Day 9 - Alice Springs Today we awoke early after having had the best night's sleep in quite some time. We stayed at the Macdonnell Ranges Big 4 caravan park which is the one of the best caravan parks we've ever stayed in. Kevin went to the local Britz car hire office to try to arrange to pick up the extra sleeping bag that the Darwin office had neglected to give us and since one of the poles in the tent had broken he also swapped the for another tent. We decided to spend the day in Alice and see a [View Full Entry]

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Day 8 - Renner Springs to Alice After a dreadful nights' sleep, we were up at dawn and happy to leave. Our first stop was at the Devil's Pebbles which is different to the Devil's Marbles. These are also known as Kunjara and are about 6km off the main highway. We walked the short walk winding in and out through the pebbles but it was quite cold. There was a rubbish bin at the carpark which had been painted aboriginal style - a great piece of art! We pushed on to Tennant Creek, having a look at the Tennant Creek Telegraph [View Full Entry]

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Day 7 - Katherine to Renner Springs Today we headed off to Mataranka just after breakfast in order to catch the 9.30am barramundi feeding session at Territory Manor. Territory Manor is along the road to Bitter Springs and looks like a great place to stay - lots of grassy sites!! They have a dam with a couple of reasonable size barra which they hand feed. The barra obviously know what's happening and come out for a free feed, one by one. The guy feeding them is obviously a keen fisherman himself and he is the one who has caught the fish [View Full Entry]

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Day 6 - Katherine & Nitmiluk National Park This morning we drove back to Edith Falls which is in the northern part of Nitmiluk National Park. There was no shortage of water here and yet the surrounding countryside was so arid. Kevin and the kids went swimming but the water was a bit cool for me. I was surprised at how large the plunge pool at the base of the falls is - it would be a good 100 - 150 metre swim over to the actual falls from the edge of the pool. Saltwater crocs aren't really much of a [View Full Entry]

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Day 5 - Jabiru to Katherine Woke up to another day where the heat and humidity climbed quickly. By the time we packed up all the camping gear, we were ready for another swim but instead we set off in the car for Nourlangie Rock. We got there around 9.00am and started the walk to the art sites. The signage at the carpark said that the walk was 12 klm and because of that, we initially thought we'd only go to the first art site due to the heat and our aversion to doing anything more strenuous in the heat than [View Full Entry]

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Day 4 - Mary River to Jabiru (Kakadu National Park) Awoke to a glorious sunrise and a visit from some friendly kangaroos. This was our first test to see how quickly we could pack up the car and get going ... definitely room for some improvement there! The temperature climbs very quickly up here, by 8.00am we were working up a sweat so it was good to jump in the airconditioned car and head off. We decided to visit Couzen's Lagoon which was about a 20km detour off the main highway, mostly dirt but not really four wheel drive stuff either. [View Full Entry]

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Day 3 - Darwin to Mary River This morning we packed up early, having been kept awake half the night by possums playing football on the roof of the motel! Kevin wanted to have a look at the B52 bomber on display at the Aviation Museum as it is the only one outside of the US so he took Caitlyn and Brad with him while Nicola and I went into the mall to shop. While shopping, I noticed the National Australia Bank building which I personally think wins the title of Ugliest Building Ever, hands down :-) We saw less of [View Full Entry]

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Day 2 - Out and about in Darwin & surrounding area I don't like to sit around when I'm on holiday because I figure that I can do that at home and it doesn't cost me anything. So we do what I call "the buffet tour" when we're on holiday - it's a little bit of this and a taste of that and if the kids want to come back later in their lives for seconds then it's up to them! So today we got up early and set off for Territory Wildlife Park which is at Berry Springs, about 30 [View Full Entry]

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In early 2009, the nice Australian government decided to give us all a "stimulus package" to kick start the economy. So we thought we'd do our bit to support rural Australia and the domestic tourism industry and started planning our outback family holiday. After lots of research, including reading travel blogs like this one, I planned an itinerary that covered all the major outback tourist destinations and a couple of well kept secrets! I booked the car and 90% of the accommodation in January and I'm so glad I did because when I went to try and make an adjustment to [View Full Entry]

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