KATHERINE NT

We left Litchfield NP last Friday and had a fairly uneventful (for us) drive to Katherine, arriving mid afternoon. On the way here, we called in to Coomalie Creek where Royce's godfather was stationed during WWII then stopped at Hayes Creek and made some lunch. About 1km south of Hayes Creek we came across what looked to have been a very nasty accident. A van and the caravan it was towing were lying on their sides and both were completely burnt out - nothing but a shell in both cases. The only thing we could see that may have survived was the car fridge. Police and fire brigade were still there and we were worried about whether the people were OK. We found out in Katherine that they were OK. The vehicle and caravan had rolled, the people got out and the fire must have started after that! We saw some nicer things on the road as well - at two separate water holes we saw Jabirus (unfortunately nowhere to pull over for a photo). We also saw two separate quite large flocks of black cockatoos. When we arrived in Katherine we had to do some banking and shopping then on to Manbullo Caravan Park (where we stayed last time). They only had 2 sites left and put us on one that was dusty and dirty. We weren't too happy but decided we couldn't do much about it so started setting up. We then discovered we didn't have anywhere to plug into the power so Royce drove back to the office (quite a distance away) and they had to come down and sort it all out, which was eventually done. This site is so dirty I had to sweep the floor twice tonight and it is still dusty!
When we got up Saturday morning and sat outside to have our cuppa, we ended up with our feet and lower part of our legs covered in fleas! Another trip back to the office and we relocated to a grassed site which is much better. Apparently the site we were on had been used by a long term resident living in a bus. She had two dogs and the CP owners had sprayed the site to get rid of the fleas, but they are going to have to do it again! They did give us one extra night free, which was pretty good.  We spent Saturday doing all the domestic chores.
On Sunday we drove out the Low Level Nature Reserve, Springvale Homestead (which also has a caravan park and we think we might stay next time), NT Rare Rocks (bought a couple of rocks), Cycad Gardens (had lunch but didn't go into the gardens this time), Knotts Crossing and had a swim at the thermal pool. It was a lovely day and the swim was terrific. We were in the water for well over an hour!
Today we drove out to Katherine Gorge and climbed to the lookout.  A bit arduous in parts and pretty hot but it was well worth it. We then did the shopping and came back and got ready to head off tomorrow morning.
We are heading towards WA but we have no idea where we will be camping or how long before we are back on line again, so until then take care.

One of the horses in the paddock next to our caravan park

What used to be a very large tree - Low Level Nature Reserve

Part of the Katherine River - Low Level Nature Reserve

No - not wierd fruit! They are bats. This was at Katherine Gorge and there were tens of thousands of the creatures!

The start of Katherine Gorge from the lookout

Blue winged kookaburra at the Katherine Gorge cafe

The front yard of someone's house - have a close look at the sign.

LITCHFIELD NATIONAL PARK

We said farewell to our new friends at Howard Springs last Sunday (19/6/11) and headed to Litchfield National Park. The first half of the road into the NP is a bit rugged and there are a few steep parts but overall not too bad. We went to Wangi (Won-Guy) Falls and were fortunate enough to find a spot to set up camp. There are lots of birds and butterflies and you can hear the waterfall from our camp site. We walked down to the Falls (just a short 5-10 minutes) - a brilliant place. The plunge pool is closed for swimming because water levels are still too high but they expect to re-open in another week or two.
On Monday morning we were woken early by the people next door trying to get their caravan out of their site. It was a pretty tight squeeze and they had gotten stuck. They had been trying to get out for about half an hour and we spent another half an hour but finally got them out and we could sit down and have a cup of tea.  We did the Wangi Falls Loop Walk - fabulous views. It was a bit hard in some parts but well worth the effort. We saw some black bats hanging from the trees on the way up. We crossed the creek at the top of the falls. We encountered another small waterfall on the way down. It was just lovely.
On Tuesday morning we drove about 4km up the road to the Litchfield Cafe where we had coffee and cake - took about our last bit of money but it was worth it. Royce had home made apple pie and cream and I had home made mango cheesecake! This was our treat for the week. We then visited the old Bamboo Creek Tin Mine (interesting) then went to have a look at Walker Creek. There is a nice little picnic spot and swimming area and then you can go on a 1-2 hour walk along the creek which sounded lovely but we weren't geared up for it so will do that next time. We noticed a sign for The Cascades which wasn't on our map so decided we would do that on Wednesday.
Sitting outside at night you would swear you were right by the beach - the sound of the waterfall is just great. Coming back from the toilet block tonight a black bat flew overhead and landed in a tree right by the caravan.
On Wednesday we went out to The Cascades. This is a new area, apparently only opened last year. We followed the trail along the creek - it is just amazing how clear and clean the water is. We didn't get to the Cascades themselves because there was a creek crossing - over partially and fully submerged rocks and I didn't feel confident I would make it without falling. A bit disappointing but we will definitely come back and perhaps we can do it then. We had a look at Greenant Creek and then on to the Tolmer Falls lookout.  An Agile Wallaby visited our camp site this afternoon, which was lovely and we saw two bright multi-coloured parrots land in a tree near our camp. We attended a Ranger talk and slide show tonight at the picnic grounds. That was really interesting. We watched the bats fly overhead for a while (fruit bats).
Thursday morning we headed out to the termite mounds and listened to the Ranger talk on them. This particular area has two types - magnetic and cathedral. The magnetic are built on flood plains and are built with the wide sides facing east/west. This enables them to dry out. The cathedral mounds are larger and fluted which creates temperature control. The cathedral mounds are dug deep into the ground (to the water table) while the magnetic mounds don't have any depth at all (because they are on a flood plain). I think the Ranger said the magnetic mounds are unique to Litchfield. Some of the mounds can be up to 80 years old. We then drove on to Buley Rockhole - this is heaven on earth and the pictures don't do it justice, but hopefully will give you a good indication. We stayed there for a while then drove to the Florence Falls lookout and from there did the Shady Creek walk. The walk is only just over 1km but you pass through monsoon forest and open woodland forest in that short distance.
Friday we reluctantly packed up and left Litchfield NP but we definitely plan to come back. Some of the areas we would have liked to see are still closed and won't open for another couple of weeks.

Wangi Falls

Black bats

Part of the creek that feeds the large fall at Wangi - looking away from the falls

Part of the creek feeding Wangi Falls - looking towards the top of the falls

Bamboo Creek Tin Mine

Tolmer Falls

The friendly agile wallaby

Magnetic termite mound

Boot Hill! Looks like a lot of gravestones.

Termites coming out to repair a hole

Royce with one of the cathedral termite mounds

Maryanne with another of the cathedral termite mounds

Buley Rock Hole (part of)

Buley Rock hole - this part is like a natural spa

I was testing the water at Buley. Less than 30 seconds after this photo I nearly sat in the water! The rocks were so slippery if a chap hadn't come along and grabbed hold of me I would have been very wet

Part of Buley - looking back to the start

Florence Falls

Shady Creek

HOWARD SPRINGS / DARWIN

We have had a very pleasant few days since the last blog. We have had an oil change (well - the car has, not us), checked out the Casuarina Shopping Centre, had haircuts, did washing and shopping and spent a day being tourists. We visited the Aviation Museum which was interesting. They have a B52 in the hangar. You don't realise how big they are until you are standing under or next to one. We had lunch on the Esplanade and walked along the Esplanade to view the Cenotaph (memorial to all persons involved in all wars, with a bit of an emphasis on WWII and the bombing of Darwin), and a couple of other memorials. We then drove to the Museum and Art Gallery which was very interesting. A great display about Cyclone Tracy. They have Sweetheart (crocodile) on display. He was very large but I have been reading about Sweetheart and there are some who believe they caught the wrong croc and Sweetheart was actually another croc captured by a chap in the same area. This other croc was named Cassius and was even bigger than Sweetheart.  Sweetheart lived in a lagoon/billabong and didn't like outboard motors. He would attack the motors but he didn't ever hurt a human being - even when he overturned the boats! They decided to capture him and after a long time and a lot of effort they did finally succeed but when towing him he accidentally drowned. The story of Sweetheart was really interesting and it was great to see the display.  This is the actual crocodile - not a replica. We then went to Mindil Market where we wandered around, saw all the stalls, watched a few buskers, had something to eat then decided it was getting too crowded for our liking so headed back home. We had a lovely last happy hour with our neighbours tonight. We are packing up tomorrow and heading to Litchfield National Park. There is still a lot of things in Darwin that we haven't seen but we will save them until next time. It will give us a good excuse to come back again.

US warship leaving Darwin Harbour

The cenotaph on the Esplanade, Darwin. If you look closely you will see Royce at the back left. There is a curved walkway with a large number of plaques dedicated to pretty much all the people involved in defending Australia and in particular Darwin in WWII

We went to a cafe to have a coffee and this is what we received. You can't really tell from this but it was like a small bucket! The coffee was quite nice.

Sweetheart. Sorry about the quality - photo was taken with my phone. He is well over 5m long!

HOWARD SPRINGS

We got our grocery shopping done yesterday so hooray - we can eat reasonably well again! We had gotten to the stage of tinned food (baked beans on toast) on our last night in Kakadu. I spent most of yesterday afternoon getting this blog up to date and we then had happy hour with a few of our neighbours (which turned into about 3 hours) and had a great time. The caravan park put on a sausage sizzle and live entertainment so we wandered down there, had a couple of snags and listened to the concert. The entertainment was a youngish chap (estimate late 20s) singing and playing guitar. He had a pretty wide repertoire and sang reasonably well but his guitar playing was superb! It was a fun night.
We headed off to get an oil change on the car this morning and got lost but found our way again reasonably quickly (thank goodness for google maps on my phone). It was a bit cool this morning but not cold by any stretch of the imagination but all the locals were wearing jumpers and complaining about the cold! The mechanic who did our car said it is the first time in the 12 years he has lived in Darwin that he has had to wear a jumper. After the car was done we headed to the Casuarina shopping centre. We managed to find it without getting lost. It is a pretty big shopping centre and we wandered around, had lunch and got haircuts. We then decided to do a bit of a drive around in Darwin before heading back to Howard Springs. We managed to take a wrong turn and after driving in circles for a while we found the right road and off to Darwin we went. We drove around and got our bearings and noted a few things we want to see while we are here. There was an American war ship in the harbour and we watched it head out to sea. I did get a photo but haven't loaded it onto the computer yet so will post it another time.
Boh Boh

PHOTOS - KAKADU - Misc

South Alligator River

Rainbow Bee Eater

PHOTOS - KAKADU - EAST ALLIGATOR REGION

The baby croc

Sandstone outliers

sandstone outliers

amazing structure - sandstone outliers

Royce pointing out some aboriginal rock art

Aboriginal rock art

Can you see me?

Cahill's crossing. The fisherman was standing about where the car is now

Aboriginal rock art - Ubirr

Aboriginal rock art - Ubirr

a very small part of the immense flood plain - from the lookout at Ubirr

Sunset at Ubirr

East Alligator River - looks like a great sandy beach doesn't it? Wouldn't want to swim here though.

A sea eagle

With our Guluyambi boat caption - Terry - on Arnhem Land with a selection of spears and weapons

Two faced rock - can you see Robocop and ET?

PHOTOS - KAKADU - YELLOW WATER REGION AND NOURLANGIE

Cane toad

One of the blue winged kookaburras

View from Mirrai Lookout - about the only half decent thing you could see. The rest was all treetops!

Aboriginal rock art at Nourlangie Rock

The brolga on the approach to Jim Jim Billabong

Rock formation in the Noarlangie Region