Ready to Go

Ready to Go
Ready to Go

Monday, 27 June 2016

Mary's Pool & Ellendale Free Camp

Sunday the 19th saw us enjoying an easy morning at the Bungle Bungles. We had lovely showers before we hit the road around 10 AM. We saw a few Wedge Tail Eagles and some lovely scenery along the way.



We stopped in Halls Creek to fill up our diesel tanks as I was just about running on fumes. Had a bit of fun at the service station. We originally got in line at the diesel pumps around the rear of the station like the last time through. We waited for a few cars that took their sweet time before a fellow from a Kimberley Wild Tour Bus decided to advise us all that these pumps were only for trucks. We moved around front with some difficulty (reversing through parked caravans etc.) and waited in line behind another few vehicles before we finally got our diesel. Found out at checkout that the rear pumps were also for caravan drivers! Turns out the tour bus driver just didn't want to wait his turn in line! A bit of a painful experience and I can’t say there would be too many other reasons to stop in Halls Creek.

We continued a further 110 Km south west to Mary's Pool Campground. This is a large and very popular free camp. We pulled in just after lunch and it was already quite full. We found a couple of nice shady sites and got setup. Campground has basic drop toilets and a dump point. Toilets were probably a male only domain so 1.5 Stars. Sandra and Carol did a walk around the campground later and counted 60 caravans/campers. Obviously a busy campground. Even had an entertainer playing there the night we were there. Sandra and Carol went down for a listen while Stephen and I cooked a BBQ dinner.




We awoke Monday morning to find we had run out of gas during the night and our fridge not working. We switched over tanks but the bloody fridge wouldn’t start up again. We managed to rearrange all our fridge contents between our portable fridges.

We hit the road again heading towards Fitzroy Crossing. Topped up with Diesel again here which was again an interesting experience. Originally I drove into the station the wrong direction (although no signs) only to get caught up in a Random Breath Test as I tried to get into the station from the other side. Eventually I got filled up and we were back on the road again. We traveled through some scenic countryside before arriving at Ellendale free camp. Much smaller than Mary's Pool but filled up quickly after we got there. We got a couple of quiet somewhat shaded sites before the rush. The fridge fired up first try on gas this time just to keep us guessing. We let it cool off a bit before transferring every back from the portable fridges again! Ellendale has only basic drop toilets and Dump Point again. Only 1.5 Stars and a “men only experience”! Met a few people camping next to us and enjoyed Happy Hour with them. Rans was struggling with his portable fridge again so we spent a bit of time fiddling with it. For some reason we can’t seem to get all our fridges working at any one time!

One final note on these two stops is that we got Telstra service at both of them. Given all the more populated areas we couldn’t get service this was quite amazing! Should be this way everywhere!



No comments:

Post a Comment