Kimberley 2023

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Kimberley 2023 Traveler
2
Anna Plains Station to Newman
May 25, 2023 in Australia ☀️ 27 °C
An early start today - we got up 5.45 and had the camper packed up and were ready to leave just before 7am. It was an easy drive with little traffic and no other vehicle insight for the first 60 kms. Silvie prepared breakfast the night before and we were hoping to get some coffee at Sandfire Roadhouse but no luck …….instant only. So we just kept going until we reached Port Hedland around 11.30am for our coffee. Needless to say the breakkie was already gone by then 🤣.
The drive from there was pretty boring until we reached the Hamersley Ranges ….sadly we also hit a traffic jam there, but at least that gave us some time to enjoy the scenery. We initially planned to make it past Karijini, but in the end kept going until Newman and decided that if we keep going like we have today we can make it back home by Sat night - one less day until we get to cuddle our doggies.
We are camping tonight at the beautiful Newman carpark (also called caravan park) and Silvie cooked the beautiful Salmon we were given from some nice fellow campers at Anna Plains. It was absolutely delicious and certainly has been the highlight of our carpark camping experience. We have done 825km today. Silvie is very happy about the carpark situation as there was no need to reverse, has clear marking where to park and as a bonus it is levelled - win win win 😂
Off to bed soon and up early tomorrow……next stop Paynes Find 🤞🏻.Read more
Traveler Stau?? 🙄😂🙄
5/26/23ReplyTranslate
TravelerNur kurz…. Straßenarbeiten, viele Roadtrains and Hügel 😂😂
5/26/23ReplyTranslate
4 likes
Kimberley 2023 Traveler
Newman to Paynes Find
May 26, 2023 in Australia ⛅ 15 °C
Sweet Jesus, that was a bad night… not only did we start hearing the very familiar speedway sound that went on until 23.00 but also the late arrivals to the next carpark spot managed to attached towels to their roof tent that were flapping in the wind all night. They then decided to pack at 4am while talking and talking. I slept through it but poor Kat did not so was not feeling the freshest this morning.
We left the carpark just before 7am, refuelled, got ourselves a coffee (the choices of vendors were impressive, by the way the town was quite impressive in a way - they even had Good Grocer, Dome and two shopping plazas! Supposedly the BHP injected 30mil to develop this modern mining town).
The drive was uneventful, with rather boring scenery. We saw heaps of budgies, big wedge tail eagles, goats, cows, kangaroos and even a dingo (or a wild dog - who knows), we passed a few huge oversized trucks carrying all different parts or big mining trucks and that is about it. I can report a total chips relapse that we experienced in Mt Magnet and got ourselves some 🍟😇. We decided to be good tomorrow and stay away from crap food 🤞🏻.
We parked at Paynes Find for our last night. The site resembles yesterday’s carpark except its not well levelled and is on gravel. The bonus of this site is that it comes with constant humming… 24 hours every day humming produced by the generator that is the only source of power for Paynes Find - how bloody ridiculous - what happened with solar power! So we will be hummed rather than roared into sleep… hahaha….
The temperature dropped significantly today. We started with 13 degrees in Newman and that was ongoing until Kumarina when the temperature starting raising. The maximum we observed today was 20.5 degrees. It is currently 16 degrees with expected 7 degrees tomorrow morning… 🥶
After sitting on our bums all day we had a quick stroll to the Paynes Find Gold battery, which is usually open during wildflower season for tourists but is currently closed until further notice. We cooked ourselves goulash soup that my sister sent me sometime ago and had a Vienna sausage with it. Nice and warm - that will keep up going throughout the night.
Today we drove 762km and are sitting on 8224km so far.
Well, that is a last night of our epic trip and we are both looking forward to our own bed tomorrow and also to big snuggles from our doggies that will be delivered by their pawrents tomorrow evening. Yey!!!!Read more
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Kimberley 2023 Traveler
Panyes Find to Bornholm
May 27, 2023 in Australia ☁️ 20 °C
Another night that would benefit from an improvement…. Ah well - the generator and cold got us out of bed early and we were on the road just around 6.40 am. The sunrise was much later too - 6.30 am and the temperature was a refreshing 4 degrees. In the holiday spirit I pursued it in my shorts 😂 and down jacket.
We just drove and drove and drove until our bums were flat. We had short stops at Wubin, Wonsan Hills, Northam and Mt Barker. We were on the road for at least 10 hours yet we have done only 826km.
It was a long day but the reward (🐶 🐶 🐶) was waiting for us so we were quite motivated.
It was quite strange to come back home, the house felt so big and empty unlike our camper 😂
Sally and Brian arrived shortly after us with cooked dinner - very yummy spaghetti bolognese - and also with the doggies. The girls appeared somewhat happy to see us and Alfi did not recognise us at first as his eye site and hearing is not that great. All doggies settled in and although they had heaps of fun in the city I am sure they will be happy to lead the quite country lifestyle again. Finally, Basil their buddy will have time to recover from their stay…

We had a fantastic time and tomorrow marks exactly 4 weeks since we left. Kimberley was always on our bucket list and we are glad we did it. It was an epic trip - definitely one of ‘must do’ trips. We took heaps of photos but somehow they don’t do the justice to the real beauty we were surrounded by. We are already thinking of doing the Gibb River Road in future as we both would be very happy to return to the Kimberley region.

Trip Sums:

Total kilometres travelled: 9038 km
Total days on the road: 28 days
Total cost of fuel (diesel): $2360
Total litres: 1122 litres
Most expensive diesel: Halls Creek at 2.40 per litre
Cheapest diesel: Beaufort River at $1.68/L
Cost of accommodation (caravan parks - powered and unpowered sites and station stays): $1364 so about $25 per person per night

Canasta winner: Kat 👏🏻🥳🍾 7180 points
Silvie: 6860 pointsRead more
TravelerWell done.
5/29/23Reply
5 likes

Trip end
May 27, 2023

Anna Plains Station to Newman

Newman to Paynes Find

Panyes Find to Bornholm