September 8th-10th, 2011-Timber Creek-Wirib Village Tourist Park

Thursday morning saw us pack up early and say goodbye to Katherine for the second time on our journey. This time we headed West 300Km to Timber Creek. The trip was good and we had a couple of quick stops; the second at the Victoria River Roadhouse. This part of the drive was beautiful as the red cliffs rise above the Victoria River. We enjoyed an ice cream snack and a look around before heading back out on the highway.

Timber Creek is really not much of a town with a couple of caravan parks, a hotel, and a couple of petrol stations. We stayed at the Wirib Tourist caravan park which is Aboriginally run and recommended to us by someone we met at Mataranka. The front of the park is not appealing but the caravan sites themselves are lovely and green. Some shade, a pool, and amenities were OK. We setup in the early afternoon.

Friday morning after a poor nights sleep due to strong winds we ventured South on the Bullita Access Road. We drove for about 50Km on a gravel road to the Bullita Homestead. The road was not too bad although the scenery was nothing spectacular. The homestead itself was very interesting especially for Di who had read a book about the Schultz family which had ties to the homestead. The Boab trees are very interesting in this area.

From here we carried on to the Limestone Gorge via a 6Km 4WD track. Fairly good road except for one dry but rocky creek crossing. We did a short 500m walk up to a lookout where we could see down the gorge and a large calcite deposit where the creek would run during the wet season. The hills around were interesting as they appeared to be terraced with natural rock formations.

We travelled back to the main road and then took the 20Km Tuwakam 4WD track across to the Buchanan Highway. The track was quite boring scenery but very rocky in spots. There was a few spots where the rocks were a bit too high for Sandra's liking but we made it through with no incidents. The 20Km took us 2 hours to complete. We stopped and had a picnic lunch inside the car because of the fly problem when we reached the far end.

We travelled a further 15-20Km south through the Jasper Gourge. This was beautiful with huge red cliffs on either side of the road. We finally decided to turn around and return about 70Km back along the gravel road to the Victoria Highway before returning to Timber Creek. The drive back was good but a number of bumpy sections to entertain the girls in the back seat. We spent some time giving the car a good clean inside and out upon our return. I reckon we had at least a half inch of red dust on the back bumper.

Saturday morning Terry, John, & Stephen went fishing down on the Victoria River. It was very windy and we had no success. Took a relaxing afternoon with a few naps and some reading. Late in the afternoon we took a drive up to the lookout which was very interesting. Had a great view of Victoria River and Timber Creek township. On the way back we drove down to Police Point Lookout and then stopped at the Police Museum. The museum was closed but we were able to get some photos and have a short walk around. We had a big feed of veggies as we can't take any into Western Australia where we are heading tomorrow.