Mount Bundy Station

Monday 27^th June

Katherine Gorge to Mt Bundy Station

We packed up the van and drove the 30 odd km back into Katherine to get some groceries before heading north again.  We had learnt from our maps that there was a huge caravan parking area next to the Information Centre in Katherine, with Woolworths just across the road. An ideal set up for travellers like ourselves.  You could get information and groceries all in one hit.

They were right, it was huge, and just as well.  Everyone else must have read the same information as we had. There must have been well over a hundred caravans, motor homes, camper vans, and camper trailers, either parked, trying to park, or just leaving.  What a shambles.  Luckily we spotted a space where someone had just left, and managed to sneak in and park before someone else spotted it.  It would have been a great place to have a caravan smashing derby.  The boys from Top Gear would have had a ball.

Loaded up with groceries, we headed north towards PINE CREEK, about 90km away.  We had decided we would stay in KATHERINE and have a look around the town, on our way back down from DARWIN.

At PINE CREEK we fuelled up, and also spent some time having a look through their Rail Museum. 

Then it was on northwards again heading for MT BUNDY STATION about 120km away, where we intended to stay the night.  MT BUNDY STATION is a fully working Cattle Station, which also caters for tourists, and is about 3km east of the small town of ADELAIDE WATERS.  The station homestead and camping grounds are alongside the Adelaide River.

As we drove down the driveway we spotted about 40 water buffalo grazing in a paddock beside the drive.  Some of them were sporting some amazing sets of horns. 

Our campsite is sort of part of the farmyard, and there are three or four horses, several dogs, a couple of peacocks, and half a dozen guinea fowls, wandering around the caravan.

We look straight out onto a paddock about 20 acres in size, which contains among other things,  about half a dozen horses, a huge Brahman bull, an assortment of birds including storks and ibises,  hanging around the water hole, which apparently has some fresh water crocs in it, an assortment of red and grey kangaroos, and a few wallabies.  Talk about being rural and peaceful.

After setting up camp we went for a walk down by the river, and I spotted a small fresh water crocodile just as it dived off the branch it was lying on, and swam across the river.

Later on, just on sunset, I took a drive along the road and spotted about 50 kangaroos in a paddock.

Cameron soon found another boy about his age camped down by the river, and that was the last we saw of him. He came back after dark to get a torch to go spotting for Cane Toads.  We could have told him he didn’t have to go far, a couple had taken up residence in the toilet block, but we didn’t want to spoil their fun.  They came back later with a tiny little tree frog they had found.

That night we were lulled to sleep to the sounds of all sorts of strange bird calls, to be woken up later by a barking owl, which makes a sound just like a dog barking.