Days 31-33 (June 29 - July 1): King Ash Bay - we love you!!

After a morning drive from Cape Crawford we arrived at King Ash Bay.

The journey was a bit better on the Carpentaria Highway from Cape Crawford and most of the way (probably 2/3) it was a two-lane highway because of the fact that there is the huge McArthur River Mine out this way and they have the huge road trains from Mt Isa transporting goods out there to them. 

Then they have big road trains taking the mined ore to a huge loading facility on the Gulf of Carpentaria at a place called Bing Bong - out past the turn off to King Ash Bay. 

Our only major issues on this road then was the road kill - especially the 2x dead pigs on the one lane bridge - fortunately for us drivers they were either side of the bridge and negotiating them was not too bad.

The road into King Ash Bay is at the moment a pretty good 20km dirt road - we have been told it can be horrendous at times - thankfully luck was with us.

We arrived (around late morning) at this campground and managed to find an unpowered spot in a great location along the river bank - where we had a nice uninterrupted view a fair way up and down the river. Again our luck was with us as someone (another tvan it so happens) had left from that spot just this morning.

I need to explain that this is a very popular spot where many campers come every year.

They all want a river bank position so it is a matter of getting here early and sometimes waiting it out on another site until their favourite one becomes free. So we were pretty lucky to get ourselves a great river bank position.

One couple camped next to us (Spud and Pat) come there every year for about 12 weeks.

The campers are mostly here for the fishing and the fact that they can stay for an unlimited period in this quiet and relaxing campground at $90 /week for unpowered site with hot showers, flushing toilets and good free water.  Only thing it does not have is a laundry but they are building a new amenities so maybe there will be one in the future.

Some people are there long enough to have fairly well established vegetable gardens growing.

We reversed in so the huge back window of our tvan faced onto the river. We left this open the whole time we were there and each morning we awoke to the beautiful serene riverview of the McArthur River flowing past us. 

The location of the campground is apparently some 30km up stream from the Gulf of Carpentaria and I should point out that the river does have saltwater crocodiles. 

But the riverbank we were camping along had quite a steep bank, of about 8-10 metres to the water below - and so we felt that we were pretty safe from crocs. 

We were told by our neighbourly campers on arrival that there were 2x huge resident crocs in the vicinity of our section of the river - "blackie" the big black one and a big grey one. We saw both of these several times whilst we were camped at King Ash Bay - either sunny themselves on the low banks on the other side of the river. "Blackie" we saw swimming up and down the river as well at different times of day.

The guys next to us were doing lots of fishing and they had bells on their rods- so there was always some excitement and they got the focus of our attention each time the bells started to tinkle. They had the added challenge when they did catch something of trying to land it since they had to get it up the high steep bank without losing it.

Our days here were spent reading by the riverside and watching the guys fishing. There were also quite a few different birds around that we spent time trying to identify - amongst them Crimson finches and double barred finches and a resident Jabiru that flew in each morning and waded around the opposite riverbank edges with a group of Royal Spoonbills that always seems to be there.

As quiet and relaxing a place this is there is always something to do at King Ash if you want to. The fishing club who owns the lease on this land has a very well stocked general store, a service station with a mechanic in residence and am open area pub/club that is open from about 5.30pm each night.

They even have a golf course of sorts - dirt tees and dirt greens and lots of dead grass. And they even hold golf days fir campers!!!!

The club has concrete floor and sail awnings and anyone can use the table and chairs during the day - this was the only place where you had Telstra range in the camp ground (amazing that there was any range considering where you are).

They also used this area during daytime for line dancing, bingo and other activities. At night there was happy hour, euchre, good meals to be had and 2x of the nights we were there they had live entertainment.

We were there for the "Territory Day" celebrations - fireworks and bonfire. Territory Day is 1st July and the only day they are allowed to have fireworks in NT. This year they celebrated 37 years of self government.

So we had 3x quiet relaxing days at King Ash Bay and spent a fun 2x nights at the club with our friends Dennis and Robin.

We loved it here and will be back one day - maybe with some fishing rods next time!!!!