Kakadu National Park

Aidan and Cody at the wetlands

Ubir lookout - photo doesn't do it justice

Sunset at Ubir

Jaime and boys watching the end of the sunset

We are currently in Kakadu National Park. We will be spending 4 nights here. We have been to see some beautiful wetland area, particularly at Mamukala and at Yellow Water where we put the boat in and drove around ourselves. We have seen a lot of Aboriginal rock paintings, and learnt what they mean (or what they think they mean). We have done a number of walks and climbed up to different lookouts to see some of the spectacular views, the best by far was at Ubir which was up on an escapement looking out over wetland areas and onto Arnhem Land and other escapements. It was actually used in the movie Crocodile Dundee and we could see why you would choose such a place, incredible 360 degree views. We visited a couple of Aboriginal Cultural Centres and Aidan and Cody enjoyed seeing how the Aboriginals collect, hunt and cook food and hearing a lot of the dreamtime stories. The only downside to Kakadu were the mosquitoes, you had to wear long pants and tops at the campsites so that they didn’t eat you alive! We also heard plenty of dingoes while camping at a couple of the places we stayed the night.

Here is a very quick video message to the kids at St Marys School from Aidan and Cody.

Noonamah

After leaving Darwin we didn’t travel far, we headed just south to a town (roadhouse actually) called Noonamah to camp the night as it was the night of their annual Rodeo. It was a great night, not only was there the Rodeo events, there were also motor bike stunt jumpers doing some amazing mid air  tricks, our favourite by far was the somersault on the bikes. Also to Jaime, Aidan and Cody’s enjoyment, the XXXX GOLD retreat was at the Rodeo, with the XXXX Angels dancing and walking around giving away XXXX Gold hats, stickers and coolers.

At the Noonamah Rodeo

Darwin 2nd Visit

Cody and Aidan enjoying the Lagoon in Darwin

While back in Darwin, we got a few more jobs done and did the tourist thing. We enjoyed a swim and relax around the lagoon by the waterfront which is an area they have created where you can swim and not be eaten by crocodiles or stung by box jellyfish. They pump fresh sea water in constantly and provide tubes for you to float around on, Aidan and Cody had some great fun playing here. We walked up through the underground fuel tunnels, where we learnt a lot about the bombing of Darwin during WWII. The tunnels were built after Darwin was bombed so that they could store their oil supply to protect it from future bombings.  We visited the Darwin museum, which had some great displays as well as the very interesting Cyclone Tracey exhibition. It was very interesting seeing and hearing what it was like when Cyclone Tracey came and destroyed Darwin in 1974.

In the Fuel Tunnels

In the Museum

We went to the Mindil Beach markets which are well known in Darwin, both for the markets themselves and the spectacular sunset over the water on the beach. The only down side of the sunset was that you were on the beach with hundreds of other people as well, you could not get a photo anywhere without having someone else in the photo.



Aidan and Cody running down Mindil Beach

Crab Claw Island and Dundee Beach

We are currently at Crab Claw Island Resort on Crab Claw Island which is a beautiful little place in Bynoe Harbour, south west of Darwin. It is not actually an island but rather a peninsula which is the shape of a crab claw (it may get cut off and become an island in the wet). Our plan was to spend 4 nights here relaxing and doing some fishing but the fishing here has not been as good as we hoped and it is not cheap to stay here so we plan to head off tomorrow (after 3 nights). Cody did catch another little shark and Jaime hooked up a big shark but it cut the line before we got it close enough to see. We drove out to Dundee Beach one afternoon to check the area out. It was beautiful there as well, looking out at the Timor Sea. We will head back to Darwin tomorrow for a few days before we head off into Kakadu.
We are still having issues with our slide shows, they don't seem to want to load into our blog at the moment so we will just have to load some of the photos direct again

Aidan and Cody on Crab Claw Island

Enjoying at bite to eat

Looking back at the Resort from the boat

Fishing on Bynoe Harbour, perfect water, Cody just got a bite!

Sunset on Crab Claw Island

Dundee Beach, looking at at Timor Sea

Darwin - N.T. 1st Visit

We travelled onto Darwin where we spent 2 nights but our time here was running some errands and putting the new axel on our trailer that we had pre ordered (hopefully no more issues with bearings on our trailer now!).  We will be coming back to Darwin next week, as a lot of our mail that we were waiting on had still not arrived so we will explore Darwin more when we come back. Although Aidan and Cody were not overly excited about the place as it was “just like any another city” -we all prefer the character of the little towns and roadhouses.

Litchfield National Park - N.T.

NOTE: We are having issues with Slide.com and our slide show for Litchfield is not working at the moment, we hope to fix in the next day or so. In the meantime you can view the slide show by clicking on this link
http://www.slide.com/r/E2SbfXgE6T92Lj3tbs--T8qhklQu6Pp6?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original

We headed up to Litchfield National Park which is just south of Darwin for a night to check out the waterfalls in the area. There were a number of waterfalls that we were unable to get because the roads are still closed from the wet season, but we did get to visit 3 waterfalls which were open; Florence Falls, Wangi Falls and Tolmer Falls. We enjoyed a swim at the base of Florence Falls in the crystal clear water, and were able to swim right up under the falling water which was great fun. Of course Jaime, Aidan and Cody were straight up a cliff face to a spot where you could jump off into the water and a great deal of time was spent leaping through the air again.

Wangi Falls has another beautiful swimming hole but due to the large wet season the area was closed to swimming until they could give the all clear that there were no stray Saltwater Crocs. We enjoyed the loop walk up over the top of the falls through the rainforest area, where there were lots of little streams running next to or under the path. The interesting thing was the water in the streams was very warm. 

The final falls we visited was Tolmer falls, where they no longer allowed swimming but this time it was due to the fact there are 2 bat species that live there which are near extinction.  On leaving Litchfield National Park we stopped to see the Magnetic Termite mounds. These were really interesting as they are always constructed plate shaped mounds on a north south axis so that they can capture the morning sun to warm the mound. While here Cody decided to do a “Planking” photo on another termite mound!

Daly River - AIDAN'S BIRTHDAY - N.T.

Aidan turned 11 on the 13th June while we were at the Daly River. He didn't mind that we were not going to be able to celebrate his birthday the way we would normally celebrate at home, he could only get a small gift from us (we are limited on not only where we can go shopping but also space in the car) and we were not going to be able to have a party. But the one thing he said he would really like to do, knowing that we were going to be at the Daly River, was catch a Barramundi for his birthday. Well he certainly did that!! He caught two smaller Barramundi at the beginning of the day and followed it by this monster as seen below!

Aidan with his monster birthday Barramundi - one happy kid!

This fish is 84cm long and weighed 8.5kg. You could not find a happy kid that day, in fact it is now 4 days later and we still haven't got the grin off his face!! We ate some of the Barramundi that night while sitting around a camp fire, under the trees in a mango orchard! (Jaime was very happy with that scenario).

Our campsite in the Mango Orchard - unfortunately no fruit this time of year!

We had a great few days here at the Daly River. The owners of the property we stayed at were fantastic. They were a young couple with young kids who had just started School of the Air (Aidan and Cody actually gave the kids a bunch of their books they had finished reading while we have been away). There is a mango orchard on the property and that is where they have set up areas for camping. It was a great set up and they went out of their way to make sure that we were comfortable and that we had anything we might need, they also set up a TV so that we could watch State of Origin - GO THE BLUES! - we certainly enjoyed teasing the Queenslanders campers that night.
The Daly River itself was an experience as well. There are so many crocodiles on this river it was incredible, and that was just the crocs we could see. On one particular bend in the river we counted 11 crocodiles sunning themselves the first day and 15 the next! We also saw some of the biggest crocs we have seen to date.

Driving up the Daly River

There were also a lot of snags in the river which is very good habitat for fish but also means you tend to loose fishing lures and we lost a couple of lures, which is frustrating as they are expensive. But the good thing was we managed to spot a few that others had lost when the river was at a higher level so we came out even in the end. There was one lure, that we spotted on the bank, but it was only a few metres from a crocodile which was out sunning itself . We left it alone and came back later in the day but the croc was still there, so we thought we would just drive towards the bank and the croc should go into the water (they usually don't like boats getting too close to them), well this croc didn't want move, so Jaime grabbed a fishing rod and lent it out to hook onto the lure and retrieve it.  We got it, and the croc never moved. 

Jaime retrieving fishing lure off bank with small croc watching on (up bank on Jaime's left)

Douglas-Daly Tourist Park - N.T.

We headed onto a place called the Douglas-Daly Tourist Park on the banks of the Douglas River. This turned out to be a very popular destination for N.T. locals. We arrived on the Friday of the long weekend and the place was packed with people all with N.T number plates, and most of who we spoke to were from Darwin or Katherine. 
You can normally swim in this river but due to the wet season having being such a big one this year, the owners said that a Saltwater Croc was caught further upstream so they were told by National Parks to advise people not to swim until they could finish checking all the river system to ensure there were no other stray Saltys. We of course didn't need to be told twice, but the point was certainly enforced when we noticed a Croc Trap in the water not far from where we set up camp!
This was an alright place to camp for the night, it would certainly be a lot nicer at a time when it was not so busy - we really were not interested in being surrounded by so many people, including a big bunch of Scouts! So we just checked out the river, camped the night and then left early next morning. On the road out to this tourist park we did spot the biggest ant's hill we have seen to date, as you can see from the photo, it was very tall!

The biggest Ant Hill we have found to date

On the bank of the Douglas River

Looking up the Douglas River

Katherine & Pine Creek - N.T.

After leaving Mataranka we travelled into Katherine, most people go to Katherine Gorge when here, but we decided we will visit that on our way back through in a couple of weeks, we used some time here to finally stock up on supplies at a supermarket . We haven't seen a proper supermarket since the Cairns and the Atherton Tablelands! We have only been able to buy supplies at Roadhouses and the occasional Mini Marts which are more like doing your grocery shopping in a service station back home, except that you can buy frozen sausages in them and usually only frozen bread and long life milk. So it was nice to be able to buy some fresh fruit and vegies and decent food supplies!

It was going to be Aidan's birthday in a few days time on the 13th of June and we realised that we were going to be camped out on the Daly River so we agreed that we would have is birthday lunch and dinner early as we would not be able to get any good food out at the Daly River.  So Aidan decided he wanted Pizza for lunch and Taco's for dinner. Well you can't buy pizza at lunch time anywhere in Katherine so we had to trade that for McDonalds (it was the first Macca's meal on our trip to date!). Then we bought the ingredients for Tacos and headed out to a little dam near the town of Pine Creek which is just north of Katherine and cooked up his birthday meal. It was a really lovely place for dinner, and we then headed into Pine Creek to camp the night and have birthday cake.

Aidan's early birthday dinner at a dam outside of Pine Creek

An early Birthday Cake for Aidan at Pine Creek - notice the fancy candles!

Mataranka - N.T.

Today we arrived at Mataranka and are camping here the night. We enjoyed a couple of swims today at two of the thermal springs. The water temperature was beautiful, like a warm bath, and the water was crystal clear. It is interesting how much it has changed since Jaime and Michelle travelled through here 17 years ago. There are now a number of big caravan parks and the more than one thermal spring to visit. They are also all full of "Grey Nomads"! The place we are staying at is the same place we camped at 17 years ago but now there it is three times the size and has as tourist shop and bar and live music at night (old time music of course for the oldies). But it is still a beautiful place to visit. We stopped in at one of the caravan parks to watch the Barramundi feeding in their dam and learnt all about how Barramundi live, interestingly they are all born as male in freshwater and can only change to female if they head down stream to the saltwater. Aidan and Cody both had a go at feeding the Barramuni using a fishing line without any hooks.



One of the thermal springs at Mataranka (the one which is still natural - and no 'Grey Nomads'!

A Pretty-Face Wallaby which visited our campsite and ate some of our scraps

Cody feeding the Barramundi

Aidan feeding the Barramundi

Daly Waters - N.T.

We left Bing Bong, stopped at a beautiful fresh waterhole for a bath, then stopped at the aboriginal town of Borroloola for supplies and then drove through Cape Crawford again (with fingers crossed we were glad to make it past without any trouble!). We finished up for the day at Daly Waters. This is another place that is just a road house, but one with a lot of character, the walls and roof of the pub are covered with all sorts of things – money, stickers, signed hats, shirts, shorts, undies and bras, there are name tags, drivers licences and ID cards etc all from people who have passed through. We got to “toss the barman” for our drinks, ie he tossed a coin and we had to call heads or tails – if we were right we got our drink for free – we did well, all our drinks were free!

Cody sitting at the bar at Daly Waters - surrounded by all sorts of things



At Daly Waters - The boys liked the McDonalds Drive Through Sign (286km away!)



Bing Bong - N.T.

From King Ash Bay we drove around to Bing Bong, which is just a port on the Gulf for the McArthur River Mine. But there is a boat ramp there and we bush camped up the river a bit so that we do a bit of fishing in the Gulf. The water was a beautiful colour there and we went out in the boat around West Island which is aboriginal land and had some great fun catching black tip reef sharks, queen fish, heaps of mud crabs and Jaime pulled in a great Tuna. We ate plenty of fish and crabs for the 3 nights we camped here, the one big down side to camping there was you had to have on long pants and shirt in the morning and afternoon/  night due to large number of sandflies.

King Ash Bay - N.T.

We sorted the trailer wheel issue (we hope!) and we headed out through Borroloola to King Ash Bay for about 5 nights. Although we have heard a lot of great things about this place as a fishing destination, it is a place we won’t come back to for fishing. We did get a very tasty Grunter and some beautiful mud crabs while we were here though, and met some great people from the Central Coast. We saw plenty of crocs and explored some very small rivers up through the mangroves while looking for bait. At one place on the river we came across the professional Mud Crabbers huts – you would swear you were in an Asian country looking at these. There was no mobile reception here, but we did manage to rig up a big pole to get our aerial up high enough to get some reception for the Internet so that Michelle could get some work done.

Up a narrow creek chasing bait fish with our neighbours from the camp ground

Mud Crabbers Huts - looked like we were somewhere in Asia! We were certainly in the middle of NOWHERE!

Aidan with his Grunter

Cody with a mud crab he caught on his fishing line

Around the camp fire at night with some neighbours at King Ash Bay

Northern Territory - Calvert - Cape Crawford - “Heart Break Hotel”

The name of this place says it all! We left Hell’s Gate and had to take a diversion road as the flood waters are still too high to continue on the Savannah Way to Borroloola over the Calvert River. So we headed through Calvert Hill property, where we had to open and close numerous gates and push through hundreds of cattle before heading out through some very flat open country.

Crossing the border into Northern Territory

Opening another gate on the diversion road through Calvert Hills property

Some of the cattle we had to push through

Not to far from where we camped the night - not much to see!

We bush camped the night before heading up to Cape Crawford where there is a roadhouse called Heart Break Hotel. Michelle and Jaime have been here before and were forced to stay a number of nights last time because a wheel fell off their car as they were driving into the place. Well we stopped to refuel and as we drove out a wheel fell off our trailer! We make a quick repair and turned around and headed back to stay the night there so we could sort out the problem. We have decided we will avoid this place on any future trips around Australia!

Cape Crawford's Heart Break Hotel

Hell's Gate - We will finally update you all!

On Saturday 21st May we moved onto to Hell’s Gate, travelling through more river crossings and past Doomadgee, which is an aboriginal settlement. We only planned to stay probably one night at Hell’s Gate which is just a Roadhouse on a massive property. But when we sat down that night and had a chat with the owners (Bill and Lee, who are in their late 60’s) we found out that they were expecting a Car Rally to arrive and stay the night on the Tuesday and that they had to feed the 264 people dinner and breakfast, as well as refuel the 105 the vehicles. We could see that was going to be a mammoth task for them so we offered to stay for a few days to help them out. They jumped at our offer. So we all worked flat out for a few days, cleaning the few hotel rooms, tidying up the camp ground, setting up all the tables and chairs and cutting up, preparing and then cooking all the food, and of course looking after all the visitors and then cleaning up afterwards. We had fun doing it all, met a lot of great people from both the rally and other travellers stopping in at the Roadhouse. There were actually a number of cars on the rally which had people from Orange and other central west towns. Aidan and Cody also made $100 pocket money by offering to wash all the car rally windscreens the next morning for a $1 donation!

After the rally left, Aidan and Cody greeted the mail plane as it landed on the Hell’s Gate airstrip and checked out inside the cockpit before it took off again. While staying at Hell’s Gate we learnt from Bill and Lee about how people live on these remote homesteads. They get mail once a week via plane, the nearest doctor is the Flying Doctor which takes 2 hrs to get here. Otherwise to go and see a Doctor or Dentist you have a 12 hour drive to Mt Isa. Food comes from Mt Isa, you order via fax to a supermarket in Mt Isa and it arrives via truck once a fortnight. The roads get flooded every year during they wet season leaving them cut off for around 3 months. They have to generate their own electricity, using solar panels to charge up a whole lot of batteries and then they run a generator for a few hours at night to keep the charge in the batteries after the sun goes down. But they are constantly juggling which hot water systems and fridge/ freezers are on etc to ensure they are not draining too much power out of the batteries so that their power will last all day.

The size of the Hell’s Gate property is 150,000 square hectares - the size of one just one of their holding paddocks is over 1000 acres which is the size of most properties around the Canowindra area. We heard all about the history of the area both before Lee and Bill bought the place and since they have owned it. We learnt the interesting story about how Hell’s Gate got its name. Bill drove us around part of the property, taking us down the homestead which is 27kms from the roadhouse, saw aboriginal paintings and grinding stones, learnt stories (both good and bad) about some the local nomads and aboriginals, visited waterholes, caught yabbies and went pig hunting.

We stayed a week at Hell’s Gate and had a great time!