Blogs from Jabiru, Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory, Australia, Oceania - page 4

Michele is back in charge of writing - yay - now that she has come out of her cave of exhaustion/illness and is feeling like a human being again. Yesterday, we flew from Cairns to Darwin. The flight was packed, uncomfortable and uneventful. The only ususual thing was that the flight was continuing on to Singapore, meaning we had to follow international travel stadards. This proved unfortunate, as, due to restrictions on liquids in hand luggage, and confusion as to whether sunscreen lotion counted as liquid, we had to leave our favourite sunscreen behind in Cairns. We left it on a table, in the hope that some poverty-stricken, at-risk-of-sunburn person rummaging through the Cairns International Airport would find it... Arriving in Darwin, Michele's Uncle Bob picked us up in his shiny new $20 ute (won in ... read more

Monday 24/5/10 18th May, we finished the painting of Peta’s bathroom & her other odd jobs and headed off from Adelaide towards the Red Centre. The first day was an easy 641KM into the Woomera Prohibited Area for a cool but peaceful sunset camp. Then north towards Alice Springs. A long drive to get to a favourite camp spot at Owen Springs. “Panic Stations” the January floodwaters have washed the track away and the detour has the driver disorientated. Set-up camp in the dark after a days drive of 835KM. Rain overnight followed by a rainy day. Owen Springs is just a paradise after rain. Thousands of breeding budgerigars, cockatiels, galahs and finches. Bad news from Halls Creek in W.A. there has been lots of rain there and the Tanami Track is closed for at least ... read more

Day 136 - Kakadu & Arnhem Land We woke this morning to the birds squawking high in the trees! The little Wicked camper van that had pulled into the camp spot next to us after dark was still deep in slumber as we hit the road to Gunbalanya (formerly Oenpelli). Our journey involved the notorious Cahill Crossing where at high tide the crocs line up either side waiting for the unsuspecting Barramundi as the tide changes direction and delivers a tasty snack to their doorstep. We’d researched the tide times and crossed at 7.34am, just after low tide so there wasn’t much water and no crocs visible from the road! We like to play it safe where they’re concerned! Our drive through the small part of Arnhem Land which we are able to access with our ... read more

Thrifty Car Hire Marg had organised our car hire through Thrifty, when she discovered a ‘good rate’ could be got, by mentioning her employer. On collecting the small size car we found we had a 2007 Mitsubishi Colt, 1.5L, 2-door convertible, in fluorescent bronze - it even had Marg’s initials. We hadn’t immediately realised it was a convertible until we found an instruction leaflet on how to activate the ‘conversion’. I immediately felt compelled to get to some busy people spot & flick the switch. It did feel pretty bloody special driving around with it’s top down - quite decadent really. When Marg collected me from Jabiru airstrip after my Ranger Mine tour, I caught sight of her driving past the café I was at &, by golly, she looked even hotter than usual, like some ... read more

Darwin to Kakadu October 21, 2008 It was a long but good day. First order of business was hiring (that means renting) a 4-wheel drive vehicle over the phone. Then we went to Woolworths (in Australia that is a grocery store chain) and bought some food before Andrew arrived at the hotel with our Nissan. We are now in Kakadu National Park, the largest park in Australia and was named a World Heritage Site for both its cultural and natural resources. It is quite the place, especially when it comes to bird watching. We started out with a visit to Window to the Wetlands (not in the park) to look at the exhibits there, but I ended up spending most of the time visiting with several Aboriginal kids. They were on a field trip and were ... read more