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Published: July 25th 2009
DAY 259
Today sees Kangaroo Jack back on the road again after a 4 week spell in Darwin, I can hardly believe that we have spent 4 weeks here, it seems like just a couple of days. We had a well earned rest, spending time reading the papers, swimming, playing cards, computer games even, however we have spent some time having a look around the sights, there is still plenty to do here, but that will be there for another time.
Today we both awoke early, it must have been about 6.30, I think our subconscious minds are telling us to wake up because today you are moving again. Getting up was the easy part, the packing up was the difficult bit, you do get out of the routine when you are stationary for a while.
So after some tea and toast and a shower the tent was soon empty, the Patrol was filling up with our gear, the trailer was loaded and at 9.45 we left our site to go and check out. When we got to the gate there was a queue waiting to go out, lots of people leaving
I SWEAR TO GOD THIS 
Magnetic Termite Mounds
These mounds are built specifically in the direction where the termites can be cool in the day and warm at night. Clever eh!IS HOW IT HAPPENED!!
We were pulling out of Howard springs, I dropped the window and waved the key fob over the sensor, the boom gate lifts up and we slowly pull under the boom as there is a bit of a traffic jam.
There is about 6 single car park spaces to our left, with about 3 of the left hand side ones full and a guy towing a van has park across the other 3 spaces and he is sticking out just a bit.
What the problem is, is a bloke who has turned in off the main road, towing a small van has turned in and left his car and van about 4ft from the curb, so technically just about straddling the middle of the road.
I cannot go anywhere!!
The wife of the bloke who has parked badly, gets out of the vehicle to watch him reverse, but she is about as much use as a kick in the ar*e, and as far I am concerned she looks like she is standing on the spot waving her hands in the air.
The bloke has another go at getting his car
Agile Wallaby
Not so agile she has a Joey in her pouch. nearer the kerb, (Don’t forget readers his first attempt was 4 ft from the curb, hence causing a traffic obstruction.), he has managed an improvement of about a foot and is only 3 ft from the curb.
His wife goes up to the drivers window and he gives her a tirade of abuse, poor woman, I just can’t believe what I am watching, a little car with a little caravan, and a bloke who just can’t park, or reverse for that matter.
He has another go at reversing and I say to Caroline that when I finally get out I will park on the verge on the road outside the Caravan Park and wait for her, this she agrees with as it is the most sensible place to park considering the traffic problem.
This bloke has reversed his Car and Van back now so the tail end of the van is equal with the entrance to the caravan park and the road, I can get the Patrol through now easily.
As I go past this bloke he has a very angry look on his face and is mouthing something at me through his window, and though his
Big Foot
No wonder they can bounce with feet this big. window is up I get the gist that his anger is aimed at me, his wife is standing exactly on the white intersection line doing her useless reversing dance.
I have been patient, sympathetic even to his wife’s plight, understanding, we all have difficulties sometimes, yet he chooses to abuse no, NO WAY!!
I park the Patrol, exactly where I said I would, get out and walk over to this car, which is still in the middle of nowhere, I unfortunately turn my bad language setting up to full and I am standing looking into the drivers window, when the window goes down.
“What the @$*# are you doing *@#”!head?” I ask the gentleman.
“@$*# off, just @$*# off” exclaims the man in his car, politely of course.
I make some reference to him again and walk off. I see Caroline at the corner of my eye, with a very worried look on her face asking me what on earth is going on.
“Nothing” I reply, she said that everyone is standing watching this man then as she came out of reception it had seemed that all hell had been let loose.
We
get back in the truck, I explain to Caroline the full events, and say that I don’t have people mouthing things at me with their window up without any reason, so I just wanted to go and ask him what he wanted to say to me, then he was all abusive and I can honestly say I have absolutely no idea why he was abusive other than the fact that he was a rubbish driver.
He did complete his little show with him again screaming at his wife to get in the car.
We drove off, still laughing at what had just gone on.
We are heading to Lichfield National Park, its nice to be moving again, rested with our new lease of life for the trip, yet just because some idiot was having a bad day he wanted to spoil mine. No!!
Out on the Stuart Highway, we start to notice people are waving at us, amazing, we wonder if people are on happy pills today. When we were in WA it was sometimes hard to get people to wave, we remember going from Karlgoorlie to Perth, it was near impossible to get people to
wave. We were told that caravaners or people on holiday in general wave as they are relaxed and happy to be on holiday but it was in fact it was the truckers that were waving at us, well today everyone is waving and not just lifting a finger, we even had two people both frantically waving both hands at us! They all seem enthusiastic today.
On route we stopped at the Magnetic Termite mounds, these structure were quite impressive, and we wonder how old they were but the information board soon tells you that they are about 50 years old. They are amazing structures so intricate, man thinks he is so clever yet we have still such a long way to go and could learn a lot from the animal kingdom.
Arriving by midday at our chosen Camp ground Wangi Falls we find a nice spot to camp, it is very busy, so when I say we find a nice spot I mean that we find virtually the last spot available. It is a bank holiday weekend with tomorrow, Friday being the holiday, so of course people have knocked off work early to come away for the weekend.
Room with a View
Our new home for a couple of nights. We are soon pitched, a little slower than usual but then we are out of routine and of course we have to decide what flaps to put up that maximises our shade, it is another scorcher today. The ground is rock solid so we have no chance of getting our tent pegs in so Andy has to come up with an alternative to keep the base of the tent tight so it does not sag.
We sit down and have a cup of tea and some lunch, our neighbours return from their mornings outing and we introduce ourselves to Janet and Keith, they soon tell us how good the pool is down at the Wangi (Wonguy) Falls. We had plans to drive out and about this afternoon to see the area but our minds are soon changed with the thought of a dip in the pool.
The pool at Wangi Falls is one of the safe ones around here to swim, they check it for crocodiles at the beginning of the season and do regular spot checks, although once the dry season arrives and the water has receded somewhat then the chances of an Estuarine Crocodile coming
Wangi Falls
Beautiful spot for swimming into this pool is fairly slim. During the wet season it is closed because of crocodiles and currents, which make it too dangerous. Ok I am convinced.
In the dry season inhabitants of the pool are freshwater crocodiles, turtles and shrimp, well ok there are some fish in there, some big ones at that! However I am not sure what the fish are.
On our walk down to Wangi Falls we saw some Red Tailed Black Cockatoos, we have not seen too many of those in the wild so it was a pleasure to see them, I also remember driving through an area, if my memory serves me correct I think it was slightly north of Carnarvon, where I saw a sign saying that if you see any in the area then it should be reported as they seem to have disappeared from that area.
With our swimming gear on and towels around our neck we wander down to the pool, it is hot and we are keen. It is very busy down there, lots of people are sprawled out on the grass, reading sleeping, picnic tables are busy with people picnicking and over in the pool,
it is large there are lots of people but plenty of space to swim.
We are now standing on the edge, Andy launches himself from the steps, he tells me it is cold but not that cold. So brave thing that I have now become I walk down the steps immediately step right into the cold water waist deep, take a deep breath and soon I am in swimming toward the sunshine through the Pandanus that lines the edge. The view is stunning I remember murmuring “wow” when I took the view of the falls in from across the water. This is so refreshing.
Jodie, it is definitely getting easier to get into cold water. I am in far quicker than I ever used to be (mind you it is still not as cold as Fern Pool at Karijini.
The water was crystal clear; you can see the fish swimming around you. We were told how lovely it was down there but seeing is believing, this place is busy, but the “plunge pool” is huge there are quite a few people swimming around and jumping from the rocks by the falls on the other side.
I
Bats
Black FlyingFoxes live here swam out to Andy, and said to him “Are you standing up?” He said, “Yes”, I thought I would not be able to stand up, but a couple of people nearby started to laugh, I realised that Andy was crouching down in the water he stood up and was only waist deep. There is a sandbar in the middle that you can swim to and stand on, eventually when we swam back to shore Andy said he was going to walk back and gradually he disappeared into the water and then started to swim so I said “Is it that deep here?” He laughed as he stood up again showing me that it was only waist deep.
We swim under a huge web that is holding a large Golden Orb Spider, looking around we see several in the Pandanus over hanging the water.
We go for a wander up the track to the lookout, we see and hear lots of Black Flying Foxes hanging in the trees, people say that they sleep in the day but we are not so sure there is a huge amount of noise how could they possibly be asleep or are they just
cranky at night when they get up.
Interesting fact, we have learnt that when the female flying foxes give birth it is so quick she has to cup her wings to catch the newly born infant before it plummets to the ground and certain death.
We walk through the rainforest following the path up to the lookout we see a female Golden Orb spider, they are 50 mm across (on average) and the male are tiny at just 5mm across. It is not so common but sometimes the female will eat the male after mating, take a guess at how the mating works with such a vast difference in size!
Back at camp as I was sat typing the blog, our next-door neighbour popped around and told me that there was an Agile Wallaby near their campsite. She had said there was one that visited, but it is very shy so as long as people are fairly inactive and quiet she will hop around.
I wandered over for a look, she is lovely and she is definitely not so Agile as she is carrying a Joey in her pouch. I take a few photos, she knows
Shady Rest
Nearly at the top I am there; I leave her in peace and get on with what I was doing. Soon after I hear a thud to my right, she is now behind our tent and has plonked herself down in the shade for a well earned rest; she is obviously very comfortable here.
Janet next door has also told us that there is a snake around here, our predecessors saw it around camp, Janet and Keith have too it seems that it is not a particularly nice one, i.e. probably venomous, but no one has particularly identified it. Still we will keep a look out for it, but we need just to apply our usual vigilance, it would be great to see it though.
We have plenty of food on board, but Andy feels the need to use the barbecue as it has been a while since we barbecued, so out came the emergency Spam, we cut some vegetables and ate a hearty dinner of barbecued Spam, sliced potatoes, onions and baked beans, yummy, sometimes the simple things are the best.
When it was dark, we booted up the Stellarium program that Andy downloaded yesterday, the star mapping program that
we were told about. We identified the Southern Cross in the sky and the two pointers (Rigil Kent and Hadar) but in order to identify one of the bright stars toward the East we looked on Stellarium and found it to be Jupiter, it also helped us identify another star, Fomalhaut. Because we are now again out in the wilderness where the nights are so dark with no light pollution star gazing is easier and so much fun. We can spend the time without distraction just staring into the night sky and appreciating the size of the universe. Even the Milky Way is very clear (no I am not talking about chocolate bars) along with the large and small Magellan clouds.
We play cards, we both play well, in fact one hand we actually had to give in and call it a draw we were both holding a pair of aces and all the cards on the deck were complete i.e. all the two’s all the four’s etc. We may continue tonight.
The mosquitoes have not been too bad but let me tell you there is something else here that bites, we think they may be sand flies
Cane Toad
One of Australias most unwanted but are not sure there are hundreds of tiny tiny black insects that just seem to be all over the place and our table is covered so much there is no space to put anything.
We soon give in and sit in the tent, but these are also in the tent, we spray and then go to bed, not long after I sit up and put the torch on, my ankles are being bitten, I fold back the sleeping bag and find dozens of these little black things bobbing around, we get rid of them but decide anyway to just sleep under one sheet and one blanket as it is actually quite a warm night.
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Darryl and Sarah
Wallaby Wanderers
Luckily my husband can park!
We should put together a book on bad driving habits, it would be a pretty thick volume with everything we've seen out here so far!! I've just emailed our skype name and mobile to you so we'll try and arrange a crossing of paths at some point before we head down to Alice. Have fun Dar and Sar