After a rather dull night on yet another side track it was back on to GRR only to find out that the Wunaamin Miliwundi Ranges are named such for a reason; there are several of them that intersect the GRR. The turnoff to Mt Hart ecoreserve was only a couple of kilometres up the road and between two of the main Wunaamin Miliwundi Ranges. A bus shelter on the side of the road and some Thai triangular flags were a bit weird.

Around the corner and into the ranges again, not very high but I was struggling with my leg. It got warmer as the day went on but I crawled on. Try finding a quiet place to drop the daks in peace when tourists always seem to choose that moment to go past. Over a few hills, past Donkey Flat (where Christine and Linda had camped the night before), a lovely flat lightly grassed dried up billabong and stopped for a rest a kilometre short of Stumpy’s Jumpup. Stumpy’s is almost the last notable hill before the 180 km flat run into Derby.

Past Stumpy’s it wasn’t far to Queen Victoria’s Head on the western entrance to the Fitzroy River gorge through the Napier Range. The range is a geologically famous fossilized Devonian coral reef. During the white occupation it also marked the boundary between white settlement and aboriginal territory for a while; the aboriginal warrior Jandamarra famously tormented the white settlers from its ramparts.

I stopped for lunch under a tree just before the Napier Range. While there a car stopped on gave me some water, much appreciated – they were finishing a weekend trip to Mount Hart and returning to Derby where they knew my partner’s friends Helen and Peter.

Only five kilometres further past the gates to Napier Downs Station it got too hot so I stopped under a tree. Many passing drivers stopped to see if I was alright. Over the Fitzroy River where it was amazing that a couple of cars of backpackers had just stopped on the bridge and walked off to scout the nearly dry river. If a road train had come over the bank the lot would have been wiped out.

Just over the bridge the road forked to the left to Windjana Gorge National Park. I camped beside a termite mound about four kilometres down the road.