Vikings in Australia - Víkingar í Ástralíu

14^th of September

We packed up and then went to Tyrepower in Kununarra. I had arranged to have them replace both the front tyres with new Coopers ST Maxx. They were quite worn after just over 50k km of usage! While that was in progress, Sibba and I went into the shopping centre for a cuppa. Sibba also went to organise a purchase of items to be posted back home. We simply could not fit anything more in the car! The tyre fitting only took an hour, so we headed straight out of town. The destination was Timber Creek. We decided to stay there for a couple of nights and spend a day exploring Gregorys National Park. It’s actually being renamed to Jutapurra National Park, but will continue to be known under both names for a while. The drive to Timber Creek was only around 230km, so we arrived there shortly after midday. Just before arriving, we went to a short turn off to the Gregory’s boab tree. He was an explorer that explored these parts back in 1854-5. He set up camp on the banks of the Victoria River and used that as a base to explore all over the place. When his party left, they carved into the Boab tree instructions, guiding others to a letter they had left with their plans for the return journey. Another early graffiti artist!!

We camped at the campground in Timber Creek. We decided to use that as the base for the following day as we explored the national park. It’s a well shaded campground, but I had a hard time driving the tent poles into the ground. They either hit the tree roots, or some rock. In the end we only had a few poles and made do with that. Around 5pm one of the staff came around with a bucket of beef pieces. She was going to feed the fresh water crocs off a small bridge over a pool behind the campground. We had to see this, as I could see the girl doing the feeding still had all her limbs!

She went out to the middle of the bridge, along with everyone else and then hooked a piece of beef on the end of a rope. The hook was made of soft wire so it would easily give in. Then she floated this above the pool to entice the crocs.

The crocs knew it was time, because they arrived just around 5pm as well. There were three of them, all fresh water crocs. They were not very hungry. They seemed to be very lazy about this. In the end the girl did manage to feed them a few bits, plus allowing other visitors to do that as well. I took a few photos, but I also noticed that several trees were occupied by bats. Not a handful, a few hundred, just hanging there in several trees along the campground edge. They are noisy critters, but thankfully they go quiet after sunset!