Day 43 - Litchfield National Park

There was plenty on our agenda this day, as we only had one day here. After some initial inertia, we headed out to Blythe Homestead.

 

Calling it a homestead is a stretch, shack is a more accurate description. This was an outpost for the Sergeant family's main Stapleton Homestead. Some of the older children used to live out here, completely necessary given the parents had 14 children. They tended cattle and mined tin, living a very tough life. It was so hot and dry we needed a swim, so we walked the 3.4 km return to Tjaynera Falls. This is one of many croc free waterholes in Litchfield. It was worth the effort. There were quite large fish there that cleared out once we jumped in.

 

We shared the pool with a couple from Perth, Jack and Hillary.

As we had seen the Southern and Western Lost Cities, we felt obliged to see The Lost City. After the visual impact of the Southern Lost City (see Day 28), this lost city needed to be something special to impress us.

 

The number of photos I took tells me I wasn't as moved by these structures, Southern Lost City has spoiled me. These structures are more reminiscent of Stonehenge and still beautiful, but just on a smaller scale. The walk around them didn't take long, so we had time for Florence Falls. This involved a walk down 135 stairs.

 

 

 

It was a fantastic end to a great day. The girls trialed the snorkels and masks. There were two bad things about this waterhole. The rubbish people left at the water's edge (that we cleaned up) and these too friendly fish that kept biting the mossie bites on Justin and me. The larger fish were quite painful. As the girls were somehow immune, we only got out of the water at 7pm, home for tuna salad inside the tent, safe from the mossies.

 

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Day 42 - Darwin to Litchfield Nation Park

It is quite wet overnight in the tropics, so it was no surprise to wake up to a misty morning. We were camped at one edge of the park, across the road from what seemed to be an alternate caravan park for pig shooting blokes and their feral dogs, which barked all night. The mist made it all seem beautiful and serene.

 

After packing up we arranged to leave the campertrailer at the Caravan Park while we went into town to the Indo Pacific Marine display. This place is bordering on strange, or rather the people running it. They have a marine display of life in Darwin Harbour. They use no filters and the fish don't get fed, it is all balanced within itself. The girls fed barramundi a prawn head each, they make quite a snap as they grab the food, and these fish were only small.

It was very educational, but I couldn't help being glad to get out of there.

You see some different signs in the NT, see two examples below.

 

From Indo Pacific Marine,, we got provisions and headed out, very late, to Litchfield Nation Park. We wanted to stay at Wangi Falls, but for the first time all campsites were full, so we had to camp 4 km up the road. There were two caravans camped on the road of the camping area, crazy!


 

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Day 41 - Darwin

As life at the tent gets unbearably hot by 9.30, we cleared out. I went to the Howard Springs bakery to get bread for lunch, and I simply had to purchase the largest doughnut I've ever seen. "Bonza" said Juz.

 

Luckily Darwin isn't a big city as we spent some time trying to get snorkels and masks for the girls. We will need them all down the WA coast. For those of you who know Darwin, we drove from Target in Palmerston to KMart in Casurina then back to Clark Rubber in Winnellie when the first two stores didn't have the stock. We parked under a hotel complex. The first two hours were free, the third hour - a dollar! It was cheaper than parking on the street for the two hour limit available. Finally we got in the wave pool at 2pm. They had blow up inflatable doughnuts and boogie boards for anyone to use. This wave pool puts Waves in Cheltenham to shame, one man was actually surfing. Phoebe caught waves to the shore multiple times. Hours later, with our big toes shredded on the pebble mix base, we emerged. It was bordering on dinner time, so we ambled along the shore to Stokes Hill Wharf. We were all taken with these sculptures.

 

The above bird was handy for holding things!

This new building, which we christened the cockroach, is a convention centre.

 

The Wave pool.

 

On the way to Stokes Hill Wharf past the recreation lagoon.

At the end of the Wharf are many take away joints and one restaurant. We ate barramundi and chips while I had kittens about the girls falling off the edge of the wharf, at least a 20 foot drop.

 

People throw their unwanted food over the side, and huge fish, gropers, barramundi, yellowtails and diamond scales surface to feed. These fish are incredibly fast, so the below is the best photo I could get.

 

As we were eating, a Thai Naval ship came in.

 

The view across the other side to land. The blue light is from the cockroach.

 

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Day 40 - Darwin

Today we went to see the Cyclone Tracy Exhibition at the Museum and Gallery NT. Before that exhibit are display boxes with many types of Australian butterflies, moths, birds, marine animals, reptiles and spiders. All three girls were fascinated by these, and couldn't wait to show us what unusual animal they had discovered. Things were more somber in the Cyclone Tracy exhibit. There are housing examples set up of what buildings were like in Darwin pre Christmas Day 1974. You could see how flimsy the houses were. There are very few houses left that were built prior to WWII and only about 12 left that were built between that war and 1974. Government House was rebuilt as was the old Courthouse. They have a recording of the cyclone which is creepy. The recordings of people's experiences who stayed in Darwin, despite the cyclone warnings, show they were all shell shocked. There had been a cyclone heading to Darwin a few weeks previously that had petered out to strong winds. This gave false confidence to a lot of the population, and there was a general attitude that the cyclone wasn't going to get in the way of Christmas. There was footage by ABC staff the next day of the mess left in Tracy's wake. The northern suburbs were hit the worst, but the whole city was littered with corrugated iron from people's rooves and walls.

Unfortunately no photography is allowed at any of the exhibits, so I can't show you the size of a crocodile called Sweetheart. Image, if you can, a 5.1 metre prehistoric beast that weighs 570kg. I could fit curled up in his stomach. He was caught in Sweet Lagoon off the Finniss River, south of Darwin, near Batchelor. We looked at some Albert Namatjira paintings and some great modern art.

 

From here we wandered down to the Mindil Markets past Darwin High School to meet up with Nev from work.

 

I was surprised to see lifesaver flags on the beach above. If the crocodiles don't get you the box jelly fish will!

We looked around the market slowly, enjoying the sights and smells, then met Nev and his family at the jumping castle. Nev had an arrangement that he was going to enjoy a beer with Justin (?) in Darwin, so he went looking for an alcohol vendor. None of us liked his chances given the issues with alcohol in the Territory. Therefore we decided to go to the Trailer Boat Club for dinner, right on the water. At risk of sounding like a real estate agent, location, location, location!

 

Justin's father Ian would have loved to spend time here gazing at the yachts. Phoebe counted 100 boats.

 

Two sips later Justin had fulfilled his commitment, and we continued to enjoy the evening. There is a playground here and a pool. Our kids weren't swimming, but you could spend a whole day here quite happily. The beard and the beer, what is going on? A man of the bush. Justin states now that he has trimmed the moustache, he really forgets it is there.

 

 

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