Tropic Lesson One

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Day 133 - Matarank to Katherine

Have we mentioned that it’s hot? Does it sound like we’re moaning?! We’re not, of course, but it’s hot, it’s sweaty, it’s humid and that continues until about 4am when it goes cool, I would even say fresh! The freshness remains until about 8 in the morning and then it all starts again! Darryl has just corrected me with the comment ‘What freshness, when did you last feel b*#^*#y cool. Tell Anna she was right, we should have got a caravan with air con!”

Needless to say that it was a bit of a restless night, we’ll find a way through it though, there has to be a way!

We have another short journey today, just an hour up the road to Katherine. We are considering staying at the nearby Edith Falls so we’ll see what time we’ve finished getting a few supplies from the town centre and then make a decision.

Fuel was our first priority, we just need enough to get us to Katherine and at a cost of $1.51 it was just aswell!

An uneventful journey brought us safely to Katherine and the welcome sight of diesel for $1.26 from the Woolworths Caltex which gave us 4c off a litre too - yippee! We did a bit of food shopping and managed to keep the bill under $100, we’re watching the bank balance a bit because you can get carried away and we’re very mindful we have a further 231 days to go! It’s difficult to stick to a strict budget because we don’t want to miss things seeing how we may never get the chance to go back to some places. Anyway, home brands it was for us today again!

Darryl only has 3 cans of grog left and as that’s his only luxury (!) we need to get him some more but we are in a town with community licensing laws so the Woolworths bottle shop doesn’t open on a Sunday and none of the bottle shops open until after 2pm (that’s every day of the week, not just Sunday). You are required to show your driving license to purchase alcohol and there are limits on the amount you can buy at any one time. It’s still only mid-day so we pack the shopping away, get some more details about the surrounding area from the visitor centre and then make our way to the Big 4 Low Level camp site for the night. None of the camp grounds in the local area are freebies with facilities and if we’d gone to Edith Falls we would have been paying $18 for a site with no power - false economy when we’ve got 6 blogs to upload and lots of catching up on Skype to do!

We get a nice pitch on the Big 4 site and of course get our ‘passport’ stamped for the 18th time.

I set about uploading more of the blogs and Darryl sorts out things around the caravan then when the clock strikes two he hot foots it back into town for the beer. He’s back quick as a flash and I’ve managed to upload 2 blogs so we celebrate with a swim in the enormous campsite pool!

We enjoyed a refreshing drink when we got back and I put my tumbler on the ground beside the chair (the table was full of leaflets about Kakadu!), 5 minutes later and it's crawling with midgy ant things!! Lesson one of being in the tropics, don't leave tumblers unattended!

Just before dinner we get a great Skype call from Kangaroojack, they’re now house sitting in Cairns but it’s great to hear that at the end of the month they are going to be making the trip up to Cape York. It’s a big trip so they’ll take about a month but we’re sure they’ll have fun. We’re very excited to hear that Sydney (with a Y from Cairns) will soon be joining us in Darwin! We wish him a safe trip and look forward to collecting him from the post office! We'll be sure to publish a pictorial his arrival! Great to hear from you guys, thanks very much for the call.

We missed a call from Bernie and Tez in Norway, we were having dinner and I didn’t hear the ‘phone’ go but we’ll look out for you and give you a shout next time we’re on.

The time now is nearing 8.30 and we can hear the camp entertainment at the Bistro in full swing but instead we’re going to cool off in the showers and maybe look for the Frogmouth Owl that frequents the trees behind us!

Take care all, we’re heading towards Jabiru now so not sure how long the internet coverage will hang on but we’ll be in Darwin in the next week or so.

Dar and Sar

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