Kimberleys Trip 21 June 2019

The morning was 15.4oC but it felt colder than the previous day due to the cold wind. I didn't have a very good night's sleep as there was a long hill and the trucks roared past all night, the wind flapped the canvas, then at around 9pm a car came in with dogs. They spent a long time parking, (one neighbour told us an hour!), then at some time in the middle of the night they let their dogs go and they came around us fighting, growling & barking. The owners packed up really early and left before anyone could say anything to them, but we weren't the only ones annoyed by their rudeness. We later saw there was a better place to stop on the southern side, on the east off the road but would have had no toilet or bins. 

One property had interesting fence strainers with several pickets, wire and filled with rocks. It made sense as there were rocks everywhere. We got fuel at 3-Ways and had an early lunch. Birdlife included 2 huge wedgetail eagles and later an emu. 

For our night camp we stopped at Avon Downs Rest Area. This was quite interesting as there is no town, but a police station across the road. The rest areas on the Barkly Highway were no-where near as busy as those on the Stuart Highway. We parked at the opposite end to the toilet, so it was a long hike, and the toilet needed a lot of maintenance. As we were out of gas Darryl started a fire to cook dinner. A van came in and a man called Jan came over for a chat by the fire. The wind was cold and buffeting. Interestingly, the Noisy Miners here have a lot more yellow colouring to what we have on the east coast.