On the road again

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Day 17 – Monday 16^th July – Darwin to somewhere by the side of the road near Timber Creek

After a reasonably leisurely pack up and check out of the caravan park, the first stop was the Darwin office of Ceva Logistics to drop off Dave’s Discovery for its return journey to Melbourne. We didn’t really get travelling until after 10am. As we were so close to the famous Litchfield National park we thought we should drive the loop through the park and check out the most famous sights.

As it is closer to Darwin than Kakadu is and is smaller and more compact, there were many more visitors in the park. The famous Wangi falls were very lovely but were overrun with other tourists and you couldn’t feel the magic of the place at all. Nevertheless we still went for a dip in the pools below the falls and snorkeled to see if we could see any turtles (not surprisingly they were all in hiding as the place was so busy). We made a very quick stop at Florence Falls – same thing, very beautiful but very busy, and the magnetic termite mounds where all the mounds point in roughly the same direction. Something about the heat reflection from the sun or something. Anyway, they were pretty impressive.

Back out of the park it was 3pm and we had another couple of hours of driving to do before we reached Katherine. We needed to stock up on more supplies and buy some diesel and a new back pack. Unfortunately we arrived just after all the normal stores had closed and only the local newsagents and Woolworths supermarket were open. Luckily we found a daypack in Woolworths to replace the one we left at Gunlom falls.

After dark we set off again along the Victoria Highway, aiming to get as far as possible towards Timber Creek and hoping to find a rest area in a convenient place that had a small spot for us. We drove and drove in the dark, managing to avoid wallabies hopping across the road, until we found a suitable empty truck stop. As it was 10.30 the kids had gone to sleep so Mark and I popped up the trailer tent in the dark and deposited the kids on their mattress, still asleep. Another free night’s camping but in an unspectacular spot!

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Photos

Did we say that we kept bumping into a Bayside coach?
This time it was at Lee Point Caravan Park in Darwin