After Katherine our next big stop was Lake Argyle, 500km away and just over the W.A. border. So we broke the drive up with an overnighter at the Victoria River Roadhouse, our last night in the Northern Territory. It was just like the other N.T. roadhouses except that it fronted a working cattle station. The camping area out the back was enormous, first-in-first-served and not a particularly level patch of ground. But we were pretty much the only ones camping there when we arrived so we staked out the most level area we could find and set up for the night. By the time we went to bed there was half a dozen or so other campers pulled in for the night.

We arrived during a changeover of managers. The current couple were actually from NSW and about to head home and the new managers were learning the ropes. All were very friendly but looking forward to the wet season so that things would slow down there as it seemed they were.

We usually have dinner at the roadhouses because they generally have good, honest meals at decent prices as they mostly cater for truckies and campers and good food is always an enticement to stop and spend some money. The beers were cold with a couple on tap and they even had a reasonable range of wines by the glass. It was probably the most ‘truckie’ roadhouse we’d stayed at but it was a quiet night.

The Victoria River runs past the roadhouse and we took a walk down there just before dusk to find the ‘old bridge’ below the ‘new bridge’, which you can walk out onto to view the river. Doing this around dusk was a good call so we could get some nice colours as the sun set and caused the water to glisten.

Coming back to the roadhouse the water tank was lit up and provided a welcome glow for what seemed to be a fairly remote and quiet place half-way between Katherine and Lake Argyle.

There is an escarpment hike directly across the highway in the Judbarra National Park but we elected not to do this as our destination was Lake Argyle the next day.

So… not our most exciting stay of the trip but a nice way to break up the drive to Lake Argyle and enjoy the solitude and isolation that the N.T. offers in abundance.