Grey nomads in Australia: Bugger!! It had to happen eventually

Katherine Gorge was hot, but beautiful and our tour allowed for an hour of swimming between Gorge 1 and Gorge 2. Much has been done to develop the campground and create a Visitor Centre since our last visit 26 years ago. The gorge, however, remains the same.

From Katherine, after a medical visit to get Isobel a tetanus shot after she had been bitten by a wallaby (!!), it was on to Pine Creek, which is a real haven for bird lovers. Unfortunately we did not see the elusive Hooded Parrot which is common in that area but Warwick did manage to see some Gouldian Finches.

From Pine Creek, on the advice of Warwick's cousin's husband, Richard, we set off down an unsealed road to Gunlom, apparently beautiful for swimming, waterfalls, etc. There are unsealed roads and unsealed roads, however and this was one of the rutted kind that would shake the teeth out of your head, not to mention what it does inside the van. After a while we decided to turn around and, getting back to the bitumen, after a while there was a sound like a gunshot. We stopped, checked all the tyres, but there was no sign of anything amiss. Arriving at the caravan park at Cooinda, however, someone asked if we were aware we were driving on an almost flat tyre. By the time we parked, it was completely flat -- and destroyed! We groaned, looked at the situation, considered the temperature, which was nearer 40 than 30 and said, "This is why we have Winnebago Roadside Assistance." Within an hour we had a huge truck beside our van, with an extremely pleasant young man to fix it. We very quickly got over feeling a bit shame-faced at getting someone out to change a wheel, when it took the expert about half an hour to release the spare wheel from its hiding place under the van! It was accompanied by lots of huffing and puffing and some asides about Iveco and their methods. We were glad we had not tried ourselves. The spare wheel is now on, a new one will be ordered and probably obtained on Monday, and we will be safe to travel again. It will be an interesting conversation with Richard when we visit him in Darwin next week!