Day 12 - Burketown to Adel's Grove
A beautiful sunrise over Burketown this morning - and I even saw it! We
enjoyed our morning cuppa as the day woke up and had breakfast before packing
up to be on the road by 9am. First stop was the Burketown Convenience Store for
a few groceries, as we won't be within cooee of a shop for quite a while now.
Then it was up the road to the butcher, who is also the baker (seems to be the
trend in the northern gulf towns). Today was wholemeal bread day so we stocked
up on a few things. The butcher/baker is oppposite the pub, where we enjoyed
our meal last night. Although so modern (especially compared to what was here
before the fire), it had a pretty nice atmosphere, with the locals gearing up
for a pool comp. We both enjoyed local fish for dinner although during our walk
home, we got a huge fright when my torch picked up a small snake close to
Greg's feet on the footpath. Thank goodness for the torch and we walked on the
road for the rest of the way home.
The road was a very good bitumen all the way to Gregory Downs, some 100km.
Who could resist the Gregory photo in front of the Gregory sign?
The bitumen ended after a few kilometres, which we were expected so we
pulled over to let the tyres down. The road was excellent gravel for about
60km, at which point - coincidentally - there was a turn off to a mine. After
that the road became very corrugated and even with our pressures down, we were
crawling along at 15km/hr to avoid the deep corrugations. We eventually arrived
at Adel's Grove, which they describe as a piece of paradise in the Lawn Hill
National Park. We got set up and fired up the generator to cool the van (no
powered sites here!). We then settled down to a lovely lunch (that Burketown
butcher does a good job with his sandwich meats). Afterwards, I decided I'd
better do some washing and wanted to combine that with a swim. Greg was happy
to sit in the van with his book so I walked with the washing to the laundry,
put the machine on ($5 per load - Lisa, have you paid that much anywhere yet?)
and headed to the river to swim while my washing was washing. The grove that
gives this place it's name was cool and shaded and eventually I came out at the
river bank.
The trees are so lush along the water, with plenty of palms and
others overhanging the water. And the water - a beautiful cloudy blue (from the
minerals). It was refreshing but I really enjoyed my swim, and got chatting to
some other travellers, as we are getting concerned about whether this van will
cope with the rest of the Savannah Way. Back to hang out the washing, and then
we went down to the bar for a drink. As the sun sets, the temperature is
cooling nicely and we'll put some more produce from the Burketown butcher on
the grill soon for dinner. After Greg has a haircut....!
posted by Tracey @ 9:00 pm
1 Comments:
$4 a load is our most expensive so far. We are back into service as well, nice to catch up on your travels, see you tomorrow in Katherine.
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