Keep River National Park

Farewell WA - Hello NT!

Our van is classified as ‘Semi-Offroad’ and when we purchased it we specifically told the sales guy that we would be taking it on dirt roads with bumps but not full on 4WD tracks.  He assured us that it would have no problems at all.  The 13km access road into the Gurrandalng Campground at the Keep River National Park is one of those dirt roads with some corrugations but nothing that we considered very bad.  Ross and Barb have caravanned for many years and described the road as ‘nothing’.

You can imagine our surprise then when we opened the caravan door upon arrival at our site and found smashed glass, frozen cold packs and fish fingers all over the floor.  Initially this was perplexing as we couldn’t see anywhere that the glass could have come from and the freezer door was closed and latched.  We assumed that the fish fingers and cold packs had not teleported out of the freezer but couldn’t see how they could possibly have escaped.  The large pot drawer from under the sink had also slid right out and was sitting on the floor.

Messy!

 After some closer investigation we identified the smashed glass as being the inner glass insert from the oven door.  There were a few glass shards in the oven itself so we suspect that it shattered in place and somehow fell out of the resulting gap at the bottom.  The freezer was another puzzle and we didn’t figure out what had happened there until Ross had an idea and lifted the freezer door up in place while it was closed.  It slides up a cm or so on its hinges and that small movement upwards is enough to lift it off the latch that should keep it closed.  The best possible explanation for the escaping fish fingers is that the bumps of the van caused the door to lift up on it’s hinges and the weight of the freezer contents pushed the doors open momentarily.  The door is weighted to close itself and this would be why it was shut when we opened the van.  Ross is a cabinet maker and upon inspection of the drawer told us that the metal slides and runners are far too small for a drawer of that size (they had bent down at the front during the journey thus facilitating the drawer’s escape).  We cleaned up the van and Ross put a cable tie around the hinge so that the door can no longer move up and down on the hinge. 

It was super hot so we spent the rest of the afternoon in the shade outside while the boys played Lego on the picnic table. When it cooled down a bit they had fun climbing the awesome rock in the middle of the campground.  The adults wanted to play too!

Half way up..

No help needed here!

The campground is set up with ring of poles in a circle with regular rectangular incursions for people to back their vans into.  The road runs around the outside and the inner circle is grassed with a huge rock in the middle that the boys were very keen to climb.   Fire pits were placed at odd positions around the inside area and the way we were camped meant that we had a choice of two, neither of which were particularly convenient.  We decided on the one we would use later that evening and settled in.  A short time later a car pulled up, parked on the road and the people set up tents on the inner grass area, near the firepit.  We decided that parking on the road and camping outside a specified camping area was shonky and being so close to ‘our’ fire pit was plain rude.  We bagged them quietly to ourselves and decided that they’d just have to put up with us sitting around our fire 10 feet from their tents.  We wandered over and got our flames going and gave them an occasional look.

Later that evening Jenny went to the toilets and came back looking sheepish.  The sign on the back of the door clearly stated that the grassy area inside the fence line was for tents and we realised that our self righteous condemnation of them has been totally misplaced after all.  We still had our fire but tried to be quiet and Jenny went over to have a friendly chat to them the next morning in order to feel better about bagging them.

The next day we drove up to another section of the park and did the 5km Jarnem Walk out to Nigli Rock to see some rock art.  The walk itself was really hot and not overly interesting but the rock art was cool.  The boys were very happy to see the cars again.  

Us with the emu rock painting.  There is also a whale.

We spent the hot afternoon in the shade near the vans again and at sunset Jenny, Ross and Lou did a 2km loop walk from our campground through the rocks and nearby small gorge.  The boys flat out refused to go on another walk that day so Barb stayed with them, planning to go again in the morning.  This second walk was far more interesting than the one we had done that morning and the views were spectacular, particularly with the orange sunset.

The next morning we took the boys on that walk too so that they would have had some activity before another travel day. It was just as good in the morning light as it had been the evening before.

We decided that someone had better do part of the exit journey along the dirt road in the van while we drove to keep an eye on things and make sure nothing else inside broke.  We are glad we did.  The glass top of the stove was jumping up and down so much that we are amazed it didn’t smash on the way in.  The griller and stove doors were also jumping around and we ended up traveling with a towel providing padding in between the glass and stovetop elements and several strategically placed sponges shoved into hinges and gaps in other places on the stove to stop things moving.  We made it back to the bitumen without any further damage and are now speaking to New Age about getting everything repaired.