Advertisement
Published: September 3rd 2009
Darwin Caravan Park
We had lots of room and shade at this excellent caravan parkDARWIN - LITCHFIELD NP - MATARANKA -DEVILS MARBLES.
Our caravan park in Darwin was about 14k from the city centre. We were given a great site shaded by Palm trees and surrounded by green lawn.
The Darwin Museum was very interesting the recently completed Cyclone Tracy exhibition was chilling. One of the rooms was playing a recording of the wind noise that sent a shiver down my spine. The before and after pictures showed the total devastation.
The military museum is also well set out and very informative.
I did not realise the extent of the Japanese attacks on Darwin in the second world war.
The 242 Japanese aircraft dropped more bombs on Darwin in the first attack than were dropped on Pearl Harbour. The extent of the damage was vast, there were 230 killed and more than 600 injured in that first attack.
We went to the Mindil market, ate at the wharf restaurant, found some excellent restaurants in Cullen Bay area and generally did all the tourist things.
The highlight of our stay in Darwin was the trip to the Tiwi Islands.
We boarded the fast ferry at Cullen Bay terminal for a
Butterfly
This was my first opportunity to use my new Nikon macro lens two hour trip to Bathurst Island.
The ferry anchored a few hundred metres off the beach and a barge came out to take us ashore.
With a Tiwi islanded as a guide, we bussed around the island for a very informative tour giving us an insight into Tiwi life on the Island and explanations of the Tiwi customs.
They are a very friendly people and seem much different to the Aboriginals on the Mainland.
Aussie rules football is the main game on the island and they all want to talk about the ALF footballers that have come from the island.
Some of the more notable are Essendon champion Michael Long and the famous Riolis - Maurice (Richmond), Dean (Essendon) and Cyril (Hawthorn)
Their art in the form of carvings, pottery and paintings keep a lot of the islanders busy.
We were given a huge buffet lunch on the ferry before heading back to Darwin at 5pm.
We would have stayed longer in Darwin if the weather was better. The build up to the wet season was starting and the humidity made it uncomfortable.
It got the point where we had to turn on
Batchelor Caravan Park
This was our caravan site at the Big 4 park at Batchelor. We sppent 2 days here exploring Litchfield NP the air conditioner at night to get some sleep.
It was time to head south.
Batchelor is 100 k south of Darwin and the start of Litchfield National Park. The Big 4 caravan park was set in groves of palm trees and green grass.
We spend two days here exploring the park.
You will see by the pictures of the Lost City that these were fascinating rock formations and was well worth the 20 k drive down a very rough 4WD track.
We joined a ranger tour of the magnetically aligned termite mounds. This gave us a whole new outlook on the life of the termites. They have more directional ability than some people I know.
The many waterfalls and plunge pools within the park were great and we would have liked to spend more there but the heat and humidity was a bit much.
We passed through Katherine for our overnight stop at Mataranka Thermal pool.
While the hot thermal springs were very nice the smell of the little red flying foxes roosting in the palm trees was over powering.
We left very early the next morning to get away from the
Tiwi Island Barge
This is the barge that transported us to and from the ferry that can be seen in the background dreadful smell.
Alice Springs is our next destination. We drove through Daley Waters, Tennant Creek to an off road overnight stop at the Devils Marbles rest area. We drove just over 600k this day.
The Devils Marbles rock formation is well named. Stacks of round rocks strewn around and stacked on each other is an amazing sight.
The sun setting over these stacks of round rocks was stunning.
Tomorrow we will travel the next 400k to Alice where we expect to stay a week before heading slowly home.
You may have noticed that I have been forbidden from documenting Jacquie’s shopping habits but am happy to report that I took Rod Carruthers suggestion (one piece of jewellery = one piece of camera equipment).
I am now the proud owner of a brand new Nikon 60mm macro lens purchased from Camera House in Darwin.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.143s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 7; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0944s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
regburubu
non-member comment
Bob, Happy birthday today! Suzie reminded me otherwise I would not have known. Have a good one. I saw Andrew Stopp last sunday (comp day) and he is missing you. Andrew is 3 or 4 points ahead of Bobby Bright going into the flour bombing competition. I would love to see Andrew win the club championship this year. If you want to email Suzie it is Cheers, Reg.