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Published: November 6th 2012
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Darwin – 23
rd – 27
th October
As we were only in Darwin for three nights the only campervan that we could hire was a Wicked campervan. We knew the horror stories about these vans; not road worthy, small, dirty, but we wanted to tour around Darwin so decided to go ahead and book one anyway. The Wicked vans are converted old work vans and are covered in spray paint and graffiti so I requested a ‘tame’ van due to my mom being with us! We picked up the van and it did not look too bad but Terry had to give the inside a good clean first and we had to supply our own bedding which suited us anyway.
Unfortunately the van came with no aircon and it was so hot morning and night with highs of 37c plus humidity it was a sweat box! We had to sleep every night sideways so we could have the van door open with our legs sticking out...
We ended up spending 3 nights at the same campsite as it was only around 30 miles outside Darwin
and was in the middle of everything we wanted to do. She said she could not stop laughing in the morning when she just saw these legs poking out of the van..
Even though we were tired from our over night flight we decided to get out of the City and take a trip to see some crocodiles close up. We joined a tour run by a local man called Harry, and as we were approaching the low season we were the only people on the tour! We were only on a small boat and as soon as we got on the boat and started sailing down the river Terry spotted the first crocodile! Supposedly it was the ‘big one’ but Harry said we would come back and find him later and we continued down stream.
Again we spotted another crocodile and Harry got out some buffalo meat to feed him that was attached to a long stick. The crocodile then comes right up to the boat and jumps out the water to eat the piece of meat, was totally unbelievable to be this close to
a crocodile! We saw so many on the one hour trip, some even on the sandy banks including the ‘big one’ again. It was 8 metres in length and was so beautiful, just its posture and colour – incredible. Afterwards we were all buzzing.
Next day we went around Litchfield park, we saw huge termite mounds that were at least 12 feet tall and natural waterfalls and rock pools that we could swim in, was so beautiful and refreshing in the heat. Spent the whole day driving around. At the final rock pool we could hear a storm coming, so I told mom to go ahead back to the campervan whilst I waited for Terry. My mom is useless at directions but I pointed to the pathway we had come along and said we would see her back at the car park. I mean it was only one way...
However when Terry and I returned to the van my mom was not there; and she had the keys. It was now starting to rain and I instantly panicked, with thoughts of mom
being lost in the ‘bush’. Terry and I ran back to the rock pool calling her along the way. We found another path that was totally the opposite way to the one I had pointed to mom to take but we could not think where else she could of disappeared to, I mean the path we originally took was only 400 metres from the car park. The rain was really coming down now, and I was only wearing my flip flops and was slipping all over the place. The path was nearly 2km in length surely mom would of noticed if she came down this path that it was so much longer?? We finally arrived back at the car park and found mom waiting for us in the van. We were so annoyed and were soaked through, I asked her where she’d been and she said where have we been, we’ve been ages. She had not got a clue that she had taken the wrong path back and that we had been looking for her for the last half hour! That is it, she is not leaving my sight again on this trip!!
On our final day in Darwin we visited the free museum which was all about Cyclone Tracy and how it destroyed 10,000 homes on Christmas eve in 1979. Was unbelievable what happened and nearly everyone had to be evacuated from Darwin whilst they rebuilt the city. We also visited the Darwin Gaol museum and saw where the last two prisoners were hung in 1952, very sad place.
Mom went alone to the Military Museum as was quite expensive but she got senior discount so was not a bad price and it was her idea to come to Darwin in the first place, as she remembered being taught the history of it all whilst at school and wanted to see it for herself.
Darwin was great, but way too hot. Maybe if we had of had air con we may of been more comfortable but we enjoyed the adventure all the same. The crocodiles were the definite highlight..
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