Jarnem Campground. Keep River N.P.

This will be home for 3 weeks.

Ian is thinking he should have climatized more thoroughly on the way north. It’s unseasonably hot in the region by about 8°. Eeek!

This is the first time we have done a full camp setup on Day 1. Usually stuff gradually oozes out of the van into use. It’s Sunday when we arrive and Ranger Pam was not available. We just set up and hopefully we can track her down tomorrow. The Park is only 44,000 sq kilometres - no problem.
Happy to say the observatory is aligned to accommodate a waxing to full moon that’s rising in the early evening. The planets are still tightly arrayed on the ecliptic plain during the dawn which is a little bonus for the early birds.

The camp site is positioned under Nyawanyawam Dawang, a Registered Sacred Site, so there will be no exploring but it’s very nice company. There are walking options, to Aboriginal art sites (Nigli) and various lookouts (Jarnem, Jenemoom and Goorradalng) which Hema Maps unhelpfully describes as “rocky outcrops”.

There is just one permanent Ranger in the park and she is a newby in her first posting (plenty of jobs in NT Parks if you are interested). It’s odd having an Argentinian helping us with the indigenous pronunciations. There is a rotation of Rangers into Keep River from Judburra/Gregory NP that help out with things like the fires that were burning in our first week here.

A fun connection was meeting Ranger Phil, and later, his dad Ranger Victor. Victor’s dad worked on Humbert Station under Charlie Schultz. He, who’s amazing life was detailed in the book “Beyond The Big Run”. The book had inspired us to explore and experience all sorts of adventures within Judburra NP, where we travelled through Bullita and Humbert Stations to see places mentioned in the book. We mentioned some in the post on Gregory N.P.
Victor shared some great stories about life as an Aboriginal Stockman from his father, grandfather and his own experiences.Read more