Day 9 - Darwin. / Kakadu Trip Our first full day in Darwin. Had not planned anything for today. Now this is unusual for me but you have to try new things and today was going to be a day of new experiences. The first was riding in an old Studebaker and the second was going to the footy. Let’s start with the Studebaker. Our first thing to do was go to the Darwin Information centre. This was a hive of activity and we booked a sunset tour over Darwin Harbour for next week but for today we (Tracey, Xavier and my wife and I) booked a WW11 Discovery Tour conducted in an old Studebaker truck. Paul, Lisa and the kids went to one of the water parks here in Darwin. Before we started this tour ... read more

Day 7 - Katherine / Kakadu Today is our last full day in Katherine and our last night here. Tomorrow we will head up to Darwin. This morning we had booked a Two Gorge tour of the Katherine Gorge (now called Nitmiluk Gorge). This tour took just over two hours to traverse two gorges On unsinkable barges (I hope they are unsinkable as there are crocodiles under the boat). We had to walk over from one Gorge to the other to get over the natural rock dams to get to the second barge (yes we had to get on two barges both on the way up and way back). The scenery was spectacular and we spotted 4 crocodiles. We were told by the guide they were freshwater species and therefore we would not be killed by ... read more

Day 5 - Katherine. / Kakadu Today’s temperature was low 30s. Shorts and T/shirts time. We are not missing the Melbourne weather. Today we went to The Outback Experience show. We had booked this show from Melbourne based on online trip advisor reviews and the show did not disappoint. The show setting was a real stock horse and dog training farm. We were entertained by Tom Curtain two-time Australian Country Music Golden Guitar winner and horseman extraordinaire. He provided us with a taste on the inner workings of horse training and he used a real scenario and trained a horse in front of our very eyes. He also spent some time working with kelpie and border collie dogs. What a great show and it went for 3 hours. Lunch was in Katherine town and then after ... read more

Day 3 - Erldunda to Tennant creek What a day and we haven’t even arrived at Katherine yet. Today’s trip took us from Erldunda roadhouse to Tennant Creek. A distance of 700km. We started off with breakfast at the Erldunda roadhouse. Well we don’t realise what we have in Melbourne until you don’t get it. We went into the breakfast area and out of the five cereal boxes only two had cereal in them and there was very little else. Let’s just say basic is basic. By 7 am we were off onto Stuart highway. In the first few minutes a road train passed us going in the other direction and I was sprayed by rocks. Windscreen copped it and I now have a cracked screen. Looks like a new windscreen is on the list for ... read more

Day 1 - Left Melbourne at 5 am with 1,078km to drive. Nothing much in this trip although the first 200 hundred kilometers was a little scary due to fog. It was dark and foggy and the sun was still asleep so could not see much at all. Let me just say my attention level was so high I should have got a headache from concentrating too much. It was pretty funning thinking back to this morning. My wife was relaxed in the passenger seat having a catch up sleep and here I was fully awake with eyes popping out of my head with concentration to ensure I stay on the road and within site of Xavier‘s ute. I was just lucky Xavier was paving the way in front of me and all I had to ... read more