Kanga-Banga

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DAY 227

I had the most terrible nights sleep, I awoke at some ungodly hour because it was too hot, it seems that the temperature must have gone up in the night, it had been a bit cloudy yesterday so maybe it was understandable. Last night the mozzies were well and truly on a mission, they feasted well, so the next thing that kept me awake was the constant itch from a few of bites, a few campers seemed to be having some jollities over the way, though it had not been too bad but the sound of someone getting in a car at 2.45 this morning also made me wake up.

I heard Ken and Josh leave at 5.30 this morning; they are off fishing this morning in Yellow Water with the aim of catching the prized Barramundi, or whatever other brand of fish is available in these vast flood plains of Kakadu.

I felt so tired when it got to 7.00 this morning, I went back to sleep and would have slept on a lot longer if Andy had not woken me at 7.40, with a cup of tea of course.

We sat around again this morning with Jodie, Kahlia, David and Dot they were all waiting until Ken and Josh got back with their booty, with the intention of leaving Kakadu today to head toward Katherine and the last leg of their journey home, back to Inverloch in Victoria, via Alice Springs. They have had a fantastic journey, however they still have 17 days to go, so plenty more adventures are to be had on the way home.

Caroline mustered up scrambled eggs, but unfortunately no bacon, as we had depleted that resource, and once breakfast was done Caroline sat reading in the shade of the Trumans caravan. Everyone was generally lolling around relaxing.

The boys were supposed to be back by 11.30 but they were late, great, we thought they have had a catch and they are late, as they have to clean the fish!!

The boys get back about midday, “Long Faces” as Ken and Josh didn’t catch a thing, still this is how it goes sometimes. As soon as they are back Ken gets his back in to it and starts to get the caravan ready to hook up to the Patrol for moving on, I think he is just airing his frustration at the lack of a bite.

We just need to take a couple of photo’s of David and Dot, then hugs and kisses and we leave them in peace, to pack up and get away. We leave the campsite and drive to a town called Jabiru about 55K’s from where we are staying, as we need to stock up on some provisions. While driving Caroline has Internet access for quite a while so catches up on some e-mails.

Jabiru is a funny little town, in the middle of nowhere but on the road towards Darwin, we do some banking and food shopping in the local IGA, it is quite large and even has a camping section, we were looking on the fresh meat counterwhen we saw the Kanga Banga's , I am sure you don't need a lot of imagination to work out that they are Kangaroo Sausages, shopping done we turn tail and head back to camp. We will have an easy afternoon again with the promise of more adventure to come tomorrow.

On our return the Truman’s and the Gary’s were gone as expected, and their camping spaces were empty, my thoughts were to all the fun we have had over the past weeks with the Truman family, Caroline and myself wish them all well and a safe journey. I am sure that we won’t be on our own for long though.

The afternoon is humid, it is very cloudy, and little sunshine but the humidity is uncomfortable, I can hear insect noises, more likely to be crickets, the occasional sound of a camper coming into the campground to drive round and look for a spot, I am typing up the blog, I have just had a refreshing shower yet, that refreshing feeling did not last long, I am melting, I don’t want to move it is so humid. The clouds make it look as if we are going to have rain, but I don’t know what rain they get here in the dry season, if any.

The fire for the evening needed to be prepared as we were again going to use the camp oven, tonight is going to be Chow Mein, all the wood was collected and the fire made, but we did not light it until about 6.00, and as some of the wood was hard, it took a while to burn down.

Eventually we managed to clear the pit out and we shovelled hot coals into it, and finally sat the camp oven on top. The chow mein cooked beautifully, in ½ hour we had a great dinner.

The chow mein was so nice we had to fight off the world of Kakadu insects who were trying to invade our food, we sat and ate by the fire without torch light in the hope that nothing flew in, the torch light only encouraged activity.

A New Zealand couple who pulled in earlier, Murray and Cheryl Perou, came and sat with us around the fire, they flew in to Darwin for their big adventure, back in New Zealand they had a soft drinks business called Foxton Fizz but sold it three years ago, so they are now retired and spend their time between Australia and New Zealand. I said we would not be on our own for very long.

Sitting around the fire the Mosquito’s were eating us alive, they were everywhere, and we were getting really fed up of them, you could hear the constant buzzing reverberating in our ears. We had sprayed Bushman on every scrap of available skin, not to mention covering up with long shirts and trousers, even in this heat, but to no avail they seem to find a way to take their share of blood from you. You get fed up trying to swat them away or swat them just before they plunge their straws into you, but they are so hard to notice.

We have been experimenting with our dampers recently and I had thought about making a ham and Cheese one, so with the still hot camp oven, Caroline made up a damper, rolled it flat (using a drinking glass), put the ham and cheese in rolled it up and chucked it in the hot camp oven to cook for lunch tomorrow. We were so excited to get it out; when it was ready it looked perfect, so we wrapped it in tin foil ready for tomorrows adventure. We had no more room in the fridge but it needed to cool down anyway so it was left on top and securely locked away from the Dingos.

We were both melting in this humidity, and it was showing no sign of easing off, so in a bid to get cool we went for a cold shower, it was the only way to bring our body temperature back to something normal so we could at least start the night with some comfort.

The cool droplets of water from high in the ceiling were just so refreshing it did the trick. It was 10.00 and the lights went out in the ablution block, I made haste back to the tent and jumped into bed, most of the flaps are open exposing the vast areas of mosquito netting, just hoping for a cool breeze to shimmer over us in the night. My new fleecy pyjamas that I bought to help keep cold desert nights out now lay abandoned for a more favourable shorts and t shirt.

I lay for a while hoping that sleep would come quickly, for a while you could hear the sound of the other campers, the toads hopping around in the leaves outside and the occasional droplet of moisture from somewhere dripping onto the tent.

I was tired after last night so I drifted off easily into sleep.

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Photos

Cheese & Ham Damper
The lid of the cook pot has just been removed