Driving towards Kununurra, the scenery began to change.  Cliffs rose out from nowhere, many with large boulders balancing precariously on top of each other.

Although we have been to Kununurra before, we had plans to see Wyndham and have a really good look around the whole area.  A young couple I met in Darwin with Kyran in April were camped at the Hidden Valley Caravan Park in Kununurra and recommended it to us. However they were leaving the next day to drive the Gibb River Road. We really wanted to catch up with them, and Jack, being an auto electrician, had said he would check out our car and put in an Anderson plug for us. So we decided to book into Hidden Valley and backtrack to Wyndham the next day.

How many times have I said ‘the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry’? I’m beginning to think the best plan for us on this trip is to not plan at all.  We were listening to the sport on the radio when they announced all the Eagles football fans who were turning up to the stadium to watch the game, were being sent home. A short time later we heard Perth and the Peel region were going into Phase 1 covid19 restrictions due to one covid case. It soon followed that NSW had locked down because of a cluster of the Delta strain with over 100 cases; Queensland was probably also going to lockdown due to three cases there,  and then the worst news for us, that Darwin and surrounds were closing down for 48 hours due to a positive case at a mine. As the afternoon wore on, we heard that 900 miners from the mine, and close contacts of the case, changed shifts and left to go home to various parts of the country. This wasn’t good.  Kyran contacted us and told us to hotfoot it into the NT in case they locked down for longer.

Our only really issue was to decide whether to stay around the Kununurra area as originally planned, or try to get into the Territory and get to Nhulunbuy earlier. First world problems indeed. We organised our NT border entry permits and decided to give it some thought.

Meantime, we organised to have drinks and dinner with Ash and Jack (https://instagram.com/justadventure.aus?utm_medium=copy_link)

Jack fixed the electrics and we settled down beside our van to catch up on travels to date. Jack and Ash had just left the Territory and were heading along the Gibb River Road to Broome and the Dampier Peninsula.  Their rig was a camper trailer with all their storage including eskies underneath a roof top tent. It looked great and they were enjoying their year long trip. It was great to see them again.

Overnight the Northern Territory government put up a list of restrictions around the Darwin region including suspending border permits and preventing entry to Aboriginal communities.  The whole of Eastern Arnhem Land (where we were going) is an Aboriginal Reserve. Family from WA and NT began messaging us but the messages were mixed. Some said the NT border was closed, some said the Nhulunbuy track was closed; others said it was all still open. After talking to Kyran, we decided to head towards Katherine and see how far we could get. Our fear was the virus would spread and the lockdown extended in time and area preventing us from going in for some time. We really wanted to meet up with John’s son, Paul and grandsons, Ben and Zac who were going to be flying in from Perth for a holiday , and also be in Gove for Tommy’s 5th birthday. So, we packed up and left the caravan park by 8.30am, waving goodbye to Jack and Ash, and started the 500km drive to Katherine.