We agreed to set off to
Roper Bar together. By 9am the temperature was already 32 degrees. The boys caught another grunter but it was not up to size. We got talking to a local fisho who delayed our departure for another hour but I got some more data for my book of tales! We heard that the roads we had just travelled through near Hells
Gate were now closed because of the wet conditions. We keep hearing people say that the wet is coming early - but we don't know what to believe.
We travelled 40kms on bitumen to get back to
Borroloola and then hit gravel road with rough corrugations which would take us the 370kms to
Roper Bar. We travelled at 80 - 90km/hr until the Nathan River
homestead where we had to traverse along tracks through the property. The recent rain had caused a black soil slick, which we had been warned about, but it was now dry. We stopped at the banks of the Limmen Bight river for lunch and some fishing. We heard lots of splashing but had no catches. I took Sharon down to investigate a noise we'd heard and found a small freshwater crocodile only 1 foot from the edge of the bank. She was really impressed because it was the first she had ever seen in the wild.
We moved on again and the heat was becoming almost unbearable. We stopped at the Town's River where we had heard that Merewyn and Andy had caught 2 good sized barra a few days earlier. Unfortunately there is only room a few campers and already the best spots were taken by two vehicles who were out on the river in a tinnie and looked set to stay for many weeks to come.
The guys were getting hot and tired but we drove on further and stopped at the St Vidgeons
ruins. Behind the
ruins, out of sight from the roadside, lays
Lomarieum Lagoon. We didn't stay here for the night but continued further on to
Roper Bar.
By this stage David was exhausted and I took over the driving. I was a little nervous at first because I had not driven much with the trailer, and definately not at the speeds necessary in the corrugations. We made it safely of couse though into
Roper Bar and fueled up at another expensive store. Fuel here cost $1/litre and I didn't buy the lettuce at $4.40 or the 4 tomatoes for $4.80 or the 2 litre
orange jice for $7 but I am craving fresh food!
We camped at the
Roper Bar camp ground and enjoyed hot showers and prepared a BBQ with Mark and Sharon. We were rather low on supplies so we had sausages, onions, tinned beetroot, tinned potato salad and pinneapple for dinner.