Today we left Darwin after a fun 3 days, heading for Litchfield National Park. Jase and Sue squeezed in a quick fishing trip before we left. We took some advice from the Darwin locals and stopped 40km down the road at Berry Springs. A great cool off in another float down the river springs Next stop was the Cascades in Litchfield National Park. The lower Cascades are closed for crocs, so we had to trek the long way over the…
Either today wasn’t as oppressive heat-wise, or I am finally starting to acclimatise. The car still said it was 34 degrees, but there was an almost pleasant breeze and possibly the humidity was below 50% for some of the day 🙂 Today we all did our own thing. Jase and Sue were booked on a fishing tour. Sue caught a little shark and was particularly glad that she missed hooking the 3+ metre shark the guy next to her on…
We put the bike rack on the car last night and took our bikes into Darwin while the car was serviced this morning. Seemed like a good idea at the time…we ended up riding 16km around town and those last hills in 34deg heat with humidity thrown in made us really appreciate our e-bikes sitting in the garage at home. We rode along the Darwin Harbour front which was dotted with information relating the bombings in the Second World War….
This morning Karen, Jason and Sue went out to see some more rock art, while Kieran exercised and we went for an explore around Jabiru. We saw our first evidence of the monsoon season water management – not a single house had roof gutters. We all hit the road around 10 with the first stop at the Mamukala Wetlands. We saw some more chicks lily hopping (too small for the camera) and lots of lilies. Next stop was the South…
This morning we had a relaxed departure as we didn’t have a big travel day planned. The day was heating up as we headed for another swim at the resort before jumping in the vehicles. Our planned campground for this evening had reviews that were concerning after our mozzie experience a couple of days ago so we reorganised the day and stopped at Jabiru instead. We are still struggling to acclimatise to the 35 degree heat with high humidity, so…
Before I jump into this morning’s amazing cruise, back to the mozzie infestation of last night. Thankfully my laptop was flat when it was time to blog so I charged it on the car auxiliary battery (as the van batteries were working their freckle out managing the fridge/freezer in the high temps), when I realised I might as well sit in the car so the blog could happen….so may as well turn the car on and sit in A/C 🙂…
This morning we set off from Mataranka after a lovely few down days and headed north. A quick stop in the town for coffee etc and we were again treated to Brolgas wandering around. These ones were very used to people so didn’t disappear as soon as the camera came out. After a stop off for some fresh bread in Katherine (yummy – we didn’t realise that even Coles in the centre of Oz sells frozen bread…), we had lunch…
Today was just like the last couple of days. Walks/bike rides to Bitter Springs and then back to chill and relax. We did some van work and installed a permanent connection point for a supplementary solar blanket and that was it! Other activities included firewood collection, crossword puzzles, more floating down the water and a visit from travelling friends of Jase and Sue. The Scotts did a camp oven dinner on the fire this evening while the rest of us…
Today was a swimming day. Given how much the temperatures have risen in the last few days of travel, I am sort of ok with the 31 degrees today. Humidity hasn’t fully disappeared for the dry season yet so I’m happy that the crocs have departed and the springs are good to go 🙂 . The Scott’s and Mitcho’s got up for sunrise and floated down Bitter Springs (x2) again. The mist on the water was lovely and we had the place to ourselves…
This morning was a slowish departure. We all arrived back to our vans in dribs and drabs last night and never really arranged a departure time. Last night the girls channelled our inner youth and we all got custom made anklets. I was so impressed they could make them big enough for cankles! Bob and I went for a walk around the heritage trail this morning and saw the Stuart Tree – Stuart apparently carved an S into this tree in the 1860’s…