Our visit was a little short, but we saw all we wanted to see, and with the weather being less than awesome we decided to keep travelling. As usual, the sun started shining as we were leaving… but the storm clouds were still on the horizon – the rain would be back in 30 minutes.
Before we left though, there were a few WW2 plane wrecks that I wanted to have a look at. I don’t know why when I think about it logically – these are scenes of death, not really tourist attractions. Yet, like a car crash on the side of the highway, it’s interesting to see the destruction.
Anyway, looking at it objectively, it’s amazing the resilience of aluminium, even after nearly 70 years of being exposed to the elements, the fuselage is still in very good condition (crash damage excluded).
After putting up with the rutted roads north of Jardine River, it was amazing crossing the ferry and being on the smooth dirt roads again. It’s funny the way perspective can shift – driving up we thought the roads were a bit rough, clearly we didn’t know the full spectrum of rough roads!
Not much to talk about today, 480km of travel on gravel/dirt roads consumed most of the day. One thing that did keep me interested during the drive is the way the vegetation is constantly changing – from savannah like plains, to ghost gums and ant mounds, to dense forest. It seemed like we’d turn a corner, or cross a creek and the landscape would subtly change.
We set up camp at a free-camp just north of Coen. We initially looked at this site last week on our way up, but pushed on to Archer River (glad we did). It was empty last week, but full of families all set up for the Queen’s Birthday long weekend – slim pickings for flat ground to camp on! Could be worse, at least it’s free!
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