Who has done the Kimberly

[HuskyInAuz]

Bloody,
We took the Broadwater and 'trol out west last year. Up to Brisbane, to get the new turbo on, then various routes up to Longreach, Three Ways, Tennant Creek, Alice (over Queens Birthday weekend and the Finkle races) then up the Tanami. Now I've been fortunate and been to a few places in this world but except for 25km or so, the Tanami was not that bad. We blew by Rabbit Flat because the road was blocked off and missed the signs. We stopped a few km's further west for lunch and continued on to Stoney Creek. I should have spent a week there, spectacular night sky, no one around, just a few noisy road trains.
On to Halls Creek then down to Broome, again, overrated IMHO, but had to get the aux tank repaired as a baffle weld cracked and we leaked fuel from Halls Creek to Broome. Sat in the overflow pitch for 5 nights/days (35C) and got the heck out of there up the Daimper to Middle Lagoon, that road was the most interesting longer run we had.
From there to Derby, then up the Gibb, sorry this road is way over rated and busy. One caveat, there are sharp rocky sections one must slow down to 60k/hr or so otherwise I was sitting at 95/100 km/h for hours. We found Mt. Elizabeth Station very interesting and good value (if you stay for more that two nights you get a 50% discount to $10/night) or you can even work your stay fees off if you choose. Regardless, for $10/night it was great, the best gorge along the Gibb, Aboriginal Rock art and some challenging 4x4 work. You can even transit from there to the NW coast which is a isolationist nirvana.
From there to Wyndam, one night due to noise, Kununurra, highly overrated caravan park on the east side by the lake, for two nights then off to Katherine for one night. Looked like a great National Park along the way but we had ‘Joe’ so we couldn’t stay. Off to Mcarthur for several nights at a very nice park, day trip to Bing Bong and the river camp, where caravans were ‘nut to butt’. Fishing was off so not a lot of happy folks there.

Camooweal along the lagoon for several nights of free camping until a jerk pulled in his Bushtracker and Toyo Safari right next to us when there was hundreds of meters around us to park. He got out and said something like ‘hope I didn’t block your view’ (of the lagoon). I responded, “No, it looks like a caravan park here to me” .. He didn’t talk to me for the rest of our time there which was fine.
From there back to Mt. Isa for a re-supply and a stay over, nice view of Mt. Isa in my rear view mirror and we took off to Karumba. Nice fish and chips place on the corner, caravan parks packed and no ‘free camping’ anywhere, we took off and spent a week or so free camping heading east (Croydon, Georgetown, Minnamoolka, Ravenshoe, etc.) on a hilltop. Woodburn Station was good as we’d stayed there in on our last trip but a gaggle of kids showed up and so we left after three days.
Standard stuff from there to Mission Beach south.
Didn’t break anything except the Brown Davis Aux Tank everything else on my ‘mods’ list work great!

We were gone for a about three months.