Week 27, Monday 13 – Sunday 19 September 2010

We had almost persuaded Keith and Pauline to join us for a day or two, but sadly they had to stay close to Darwin because Keith was on call for work. As per usual, we set off later than planned on Monday as we had to go shopping for food and alcohol for the next week, very important job! The plan was to get to Mataranka Springs that day, a drive of 426km's south of Darwin. We made it there a little late so set up camp in the unpowered section and decided to enjoy the springs the next morning. Sadly, a group of hoons decided the best way to enjoy them was to get blotto down there and then come back to the camping area and shout pointless crap to each other until 1am even though they were stood next to each other! Rant!! (I have officially become old and enjoy quiet time these days, that means no noise after 9pm...)

We woke up feeling bleary eyed and quite pissed off at our neighbours, even more annoying as they packed up and left before 7am!! Do they not suffer hangovers -swines!

We sauntered down to the hot springs for a very pleasant dip in the 34 ° water, Claire even managed to do an impression of titanic underwater!!





We had a lazy day in the area as we decided to camp at the Elsey National Park close by on the Tuesday evening. We stopped off at the Territory Manor Motel at 11am to watch the free Barramundi feeding show, it was quite amazing, this fella had trained the fish to eat out of his hand and they also allowed him to pick them out of the water! Most amusing though was watching a woman drop her camcorder into the water...then proclaim it will be ok, she'd done it before!!!!



Later, we enjoyed a short walk along the river, but only Claire braved it into the water as the possibility of crocs was still present in my mind (despite the rangers telling us it was perfectly safe to swim) and I ain't taking that risk. She did only dunk herself between some rocks though....



We then collected firewood and treated ourselves to a very scrumptious roast dinner of chicken this time. We managed to find the smallest chicken in the world, but it still touched all the sides of our petite camp oven. We cooked it perfectly though and it was another roaring success.



Wednesday we set off east along the Roper Highway towards Roper Bar, most of which was on red dirt. Roper Bar seemingly only exists for fishing. You are very close to the Gulf of Carpenteria here and the majority of people in the campsite were there for that one reason only. The campsite was ok and the best thing was talking to a funny German guy who had just been up Cape York in his Suzuki Jimny (a very small 4wd!), he was really kind and gave us all the diesel prices along the highway so we could judge how much to fill up at certain stations! He also gave us advice on the river crossings we were going to do in the next few days.

Thursday we set off south east along the old Savannah Highway through the (proposed) Limmen National Park with it's multiple river crossings and empty roads. It was a wonderful drive through some very pretty landscapes.



We cracked on and got to Butterfly Gorge for a swim, quite nice but sadly the mozzies were out and we decided we couldn't hack it so we carried on to the Lost City National Park campsite for the night. As this is still only a proposed National Park it was free! And we had nice new toilets all to ourselves as no-one else camped here the night. We got up Friday and did the small walk around the lost cities (there are loads of these around) we found them to be very lovely!!




We hit the red dirt again and had a very picturesque drive all the way into Borroloola, some 238km's. We wouldn't normally have stopped at Borroloola, but we had met this bloke in a pub (heard this before perchance?) in Alice Springs who gave us a number of a friend of his (Glen) who teaches the young Aboriginal kids to play football (English Football that is, none of this squashed ball rubbish). So we called Glen a few days before we got into the town to see if he would mind us watching a game, he was the most friendly and welcoming guy! He was delighted that we wanted to watch the kids play so we arranged to go watch on Saturday morning at the local cricket ground.

We set up camp at the caravan site and chilled for the afternoon. Next morning we were a little late for kick off, but when we arrived he had 2 games going! We were thoroughly impressed by the skill and commitment showed by the kids, it was great to watch and you could tell they loved playing it! Even the girls played with the lads and no prisoners were taken, it was like watching Leeds of the 70's! Most of the kids preferred to play barefoot, but this caused a few grazed toes! Glen later told us that the kids take part in competitions and he has to get them to play in boots and shin pads, but cannot give them out until the day or they go missing! Also, they take some time to get used to playing in boots, starting off kicking the ground too much!











After the fun of some English football we got on the road at about midday, drove all day and only just got to Hell's Gate roadhouse by dusk. Passing through some very pretty rivers on the way, most of the river crossings were easy, all but one of them actually. We were warned about the Calvert River all the way back at Lake Argyle by a lady with a brand new Travelander (automatic rooftop tent-come-trailer tent with all mod-cons, our dream set-up...!) She said people were wrecking their cars at that crossing on big boulders that you cannot see. This obviously worried us and we asked everyone we met how this particular river was. Most responses were baffled and said it was bumpy but fine and this is how we found it too (I think they must have been new to 4wding! And didn't want to damage their new purchase!) Hell's Gate was not as bad as it might sound, they had an ok shower and decent enough toilets for $20 a night, they also had some cute frogs near the leaky taps!

Sunday we had another off road trek ahead, east along the Savannah Way then we go south in towards Lawn Hill National Park, stopping off at Kingfisher Camp for a nosey first (it would have been a lovely place to stay, but we got there too early in the day!) The track in was very sandy in places, we almost got bogged, but Priscilla tackled it with ease! We got to Lawn Hill at about lunchtime and set up camp. It was a nice campsite right next to the gorge. Sadly we had a very windy night (not me this time) and the tent managed to get a small rip in the corner!! Time for Claire's handy work....

That's all for now folks,
Jen, of Jen and Claire Fame
xx

Week 26, Monday 6 – Sunday 12 September 2010

KakaDO!

Time for a change of author.


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]

This week's blog is brought to you by me,  Adam D'Andreti. I had the pleasure of spending a week in Priscilla with Claire and Jen as we toured Kakadu National Park which is in the 20 million odd square kilometres between Darwin and Arnhem Land. I was lucky enough to get the call up because I kept Claire entertained during her last few months at Mallesons with witty repartee and incisive social commentary and happened to have September off between jobs. Well, at least the last part is true.

Anyway.

Claire and Jen had been in Darwin for a couple of days by the time I arrived so they were already getting used to the steamy weather (it had dumped with rain the day prior to my arrival to such an extent that Monday's NT News (Darwin's answer to the Daily Telegraph and the News of the World rolled into one) was calling it the earliest start to the wet season since whenever.)
 
Luckily by the time I rolled in the sky had cleared and apart from some relatively mild humidity (98.5% by 9am) things were shaping up well. I got some early tastes of Claire and Jen's English heritage ("We aren't seriously going to do anything today are we, the weather is oppressively hot and absolutely beastly!") but luckily we were able to overcome those congenital character flaws to get ourselves to the servo to have the brakes of Priscilla fixed and for me to gain a valuable opportunity to pick up a $6 camping chair from Bunnings Warehouse (I can hear C and J singing the theme song now (if you have been living under a pleasant rock and have no clue what I am talking about, you can hear the tune at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbDUOTASJvQ&p=010F50C5D72C7804&playnext=1&index=39)). That done, we were all set to tackle Kakadu - or Kakadon't as all the locals kept telling us. A total misnomer - the park is excellent (in spite of the apparently "outrageous" $25 cover charge).
 
Given the time of day, we thought it was best to spend another night in Darwin. After all, we still hadn't caught up with Keith and Pauline Beaty, a fantastic couple who live in Darwin that Claire and Jen had met someplace whose name I can't now recall (Halls Creek?) [William Creek on the Oodnadatta Track, Ed], but which sounded inhospitable - in a "40 flies are trying to enter my mouth at once" kind of way.

So after an impromptu walking tour around the NT government district and harbour we found ourselves whisked away by Keith and Pauline in (what Claire reliably informs me was) a totally dominant 4WD, a toyota landcruiser, [Ed - dominant, yet subservient still to the mighty Nissan Patrol, obviously] to their local. The local turned out to be a sailing club at Fannie Bay (yes, that name is for real) which was perfect in every respect (beautiful location and sunset viewing,


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]

and nicely chilled beer glasses, a Top End standard) save that like every other place in Darwin I needed to take off my hat. It struck me as somewhat ridiculous that in the most sun-affected part of the country you are frequently asked to remove your hat when entering public bars which inevitably are full of large sun-drenched beer gardens. Go figure.  Fast forward a significant number of drinks, we found ourselves at one of the finer drinking holes Darwin has to offer - The Tap - where their speciality is cocktails in "fish bowls". Seriously. For $20 (and half that price again in glass deposit) you could get yourself a glass bigger than the average human head full of lurid coloured cocktails. We took the beer. 
 
Good thing we did too as Claire and Jen (now seasoned soft-drinkers due to their unofficial "2 tinnys of beer a day" limit) claimed to have the worst hangovers in recorded history the day after (Jen even suggesting she still felt the effects of it at 5.30pm...). I think there is a lesson in cost-saving for all of us here.
 
Thankfully, these not insignificant health issues didn't prevent us from heading out to Kakadu. But before we even reached the park itself there were some good times to be had.
 
In particular, a crocodile tour on the Adelaide River. Apparently there's only 3 guys in the whole of the Kakadu National Park who have been licensed by the government to "interfere with protected species". Having seen the actual licence (it was hanging on the wall of the tour guide's hut) I can confirm that is precisely what the government had mandated the guide to do. Personally, I couldn't think of anything I'd rather less do with a salt water crocodile than "interfere" with it (to my mind interfering with animals just elicits all sorts of uncomfortable images than merely throwing slabs of buffalo meat into the water, which is what it turned out to be). I digress. So we pile into this little glorified tinny of a boat and are told in no uncertain terms to keep all body parts within the confines of the boat lest a croc find our limbs to be a better offering than the buffalo meat. Judging by what we saw, this was a fair warning.


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]

They are truly amazing animals salt water crocs - apparently only 2% of eggs laid by female crocs end up surviving - through a mixture of stupidity (crocodiles have brains about the size of a golf ball and they are known to lay their eggs in sand which becomes overcome with wet season water within days) and bad luck (even though they're tough, baby crocs can sometimes fall victim to all sorts of other predators, including other crocodiles - apparently the males like to eat the young to avoid future competitors. Talk about forward planning). [Sounds rather like a large commercial law firm, Ed] They are probably the most pervasive image from the park itself - we sure saw a lot of them and there are signs up all over the place warning us about them (basically, ever since a poor German girl was eaten by one back in 2002, the government has whacked up warning signs on all waterways and waterholes near walking tracks making it very difficult to know where it is still safe to swim and where it isn't. In truth, no one really knows, so as soon as there is a bit of water in the park, making travel relatively easy for crocs, you probably just need to assume they could be anywhere). My favourite fact about salt water crocs is that in the local Aboriginal language, salt water croc is referred to by the name "ginga" - which just goes to prove that everyone hates a ginga.
 
We saw some crocs later on in the trip at the river crossing into Arnhem land too - there were about 3 just laying in the middle of the crossing - the cars beeped them to get them out of the way. Hilarious.

[Ed - one of the funniest quips I think I've heard from our fellow European travellers as we were discussing what on earth the croc below was doing with its front paws (do crocs have paws?!) was the guy next to us suggesting that it "had just had its French manicure"!]


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]
 
Once we got into the park itself, we checked out the sunset at Ubirr - which was pretty special


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]

and then spent the night fighting off crowds of mosquitoes at the Merl Campground which backed onto a flood plain. You know that buzzing in your ear you normally get at 3am when there's a mozzie in your room - imagine that noise amplified a 1000 times over and lasting all night, no matter where you walked. Crazy stuff. Personally, I think Claire and Jen were just conspiring to give me a "true" camping experience...though I suspect they got more than they bargained for with that campground..

[Ed: you forgot to mention you baked your first damper bread!]



Mosquitoes having had their way with us, we fortified ourselves with some breakfast pancakes (once a treat, these have now apparently become standard fare for Claire and Jen at brekky) and then we ventured out to check out Aboriginal rock art at Ubirr and Nourlangie.


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]

This was definitely the most detailed aboriginal art I'd ever seen though it transpires that some of it was comparatively recent in origin having been added by an Aboriginal elder in the 50s before Kakadu was heritage listed. Seems like the elder decided that some of the stories and teachings in his head needed to be preserved and so he went about doing that. The thing I love about the art is that it is basically meaningless unless you know the story it is meant to depict (the aboriginals used the art primarily as a teaching/propaganda tool). This is fine in theory but the problem is that there is a very limited western (as in white Australian) knowledge of what those stories are. We went on these great guided tours run by the Kakadu Park Rangers where they talked about how we came to know what the pictures meant and frankly, there's not a lot of knowledge there. This is totally unsurprising when you consider one anecdote that a ranger relayed. One of the most important elders from the region where Nourlangie Rock is located was about to die. He had a grown up son in his 40s with whom the elder had deliberately refrained from sharing all his stories for some unknown reason. Talk about rejection. Anyway, before he died, the elder sat down with some (white) researchers and recorded very basic info on tape. Great stuff. Not sure how the son would have taken it...

[Ed: on the way out of Nourlangie, Adam and I sprinted into a wetland area to see the Nourlangie escarpment from a distance which was lovely.]


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]

That evening, I finally stepped up to the plate (so to speak) and prepared dinner for the girls. I was slightly intimidated by the chicken fajitas Jen had done the night before and so it was steaks and potatoes on the bbq for us. Which I proceeded to under-cook, in what was to become an all too frequent masterclass in cooking ineptitude.

Not to worry, we enjoyed a pleasant night under the stars in Cooinda listening to the soothing sounds of a drunk tour leader a few tents away drinking well into the night with one or two (we suspect) female members of his group. I'd never seen Claire and Jen so ropeable the next morning for our 6.00am start for the Yellow Water Billabong cruise. If they'd have had time for their usual early morning cup of nescafe [Its Mocccona! Ed, Jen], I reckon they'd both have been needing doubles. Anyway, the foul mouthed bogan was quickly forgotten as we spent a couple of hours cruising the billabong looking at loads of wildlife. More crocs, some egrets, kingfishers, sea eagles, darter-birds and my favourite, the ballsy fishermen, in a tinny, standing up trying to catch some barramundi whilst being stalked at a distance of 4 metres by a massive croc. Loved it.


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]

[Ed: sorry, we went a bit crazy with the long lens on the Yellow Waters trip!]

Horses in the mist


Brolgas (try as we would, they wouldn't dance for us)


Darter bird drying its wings


Lillies


Jabiru


Anyone for fishing?


Another croc


Another croc!


Priscilla got to dust off her 4WD boots later in the day as we checked out the Twin Falls and Jim Jim Falls - both of which were only accessible via a sandy track. It was pretty awesome. You spend the whole time being jolted up and down as the car bounces along the track - sort of like sitting on a waterbed being jumped on by a sumo wrestler. Priscilla took it all in her stride though and delivered us to the two sets of falls which are at the end of some amazing gorges. Even though one of the falls was dry and the other close to it, we were still able to get a sense of how immense they must be at their peak. Finally we got to swim at Jim Jim and the experience of having fish peck at your feet was pretty odd (and on one level sort of disconcerting as it's hard not to spend the entire time wondering what else is in the water!). Turns out that in addition to human skin, those fish quite like Coles Chocolate Rolls with Cream. Not sure how those made it into the water...


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]

The rest of the week comprised a waterhole tour of Kakadu (and a little bit at Litchfield, where Claire and Jen had been the week before). We started out at Maguk Waterhole where we'd camped the night before and then on to Gunlom Falls. It turns out that infinity pools have been around for ages - check out the pic of Claire from Gunlom Falls.


[Courtesy of A.D'Andreti Photography]



Gunlom was probably my highlight; not just because of the amazing views from the pools on top of the falls but also for the amazing rendition of the Priscilla Queen of the Desert Soundtrack that the girls provided when leaving it. 
 
Our week ended at Litchfield National Park, south of Darwin where we stayed at the Buley Rockpools. These are a series of pools; each of which is lower than the one before it, so there is a strong flow of water running through the pools. We camped about 150m away from the pools, which was quite a stroke of luck I think, since Claire and Jen were both adamant that on a Friday night these pools would be the place to be for those in Darwin. Luckily for us this turned out not to be the case and apart from some crusty European backpackers and some drink driving locals clad in your standard Australian flag board shorts and wife beater singlet, all was quiet. Finishing the week off with a big hunk of pork roasted in the camp stove was pretty magic - I knew then that I was in the presence of camping greatness! Thanks Claire and Jen and good luck with the rest of your travels. See you at Longrain in December!

PS In between all of the above, Claire and Jen managed to create a short film to send to their mate back home, Harn Crumbly, who was getting married. And yes, that's her new married name. Great isn't it! See the video here: 




[Ed - Thanks Adam, it was great to have you along for a week, and lovely to have someone write one of our blogs for us!! Hope you enjoyed KakaDO as much as we did!
Claire, of Jen and Claire fame]

Week 25, Monday 30 August - Sunday 5 September 2010

On Monday morning we were up early to do the Edith Falls walk, which was lovely – the falls at the top are much prettier than those at the bottom.



Then we packed up and headed off for Litchfield National Park. I'd asked at the Katherine Tourist Information about the 4wd track in from the south and got the usual “its very rough, its always rough, you shouldn't do it” stock response Tourist Information people have to questions about 4wd tracks. So we called the ranger for the area instead, who happily told me it had just been graded and was in great condition, so off we set! It was a nice enough track too, not too rough, and quite pretty. More large termite mounds



and a new kind of termite mound, these are called magnetic termite mounds.



The termites build narrow mounds on a north/south axis, so the mounds have maximum exposure to the sun in the mornings to the east, minimal exposure from above during the heat of the middle of the day, and exposure to the setting sun in the late afternoon/evenings – termites need consistent temperatures to breed (we read somewhere that the queen termite lays 3,000 eggs an hour, 3,000! Imagine if our HRH did that!), and this is their way of managing it. Clever little things those termites...

We stopped and went for a walk to Surprise Creek on route, a small waterfall and nice swimming hole for a quick dip. We decided not to camp though, as the march flies here were feral. So we made our way on to cross the Reynolds River crossing, which we'd heard was deep and were a little worried about. It was no hassle at all, and Priscilla waded through with her usual nonchalance. We stopped the night at Tjaynera Falls, and cooked up some steak and wedges on an open fire. The next morning we walked into the falls and had a swim,



before heading into the main section of Litchfield National Park, and the throngs of people!

We had a dip at Wangi Falls (very busy, but nice)



then stopped for a look at the view of Tolmer Falls, before heading down to the Florence Falls 4wd campground for the night. Nice quiet spot with a few visitors...





We walked to the falls and had another dip (incredibly busy – tiny area full of local Aussies, backpackers of all nationalities and travelling Aussies alike), before settling down for the night. In the morning we went to Buley Rockholes, and discovered our favourite spot in the park – a cascade of little waterfalls and rockpools winding down the hill with crystal clear water – beautiful! And we'd beaten the early tour buses so had the top pool to ourselves for a good hour before we dragged ourselves away to make the drive up to Darwin.





Before leaving the park, we did the little 4wd track down to see the Lost City (lots of lost cities in this area, I wonder where all the people went....)



Then we headed into Darwin. We did a quick scoot about town, called at the not terribly helpful Tourist Information, then headed out to the Free Spirit Caravan Park – three swimming pools, a bar and a quiz that night, what could be better?! We won some sweets at the quiz which had a discount voucher attached, which worked rather well with our decision to book in for the rest of the week the next day.

While in Darwin, we visited the Mindil Night Markets and had some tasty Thai food while watching the sunset



before picking up a few gifts in the markets.



The next day we took Priscilla in for a service, and went to Crocosaurus Cove in town while we waited. Here we saw some big saltwater crocs up close for the first time, pretty scary watching the handlers go into the enclosures to feed them – you certainly wouldn't catch me doing that!



Bad news from the mechanic was that Priscilla needed new front brake pads, which he wanted to charge an exorbitant price to do, so we went to pick her up and spent the rest of the day trying to arrange something a bit more reasonable.

On Saturday, this happened.



Pretty much all day – as you can see, Jen needed an umbrella even under Super Tarp to stay dry. All in all, a bit of a wash-out, and not ideal preparation for the arrival of our first guest, Mr D'Andreti from Sydney, coming to join us for a week in Kakadu. Which you'll hear more about from him soon, as we take a well deserved week off blog writing!

Love to all,
Claire, of Jen and Claire fame

Week 24, Monday 23 - Sunday 29 August 2010

And they call them Bungle Bungles!* Yep, we made it, the Bungle Bungles. Who wouldn't want to go to such a fabulously named place? If I described it as an area full of conical sandstone domes, gradually worn away by thousands of years of erosion, I'm sure it sounds a bit less attractive, but if I say “Bungle Bungle?” Well, I know you'd all say “Yes”.

It took us about an hour and a half to drive the fairly rough 50km track into the Bungles on Sunday night. Very slow, but not as slow as the books and tourist information people would have you believe at three hours. So on Monday, we were ready and raring for the 3 walks and drive back up to Kununurra we had planned.

First up, Echidna Chasm. No echidnas, but the chasm was pretty impressive. Its a short walk, probably better seen in the middle of the day when the sunlight beams down through the steep red rock walls in to the walking track at the base. We spent an hour or so walking between the chasm walls and clambering up over the boulders at the end (where the bats and frogs live).



Then back into Priscilla to speed (well, as far as one can speed on gravel roads at 40 mph) round to the other side of the park to do the Cathedral Gorge Walk, finishing off with the Domes Walk. Setting off at 11am in 35 degree heat is perhaps not ideal planning, but there we were. The walk into Cathedral Gorge was fairly exposed until reaching the final section where the gorge walls finally drew some shade. And the gorge itself was worth the effort, a natural amphitheatre, with a shallow (if now, at the end of the dry season, dank) pool in the centre. We were treated to a little didjeridoo playing by a fellow walker while we were there – perfect to accentuate the natural amplification of said gorge...



The Domes Walk is a much shorter walk through the conical domes of the Bungles – odd shaped red turrets jutting up about you everywhere – most unusual. All very pleasant, if very hot!



After our lovely walks, we headed back out of the park, taking another hour and half to traverse the rocky track back to the highway. Then we made the long drive on bitumen back up to Kununurra, where we caught up with Marg and Chris again that evening to hear about their trip to Mitchell Falls. It sounded wonderful, but the track was undoubtedly horrendous, so we weren't altogether disappointed with our decision not to go with them. We agreed to catch up again in Keep River National Park on the other side of the Northern Territory border in a couple of days time.

On Tuesday we did a tour of the Kununurra/Wydham area. First, we stopped at the Lovell Art Gallery in Kununurra, and enjoyed the artist's panoramic of the Bungle Bungles

http://www.lovellgallery.com.au/panorama/panorama.htm

Her paintings were equally impressive, and we thought about buying a print of one of her boab trees, but with a price tag of $450 for a “limited edition” (“but still not an original”!) print, we opted to keep our dwindling cash. We figure we have plenty of expensive art buying days ahead...

After the art excursion, we crossed the Ivanhoe Crossing and took the dirt track north to Wyndham (well, there was no way I was going back across that crossing, so we had to!) The Ivanhoe is a long concrete crossing, but we'd been warned the river is populated by saltwater crocodiles, and its fairly fast flowing across the concrete, so its a bit of a head thing driving through it. Priscilla was clearly unimpressed with my cowardliness and crossed without breaking a sweat. I, on the other hand, was rather uncomfortable. Here's a picture of someone else crossing before we did!



The dirt track up to Wyndham proved pretty good, and we had a nice stop at the Marlgu Billabong, a wetland area where we watched a darter bird catching fish. The darter (or snake bird) is a striking bird, with a long zigzagged neck, which it can extend like a dart to spear fish on its beak while underwater – good eh? There were lots of lovely lilies too.




And Magpie Geese (which are good eating, so we've been told...)



Then we carried on up to Wyndham and the 5 river look-out, which was surprisingly high, and surprisingly beautiful, but not surprisingly difficult to photograph. So go google it if you want to see what it looks like! Then we shot back down to Kununurra on the highway, before continuing onto Lake Argyle for the night, seeing a lovely moonrise on route.



On Wednesday, we spent an hour enjoying the Lake Argyle campground infinity pool (very nice too, but still not as nice as the one at Hamilton Island where we stayed with Lynne and David!)



before driving down to see the Lake Argyle dam. Lake Argyle was created in the early seventies when the Ord River was dammed as part of the irrigation scheme in the area. It has a surface area of around 1,000 square kilometres and enough water to fill Sydney Harbour 18 times apparently.



Then we slowly headed over the border, well, after some time with our favourite bird, the black cockatoo.



Northern Territory has pretty much no interest in what you bring in, so border control is not even manned on the east-bound side of the road. Those travelling into Western Australia have a much harder time, which meant we received some donations of fruit and vegetables over the next couple of days from people who would otherwise have to bin their uneaten goods before heading further west! The avocado was particularly appreciated!

We spent that night at Keep River National Park, meeting up with Chris and Marg again. The ranger there did a talk that evening. It was titled “Camp Fire Talk, Secrets of the Keep River National Park”. We got the impression he'd had a few drinks and the talk soon became a bit of a rant about government support for the parks etc. All very entertaining.

The next morning we got up and did the short Gurrandalng walk, which was really lovely. The ranger the night before had been very passionate about the park ("where the savannah meets the tropics"), and between rants one thing he said was that this is one of the nicest short walks in Australia, and we think he was at least right about that.



Then we hit the bitumen for 170km to Timber Creek, where we'd been promised cheap camping and a pool (we were now into the hottest temperatures we've experienced on the trip, plus 35 degrees everyday, and getting humid). On route we called at Gregory's Tree, inscribed with the date 2 July 1856, when Augustus Gregory and his party of explorers landed there and set up a base camp to explore the area.



Finally, we (well, Priscilla) climbed a steep climb to get a view of Timber Creek from above, before we headed down to the caravan park. It turned out not to be cheap at all, but there was a lovely cool pool, and at 5pm they had crocodile feeding. Visitors crowd onto a thin and not particularly safe looking bridge to watch a lad from Yorkshire who was working at the park hang bits of meat off a coat-hanger attached to a stick like a fishing rod to feed the crocs. Only freshies, so not meant to be dangerous to us humans, but reasonable size freshies nonetheless. And Jen had a go at feeding them too...(we have a video of this but having trouble uploading...so watch this space).



We had a few drinks with Chris and Marg that night and said our farewells the next morning as they were heading due East while we started heading North for Darwin. We had a longish day in the saddle to make it to Katherine late that afternoon, some 300kms away. We had a little look around town, and picked up some extra food from Coles, before heading out to Low Level Caravan Park just on the edge of town – one of the nicest we've stayed at (well, that was after we'd checked into a horrible one and checked out again!) We stayed two nights to catch up on washing and cleaning, and to have a bit of a laze in the pool and watch a free movie (Mao's Last Dancer) with dinner (chicken schnitzel for Jen and lasagne for me), both of which were pretty terrible, but beggars can't be choosers!

On Sunday we went for a quick look around Katherine Gorge (now Nitmiluk Gorge), thinking we'd call back on our way back South from Darwin. We didn't get a proper look, as we didn't do any of the walks, but we were a bit put off by how developed and touristy it felt. I also think we're now a bit gorged-out. Anyway, we pushed on to Edith Falls for the night, and I (of course) had a swim at the pool at the bottom (saltwater crocodile managed – they don't open it until they've removed any that are there at the beginning of the season, but can't guarantee that one won't turn up during the season!)



Safe to say I didn't swim far from the edge, despite people swimming the full width of the pool (a big one) to the falls on the other side. Early bed, as is usual for us now, ready for the walk up to the main falls in the morning.

That's all for now, still playing catch up, more soon,
Love to all,
Claire, of Jen and Claire Fame

*You should know that, in my head, that's sung to the tune of “Mellow yellow”.