuck my head around the bathroom door and saw the shower door had come off again......and worse, gouged a hole in the shower floor. We'll make some more running repairs and have vowed that the shower screen door will travel on the bed (with the TV!) for the rough sections of our trip!

A great lunch was eaten and we were back on the road. Along the way, I saw our first wedge tailed eagle right beside us on the side of the road, eating some fresh kill. A bit further up the road, and the wedgy could have been eating roast beef, as a ripe dead bull was "maturing" on the side of the road.

We pulled into Mount Surprise at about 4pm, where we had booked two nights at the Bedrock Village Caravan Park. A very pleasant spot, although we haven't sighted Fred or Wilma yet. Beer o'clock was never so welcome.

posted by Tracey @ 6:50 pm