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Thursday 22 July 2010

Halls Creek




Thursday, 22 July

Left Kununurra by 8.00 am for the drive to Halls Creek. We were very doubtful about staying at Halls Creek (the town has a “reputation”), but there is no where else apart from free camping.

The beautiful road gave way, after about 100 kms, to a much narrower and bumpier road, with no fog line and one lane bridges. The road wound between the ranges, with some spectacular scenery. Today we saw our first eagle since before Alice Springs, some brolgas, lots of wild horses, and upset a whistling kite in the middle of the road eating a snake for morning tea.

Halls Creek is an Aboriginal town with one caravan park which empties each morning and fills up each afternoon. None of the shops have windows, are just brick walls with a small doorway. We filled up with diesel at the Shell (Coles Express, would you believe!!!), $150.9 a litre and what we considered to be a rather dodgy pump. We found it hard to believe that we had used over 73 litres in 360 kms, especially when the Pajero gave our fuel average at 17.9 litres/100 km! The caravan park is perfectly acceptable, with gravel sites, power and water connections and the amenities are very clean and comparable to most caravan parks. There are a few locals in onsite caravans. Being Friday night, the town may become a little rowdy.

This afternoon we went for a drive down Duncan Road (which nearly had more traffic than the highway, with all the offroaders heading to and from Kununurra the back way), quickly became covered in red dust before we turned off towards China Wall. This is a quartz outcrop that looks like a mini Great Wall of China. We donned the 4WD shoes before heading down the track for a closer look, then one of us stood on some snake infested rocks surrounded by snake infested grass while the other one crossed the waterhole and climbed the stony hill to the China Wall.

Yea – the wireless broadband is working perfectly!

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