What a Croc..............

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Hello again from sunny Darwin / NT.....We are having such a great time that we decided to take full advantage of this magnificent weather and stay longer....3 days to be exact. I believe that we left you on our last Blog on Wednesday night 3rd August with me having consumed a lobster and Graham ate a cracker (Yeah, right) and had a beer or 6.

I’m stunned and baffled. Within minutes of chatting to our fellow male neighbours for the first time, they openly informed me that they are not happy with their size. Now girls, have you ever heard of men complaining that it’s too big, yep that’s right I said TOO BIG!!!!. As far as I can remember it ain’t the size that matters fellas......Talk about fussy buggers. These bozos are complaining that the park is too big. I can’t understand their reasoning...3 pools, a bar, restaurant, palm trees in every direction, too many bathrooms to count and unlimited water usage to do whatever you want and some young eye candy (not too young though)bikini clad females prancing around the pool areas. What more could you blokes ask for. Talk about being ungrateful..... What whingers!!!

Now that’s off my chest....Thursday we rose for the girls to take part in the park’s craft activity. Some fabulous artwork was made in preparation of Big G’s birthday on Friday. The girls made a card and painted plaster frangipani picture frames each as supplied by the art activities (just what daddy always wanted). The young woman running the activities asked if she could practise her face painting skills on the girls in preparation of the activity on Friday. Of course we couldn’t decline her kind offer of free face painting (the girls looked beautiful) but it was soon washed off by the first dip in the pool. In the afternoon we went into town to investigate the city mall, retail therapy was had and then we explored the museum. The Darwin museum has a display of Aboriginal Art, various stuffed animals, all sorts of bugs and fish and a huge area dedicated to Cyclone Tracy from 1974 as well as an area on WW11, which we ran out of time to explore. The Cyclone Tracy area was so interesting and informative, as I didn’t really remember much about the cyclone and it really put a lot of things into perspective when you saw the destruction of the city and how different it looks now.

After the museum closed we went to the Mindil market. This is a huge market held every Thursday and Sunday night beside the foreshore which starts at 4.30pm and is the social event of the week. I’m sure every Darwinite was out at the market because you just couldn’t move. They take picnic tables, deck chairs, champagne, wine, beer and nibbles with them and socialise with friends and family while eating their dinner from the range of food on offer from the stalls. We watched the beautiful pink and orange sunset on the beach while there was a trio playing musical instruments and the girls had a play in the sand and surf. Dinner was quickly ordered for the girls, but Graham and I had trouble deciding what to have. The smells were delicious as you walked through the stalls. Finally we decided on what to have but trying to get through the crowd to purchase it was another issue.

When we were making our way back to the entrance, we came across a man who was selling artwork. Instead of paints being used, many spray cans of enamel paint were the tools of his trade along with a trowel, another utensil and the last item was rolled up newspaper. Not a paintbrush to be seen. This artist didn’t speak much English but his work was amazing. It took him about 10 minutes to complete each of his masterpieces and they were selling like hotcakes. People would admire the work thinking that it had taken him hours. Of course we had to have one (if only it was that easy), 4 paintings later (birthday pressies for G and for me next week) we then left.

Friday arrives....”Happy Birthday to G, Happy Birthday to G, Happy Birthday to GMan, now get up and make your brekkie”....Pancakes on the menu for breakfast (made by G, assisted by Scarlett, while Charlize and I just plodded around the van) and then on to The ‘Jumping Crocodile’s”. This was a great way to spend the morning. We arrived an hour before our booking and found our lovely lady hostess “Bridgett”. After she gave a kiss to G (Birthday wishes, not a “goodluck and hope to see you alive at the end of your tour” wish) and supplied a lot of information about things we should see and do while we are here, then we were off on our boat to see some croc’s jump. Our captain was Morgan and he was the owner of the small but friendly business. He finds a heap of croc’s in the river for us to view in their natural habitat. They literally come right up to the side of the boat and eyeballed us (Scarlett must have looked like a prize feed as all the croc’s took a liking to her by sizing her up). We couldn’t have got any closer to these creatures unless we were being devoured by one. The biggest we came across was 5 mtrs long and bloody HUGE. He was bigger than the FORD station wagon we are travelling in. If you are ever thinking of heading this way, then we do recommend you do this tour with the Adelaide River Jumping Croc’s not just because of the tour but for their customer service as well (remember our snotty girl at Crocodylis Park).

On the way back we stopped for a picnic lunch (of sorts) at Fogg Dam. This was a lovely setting with heaps of flowers and it looked like something out of a Monet painting. The walk tracks are currently closed to visitors as there is a croc running/swimming loose, but hidden in the many varieties of water plants. The dam doesn’t have a huge wall going around it like the dams in Melbourne which would help to keep the bugger in. It’s just like an open field and the croc can walk straight past you or hide in the fields of water beside the road that you drive on. While in the comfort and safety of our car we saw a Goanna and many varieties of water birds but no croc.

Having been out all day and with no baking facilities or local bakeries to be found, we decided to stop at a Safeway to purchase a nice big cream cake for the birthday boy (anything filled with cream is his favourite). Unfortunately these do not exist up here and the very limited supply of cakes turned out to be exactly what Graham hates. A quick purchase of frozen mini cake bits from the freezer section will have to make do. We sang happy birthday in the car and then made our way back to the park pool for a while; dinner was the pizza night held at our park.

On Saturday we spent some more time in town with a bit of souvenir shopping and a sampling of the bars for Graham. His mum mentioned that he should check out a bar that his parents came across a few years ago....Unfortunately this has now been turned into an Irish pub (sorry Carole) but the beer seems to be as good as any coz Graham decided that he would investigate and leave us to our girlie shopping. A call was received on my mobile (after a few beers under his belt) to suggest that I spend some money buying myself some “STUFF” for my birthday, but I withheld myself. The girls and I decided to have lunch at Subway and then we caught up with the Gman in time to go back to the car. A great day was had by all and then home for bbq dinner.

Sunday... we rose to get ourselves organised to visit the Litchfield National Park. We’ve heard heaps about this Park and have been looking forward to investigating. We left at approx 10am and drove about 2 hours arriving at a lookout which has a valley full of tall magnetic termite mounds. The pictures we took just don’t show the full scale of these mounds. The heights that they build up to are amazing. They are also flat on one side making it look like hundreds of headstones....

On we go to the Florence Falls. We lost count at 135 steps down to see some beautiful waterfalls. These had people climbing up the tall rock face and then jumping into the water below all while the fish were swimming between the legs of people in the water. Graham and the girls had a great time here for a while but we had plenty more to see and visit. The 1km walk back to the car is where an unexpected surprise occurred. While walking along the path we heard an almighty blood curdling cry. This turned out to be our youngest daughter’s cry of fear. She had just encountered a snake crossing the path between Charlize and herself. It was a long skinny yellowy/ greeny/ browny/ fawny thingie that we are still trying to identify (our training from the reptile park in Alice came in handy as you can see). We think it was from the brown snake family or possibly a python (just go with us on this coz we’ve got no idea). The girls were great and listened to our instructions but the tourists with limited English that were coming towards us were another thing. After sauntering past Charlize and us yelling to them to “STOP” about four times, they finally decided to listen, but made comment that it wasn’t huge so how could it hurt.....we were going to push them onto it so they could check... Obviously they haven’t been to Alice yet.

After Scarlett settled down and decided that she didn’t want to go any further (“I never want to come here again and see that snake”, “I never want to be eaten by that snake” etc....), we managed to call past the Buley Rock Pools. This was even better than the Florence Falls. We spent the rest of the arvo here having a picnic lunch and then jumping into the water. Question????? Why is it that guys only need an inch of water in a ditch to feel the need for bombing and diving or the alternate hanging like an ape off the branches then diving and all while their bellies are full of grog. As Pauline says....Please explain (GS-not me this time......although the bombing bit I am guilty of......).

Toolmer lookout was our next stop and the view was beautiful, although no need to discuss coz you need to see it. Words just won’t do it any justice. We didn’t get to finish the rest of the National Park but we have heard that we missed some beautiful spots. Dinner was arranged on the way home as neither of us could be bothered to cook. Thai seemed like a good idea but trying to find a restaurant with more than six items on the menu and didn’t need us to remortgage the house to pay for it was a bit of a challenge. We finally found one but I think by the time we got back to the van and ate the soup entree, we were all too tired to eat our mains. So in the fridge it went and we were off to bed.

Monday was our visit to Aquascene , this is where you can feed the fish right at the edge of the water. The girls had a lovely time feeding them unlimited amounts of bread and touching various fish while doing so. The fish come straight up to you to take the bread out of your hands while you are knee deep in the sea. Two hours of doing this and then off to the Darwin Gaol which is now part Gallery and part historical site. Ironically we were there 59 years and one day after the last two men were hanged there. This room was a bit eerie. On our way back to the van we decided to visit the huge water slides that we had heard about. Unfortunately this was closed on our last two days in Darwin so this was one place we couldn’t experience, maybe next time girls. Dinner was as you probably guessed.. Thai. After dinner the park has an evening of Bingo, which saw us all playing the game. After losing 3 games to the same couple (tightwads kept collecting the prizes, which were usually three items each), our girl Charlize called out Bingo only to find that two other adults had called and won in the same game. Prizes were spilt between the 3 winners and Charlize got the dinner voucher for the Sri-Lankan dinner on Tuesday night, yay no cooking again.

Tuesday saw us hang around the park doing odd jobs, washing clothes and starting the pack up procedure for our next move. A few hours in the pool and then we were off to the supermarket to grab our necessities for Kakadu. Back to the van and then off to dinner for Sri-Lankan. Love a lazy day.
Today (Wednesday 10th ) we are now on our way to Kakadu for two nights, although we have been told by a few to Kakadon’t. We will give it a go and I’m sure we will let you know of our experience, whether good or bad.

Love to all and hope you are all safe and sound.....

The Travelling Van-Royces xxxx (for those who are not aware Van Royce is the brand name of our van)

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Comments

[The Barton-Smith's]

What an adventure!
Hi guys as we sit here all rugged up it is great to read of all the fun and adventures that you are having. Kids are very impressed with the reptiles you have held and seen. Enjoy the sunshine. We look forward to reading more about your trip. Hope you had a great birthday Graham. FAZMD xoxo