Blogs from Northern Territory, Australia, Oceania - page 3

We didn’t quite know what to expect of Darwin, with again, a lot of unfavourable press coverage clouding our vision. We were pleasantly surprised at what a colourful, multicultural city Darwin is today. Darwin's proximity to South East Asia makes it a key link between Australia and countries such as Indonesia and East Timor. The city has been almost entirely rebuilt four times, firstly following devastation caused by a cyclone in 1897, another cyclone in 1937, Japanese Air Raids in 1942, and Cyclone Tracy in 1974. Darwin endured over sixty air raids during WWII. We set out to explore the Darwin CBD, and met up with our 2022 traveller friends Mandy and Glenn from Lakes Entrance for lunch overlooking the harbour. After farewelling our friends later that afternoon, we enjoyed a swim in Darwin Harbour lagoon. ... read more

The turnoff for Kakadu National Park is at Pine Creek, and we had to decide whether to head into Kakadu or trek north to Darwin. We decided to head north into Darwin, as we were catching up there with friends that we had met in Queensland last year, and I was keen to get a new set of tyres fitted on the caravan before we move on too far. Pine Creek was founded when workers digging holes for the Overland Telegraph Line discovered gold, triggering another Australian gold rush. There have been a number of gold and iron ore mines operating in Pine Creek, with an open cut gold mine only closing in 1995 after having extracted 21,700 kg of gold over a ten year period. The open cut pit is now filled with a lake. ... read more

The vast distances in the outback again came into play with our four hour drive to Kings Canyon, where we booked into the Discovery Park Caravan Park. The creek was named by the explorer Ernest Giles in 1872. He wrote in his book Geographic Travels in Central Australia from 1872 to 1874: "I called King's Creek after Mr. Fielder King... an old and kind friend of mine". After setting up our caravan, we drove to Kings Canyon, also known as Watarrka, and completed the 3 km Kings Creek walk, which follows the creek along the canyon floor. At the end of the walk is a platform, with views of the canyon walls above. On the way back to our vehicle, we passed the steep ascent of the Kings Canyon Rim walk, which we were proposing to ... read more

On Wednesday, 24th, we anchored in Darwin Harbour, at the Waterfront Wharf. We were able to disembark the ship and walked along the walkway , past Stokes warf to the lovely Waterfront precinct and up into the city. Fletcher wanted to find a bank to get some cash, so we wandered along the Mall and eventually found the ANZ bank. It was already warm with a hotter day to follow. We found a taxi which took us to the Aviation Museum near Darwin Airport. We had missed this last time we were here in 2020. The main attraction here is the B-52 bomber which takes up the whole of the enormous hangar. It looks like the mother hen with all the other planes nestled under its wings. I Ihad not realised how big it is. There ... read more

Monday afternoon Outback Spirit Tours took us for an orientation tour of Alice Springs although we had done quite a bit of walking as well as a tour with the Ghan, it was interesting to hear different stories from Alice Springs and get to know our driver/guide Gary and another guide Kane, great blokes and we will have a great tour with these guys. Dinner was at the hotel Monday night and it was delish with a delicious piece of Wayghu beef with an entree and desert. Earlyish night as an 8am take off tomorrow in our monster bus/truck, its something else, quite new with only 30,000klms on the clock, a Mercedes truck with a small bus type set up on the back, lovely leather seats and everything onboard, iced water, big fridge full of food ... read more