Leaving NT

We were up early as we knew there could be long queues at the border. We did a quick stop at Timber Creek and a beautiful loaf of wholemeal bread just out of the oven. The smell teased us all the way to the border. The drive to the border was beautiful as it winds through the Judbarra/Gregory National Park. Amazing red rock ranges, our first Boab trees and sandy creeks. We tried to take photos of the Boab trees initially but soon saw hundreds of these. The Boab trees have huge trunks which they use to store water in the wet and use in the dry season and are very special to this region..

We had had no mobile reception once we left Katherine yesterday afternoon until we reached the border this morning. We were very surprised to receive messages while waiting in the border queue about the lockdown in the NT. Talk about increasing the heart rate. It took around 50 minutes to get to the front of the queue ( there were 4 other vans in front of us). We were processed first by the police asking to see our border permit, drivers licences and proof we had been in the NT for more than 14 days. All of that was fine for us both and then the quarantine officer asked to see any fruit and vegetables. We lost some lettuce and onions leaving just the carrots. We were then free to leave and I finally started to breathe again. We suspect it could be a different story for people trying to enter tomorrow as WA is by far the most strict for border closures.

It is only 55km from the border to Kununurra and we did have a time zone change. We are now on WA time so 2 hours behind the East Coast and 4 hours behind NZ. It will be strange with sunset at 5:15pm. As we were not sure if we would be able to enter WA we had not booked any accomodation, luckily we found a powered site pretty easy.

After setting up camp it was into town to get some vegetables and fruit to top up. It is hot here but feels much drier. The usual swim at the hottest part of the day. I suspect it will be an early night tonight with the time change. We have now been travelling for 50 days and driven more than 10000km.

The NT has been amazing with some incredible treasures if you are willing to hunt for them. From the incredible rock formations rising from the desert glowing in the sun to amazing waterfalls and rock pools in the north. Not to mention the hot springs and blue sunny days every day. Everyone needs to add Darwin to their travel destinations when we can all move freely again.Read more