Snap goes the kingpin and swagging it at the Gibb River

Scratching madly at our sandfly bites we headed back to Drysdale River and then out to Miners' Pool again for an overnight stop. It was just as lovely as we left it - and this time no techno music to lull us to sleep.

Next morning we headed back to the Gibb on our way to El Questro - one of the hot spots of the East Kimberly region. But... as we were driving along we noticed that the car was pulling to one side a lot. Bill, who was driving at the time, was kept busy wrestling the car into a straight line and one time we even swerved frighteningly towards an oncoming vehicle. Fortunately we stayed safe - until we were crossing the Gibb River when the steering stopped working altogether and we slowly swung to the right and stopped in the middle of the river. It didn't take long to work out that the kingpin (rod connecting the front wheel steering) had come off and we wouldn't be going anywhere soon... Fortunately there was still enough room for other vehicles to cross the river - although pretty much every vehicle stopped and people kindly kept asking if we were OK or offering to tow us out. An incredible number of blokes hopped out of their cars and gave us all sorts of advice - some of them even disappearing under the front of our car. Many of them offered to do a quick fix but at this stage we were trying to get hold of the RACV to tow us to Kununurra to have the steering fixed, so the last thing we needed was a dodgy job done by a well-meaning bush mechanic. Weirdly, it turned out to be quite a nice day because so many people stopped to chat and to offer help, and the kids spent the entire afternoon swimming in the river which was shady and cool. A couple appeared out of the bush - they had set up camp a little way off the river - and offered to make us coffee while we waited on hold for the RACV to sort things out. But my favourite encounter occurred late afternoon when a couple pulled over and gave us a pumpkin (turns out they were locals who knew of a wild pumpkin patch on the other side of the river - they had been for a raid and offered us some of their loot)! We finally got onto the RACV on the satellite phone and were informed that a tow truck would arrive for us the following day. We were particularly thrilled with our choice of breakdown location and had a lovely evening in our swags under the Kimberly moon.

Next morning we set up our table on the shady riverbank and did puzzles until the tow truck turned up. It was a bit of a complicated manoeuvre - two dudes hauled our car onto the tow truck then one guy went back towards drysdale to pick up someone else's trailer. Meanwhile we hitched our trailer to a hire car to make the 5 hour trip to Kununurra. Unfortunately the RACV hadn't been able to hire the car to us without our drivers licences so we had to be driven to Kununurra by Tim from the tow truck company. Sadly, Tim was sexist, racist and generally obnoxious so the 5 hours seemed like 10 hours - particularly for poor Bill who was forced by Kate to sit in the front seat. The one good thing was that Tim taught us the phonetic alphabet - a new skill that we are all immensely proud of and that we display at every given opportunity - except that we can't remember what S is... Anyway, the eastern Kimberly scenery was pretty stunning - almost beautiful enough to enable us to block out Tim's monologue about Aboriginies, refugees, cars, women...

After 5 hours of Tim torture we arrived - somewhat tense but in one piece. We set up in Hidden Valley Caravan Park and cooled off in the pool. We were a bit sad to have missed the last section of the Kimberly but knew that we could do some day trips back there. We were pretty thrilled to go and buy some fresh food after a month in the Kimberly - and we made up an enormous salad to have with our fish for dinner. Despite our odd method arriving in Kununurra, we felt it would be a good place to be for the next few days.

Not a bad place to break down

Rock art nearby - this place has it all...

Sunset swimming in the Gibb River

Dusty family coming out of a month in the Kimberly