Day 7 of Broome to Bowral

Here comes the sun

By 6 am, Jenny and I were back on the road.

Bob and Tom had already been riding for an hour and a half. They’d started at 4.30 am after porridge at 4, and somewhere up ahead of us were two little flashing red lights we were looking forward to finding.

That was our morning routine by now.

They’d get on the road early while it was still dark and cool, and we’d pack up camp and follow later. Then we’d catch them for second breakfast.

Eggs, something else we could muster up, whatever they felt like eating.

This morning there was another reason to keep moving.

Kununurra was waiting.

Once the boys finished today’s 115 km, we were staying there for two days. No packing up again the following morning. No chasing bicycles down the highway.

A chance for Bob and Tom to rest, reset and, hopefully, find someone who could give those legs a decent massage.

And for the rest of us, a chance to stop moving for a little while too.

Looking for the boys

There was one sight Jenny and I loved seeing in the mornings.

Those little red flashing lights.

They could be surprisingly difficult to find. We’d leave camp knowing Bob and Tom were somewhere ahead of us, but they could cover a lot of kilometres before we caught them.

This morning they’d done particularly well.

Eventually, there they were.

Two little red lights in the distance.

We’d found them.

They pulled over for a little pow-wow and to take a break.

Cattle were wandering along the highway that morning, just going about their business.

It was another one of those things that had become completely normal to us.

Two cyclists, two support vans, breakfast somewhere beside the highway and cows wandering around in the middle of nowhere.

Things you notice when you’re travelling slowly

One thing I began noticing on this trip was when the highway changed.

Normally you’d drive through a junction without giving it much thought.

But we weren’t simply driving from one destination to another. We were following every kilometre Bob and Tom rode across Australia.

So the roads mattered.

The signs mattered.

We noticed when one highway became another.

Out here, a sign pointing towards Wyndham, Kununurra, Timber Creek and Darwin was also a reminder of just how far we’d already come and how much further there still was to go.

We met the boys for second breakfast near one of the enormous loads being transported along these roads.

Watching these huge things being prepared for their journey was mesmerising.

Then there were Bob and Tom’s shadows stretched across the road.

Look at the size of those wheels.

The spare bike

Then there was the spare bike.

I’d been travelling with this bike since I left Leura.

Every time I made camp, it was the first thing that had to come out of the van.

Every time I packed up, it was the last thing to go back in.

And while I was driving, Lucky had to squeeze himself onto the bed between the wheels and pedals.

The spare bike would remain with us until Barcaldine, when Tom’s dad met us and took it home to Sydney.

But for now, it was still travelling with us across the Kimberley.

What have I found?

As I drove into Kununurra, the landscape suddenly wasn’t what I’d been expecting at all.

There was water.

Lots of water.

After so much dry country, suddenly I was looking at water rushing through the landscape.

I thought I’d found some sort of weir.

I didn’t actually know.

Crocodiles.

There could be crocodiles.

We had two days here.

I’d find out where I was eventually.

As it turns out, I had driven into one of the biggest engineering stories in the Kimberley.

The water was the Ord River system, transformed by the Ord River Irrigation Scheme. Kununurra itself is a remarkably young town, gazetted in 1961 largely because this enormous irrigation project needed somewhere for people to live and work.

Just west of town, the Victoria Highway actually crosses the Ord River on top of the Diversion Dam. Construction began in 1960 and the dam was officially opened in 1963. Its 20 enormous radial gates regulate the river and hold back Lake Kununurra.

So that sudden change I’d noticed in the landscape wasn’t my imagination.

After days of dry Kimberley country, we’d arrived in a town that exists because of water.

And as for my immediate thought about crocodiles?

That wasn’t entirely ridiculous either.

Freshwater crocodiles live in Lake Kununurra, while saltwater crocodiles are actively managed within the Kununurra crocodile-control zone.

Here they come

Jenny and I made it into Kununurra before Bob and Tom.

Then we turned around.

There they were.

Coming towards us on their bikes, with a coach travelling behind them.

Tom had a device on his bike that warned them when something was coming up behind them.

After another 115 km, they’d made it.

Kununurra.

There was quite a bit of screaming from me.

But this arrival was different from most.

We weren’t getting up tomorrow morning and doing it all again.

We were here for two days.

Time to rest.

Time to reset.

Kununurra

We found our accommodation, checked in and drove straight back out to look for lunch.

And we found a gem.

The Pumphouse.

It sat on the water with a beautiful view, huge old pumps inside and those wonderful cut-out metal signs I’d been noticing everywhere through the Kimberley.

And those pumps weren’t there for decoration.

The building really had been a pumping station, part of the Ord River Irrigation Scheme that created modern Kununurra. It was eventually given a completely different life, reopening as a restaurant in 2008 with the old pumping equipment still inside.

There was history all around the place.

Lunch was excellent.

So excellent, in fact, that we came back for dinner.

After days of roadhouses, camp kitchens and meals beside highways, this felt very much like civilisation.

From the road Originally posted during the journey on 28 June 2026.View the original Instagram post →