A quick HDR photo of sunset looking out our living room window at Monument Hill.  Sometimes even though the sunsets to the West, you’ve gotta look to the East. -jp

Sunset on Keep River National Park

We left NT for Western Australia and weird things happened.  First, there’s a quarantine center on the border where you have to give up all your fruits, vegetables, seeds, and most of all your honey.  They’re really strict about it, especially the honey.

We knew about it already and we stopped at Keep River National Park, right on the NT and WA border.  Considering we only went there to eat our fruit and veggies (hey Nina, we had salsa!), we were pleasantly surprised by it.  There were badass trees and awesome rock backgrounds.  There was an easy 2km walk around some of the escarpments that we took in the morning before leaving.

After that we went to the border to surrender our food and immediately gained 90 minutes.  See, when you go into NT from Queensland there’s a 30 minute time zone change which is just silly.  Then when you go into WA there’s a staggering 90 minute change.  Meaning tonight the sun goes down in the Kimberly at, like 5pm.  Asinine.

Needless to say, the Coles on the WA side of the border charged a shitload for fruit and vegetables and the gas prices were higher than on Cape York.

Oh yeah, between the border and Kununurra, the first town you come to in WA is Lake Argyle.  It’s Australia’s second largest reservoir and it’s frikkin’ huge.  We went swimming which was nice, especially since it was about a thousand degrees outside. -jp

Keep River National Park – eigentlich wollten wir gar nicht mehr anhalten vor den Kimberleys, aber ein nettes Gesetz schreibt vor, du darfst kein Obst, Gemüse, sämtliche Körner und Honig mit nach Western Australia  nehmen. So haben wir im benannten NP angehalten um zu übernachten um unser Obst, Gemüse und den leckeren Honig aufzuessen anstatt wegzuschmeissen. Ja, wir haben gewußt, dass wir kein Obst haben dürfen, aber die Sache mit dem Honig und dem Gemüse war uns nicht bewußt. Ich war ganz schön genervt davon, da ich es nen Quatsch finde innerhalb eines Kontinets so ein Geschiss zu machen. Ich meine, wenn diese Fruchtfliegen rüberfliegen wollen, dann fragen die nicht, ob da ne Grenze ist. Und vorallem war ich sauer, weil wir unser schönes Gemüse wegwerfen mußten und dann natürlich Neues in Western Australia kaufen mussten. Ich denke ja, dass ist nur zum ankorbeln der Wirtschaft, denn der Supermarkt war auch sauteuer! Bastards!!

Die zusätzliche Übernachtung jedoch hat sich gelohnt, denn der Park war wirklich sehr schön und am Morgen konnten wir nen schönen Spaziergang um die Berge machen. -mk

Gallery: http://gallery.me.com/the_np_bat_man#101061

Keep River National Park and Lake Argyle are located here.

This termite mound is really big.

The termite mounds around Australia are both plentiful and big when you’re in the scrub.  The ones up Cape York are just huge.  Some of them were over 5 or 6 meters.  There are various kinds, like the magnetic ones that point north-south and the cathedral ones that are red and big.  They all work sort of the same way: they’re built from detritus and saliva and poo of termites with the dead at the top, the king and queen at the bottom, and the rest of the business done in the middle.  The inhabitants are tiny and blind but highly organized. -jp