Lake Argyle - Kununurra 8/8/15

Lake Argyle

We stayed in Keep River National Park until we had morning tea, because we still had to eat up all our fruit and vegetables as we're not allowed to take it into WA for biosecurity reasons. We crossed the border into Western Australia around midday and we only had to throw out a bit of honey and a lemon at the official checkpoint. 

Waiting for the biosecurity check on the border to WA

A short drive later and we arrived at Lake Argyle Resort. It was very busy and took us about half an hour to book in and get a campsite assigned. (They had a wedding on that day with about 150 guests and were fully booked and even had to turn people away a bit later)
Just looking at those sardine-campsites we would have loved to drive out again. After having some beautiful, quiet campsites with hardly any people on for the last couple of days, it was a big shock getting back into a busy place again.

The scenery here was very hilly - (Kimberly stile) opposed to NT where the lake was ending more into flood plain land. So the views were nothing short of spectacular. It seems like this trip is getting better the longer we're on the road. The resort had one of those endless pools (to cold for us to get in) but good for some pictures. But the best view was from up the water tower. We went up 3 times to see it in different light conditions.

Lake Argyle - spectacular views

Lake Argyle was built around 1970 as an irrigation lake to make the area around Kununurra usable for agriculture. It currently holds water for about 30,000 ha of intense farming land. It's currently the biggest permanent inland lake in Australia with an area of 1,000km2 and holds about 20 x the water of the Sydney harbour. There are plans to increase the volume another 50% by 2018 and the Chinese, who hold a lot of land up here, would like to expand it even further. 

Lavender - some of the plants grown in the Lake Argyle district.

We drove around those fields and apparently 6,500 ha of it is Sandalwood plantations. They reckon that due to illegal harvesting of Sandalwood in India and Indonesia the natural supply will stop in about 10 years. The wood currently fetches prices of around $100 for one Kg! Other produce we came across were melons, sugar cane for rum, lavender, mangos and other crops we could see in the distance, but couldn't identify.

Kununurra

Kununurra was established in the 1960's to support the development of Lake Argyle. It is also a major tourist destination as everyone travelling from NT to WA has to pass here. It has a good variety of shops and supplies however the closest big city would be Darwin 830 km to the east and Broome 1,040 to the west! What a drive to see a specialist doctor or to do some shopping on items not locally available. Despite the distances we found the local Coles supermarket well stocked and normal priced. Veggies and fruit was certainly cheaper than Brisbane. We couldn't check out the other stores, as we arrived Saturday afternoon and most shops were already closed for the weekend.

We found, as we always do, a nice lookout for the sunset and on Sunday we checked out the Hidden Valley National Park just outside of Kununurra. Again this seems to be a miniature version of the Bungle-Bungles.

Happy times, Lookout over Kununurra, Mirma (Hidden Valley NP) and Ivanhoe crossing

Katherine to WA border 2/8/15

Katherine 2/8/15

Finally Internet again - so this one is a big one. Sorry

After a night in a free camp just outside of Katherine we met up with Kaynan, a friend of ours from Brisbane, for coffee. He just scored a job as a pilot doing the mail-runs out of Katherine and hopefully his test flight on Monday will all go well.

We stocked up on supplies and then went for another swim in the Katherine hot springs, which we knew well from our first visit. Soon it was time to start heading west on the Victoria highway towards WA. We stayed on a popular free camp and had a good night talking to a fellow Bushtracker owner. We also talked to a woman, pushing a wheelbarrow around Australia. She is trying to raise funds and awareness for Lifeline, a charity you can call when you have mental health issues or thinking of suicide.

Gregory NP 3/8/15

After our usual slow start we headed off towards Gregory National Park, about 300km west of Katherine. We got the first impression of Kimberley like landscapes just before the Victoria River Roadhouse. Magnificent red rock escarpments and soft mountains toped with big rocks. We should have stayed at the roadhouse, I’m sure the setting sun would have been magical. It was just before midday and we decided to do the Escarpment walk in 33C heat. Sarah was tired from the beginning and so she stayed at the first lookout together with Regine, while I hiked the more difficult track to the top of the escarpment. I got a fantastic view down onto the Roadhouse, the Victoria River, the mountains and escarpments around.

Views from the escarpment walk near Victoria River Roadhouse

After lunch we drove further towards Timber Creek to check in at a Caravan park. We met up again with Matt, Caz and the kids and we all had fun to watch the crocodile feeding and especially the feeding of the 20+ kites. It was amazing to see them dive down to pick up the morsels thrown into the air. Sarah even ran onto the field to try and catch one of the kites, so she could pet it…

Crocs and Kites at Timber Creek

Gregory NP

We would have loved to drive into Gregory National Park, the second biggest in the Territory, however it is only accessible for seriously prepared 4WD enthusiasts. Also Caravan’s aren’t permitted and so we just did some of the lookouts along the main road.

First, we left our caravan behind and went to the Policemans lookout. It’s a nice spot on the bend of the Victoria River with a little island in the middle and lots of bird life.

Policeman lookout and look over Timber Creek area

After hooking up our caravan again, we dragged it up to some more lookouts on top of the escarpments overlooking Timber Creek and Victoria River.

Further on the Highway we found a bridge across Victoria River that is not on any map. It’s a full size double lane car bridge with locked gates on the other side of the river. It must lead into some restricted area. Nevertheless it provided a good platform to take some more photos of the river.

A short drive later we headed down a dirt road to see ‘Gregory’s Tree’, a big boab tree on the bank of the river. It’s a sacred site for Aboriginals and Augustus Gregory, the explorer, engraved it with his arrival date on the 2nd July 1856.

Boab country - Gregory Tree is probably the most famous boab

By now it was already lunchtime and we’ve only managed to drive about 20km from Timber Creek. We decided to drive to Saddle Creek, a free campsite about another 100km away. The country got a lot flatter, but we could still see some ranges on the side, as well as more and more boab (bottle) trees.

Saddle Creek camp side is situated just beneath a spectacular mountain that looks – who would of guessed it – like a saddle. Plenty of other campers here – one even had a live goose on board. Sarah quickly made friends with the girl ‘next door’ and soon they were climbing a dead tree in the center of the camp. And once again a stunning red sunset and a clear sky to watch the stars.

Sarah and Haley at Saddle Creek

Zebra Rock Mine 5/8/15

A windy, fresh morning and a happy long chat with Sarah’s new friends parents Suzanne and John (with Haley & Kate) we all drove off together towards Zebra Rock, the one and only operating zebra rock mine in the world.

We went through the gallery and display, Sarah, Kate and Haley ‘fossicked’ a couple of stones and all three kids went of to polish them at the outside tables using the provided water and sandpaper. The stones need to be sanded to give them a good shape, smooth edges and the shiny surface. The four parents happily continued the chat from the morning but after an hour Haley’s family decided to continue further on to another campground located at Lake Argyle. We exchanged our blog-addresses and said our good-byes and spend a quiet afternoon reading and playing. Later on we listened to a talk about the unique zebra rock fossicking and the history of the mine. Zebra rock was known to locals to be in the Lake Argyle region, but with the building of the dam wall the known reefs all but one went under. They excavated as much as they could before it all went under water and so most zebra rock sold today comes out of storage and there is a finite supply. Kim, the owner of this mine, grew up on a station around the lake and he was searching for 14 years until he found another reef on dry land and opened his own mine about 6 years ago together with wife Ruth. There is only very little zebra rock there. About 50m x 2m x 0.3m. That’s it. No more zebra rock is known on this planet.

Zebra rock looks a bit like sediment layers, however it’s one solid rock. Not just layers. There are also a lot of rocks with some bubble pattern. Geologists still don’t know how it was formed. All they know is that it is about 1.2 Billion years old and must have been superheated (i.e Volcano) at one point. Some stripe patterns are so regular that they can even put a mathematical formula to it.

We’ve visited the site the next morning and we were allowed to take some pieces home :-) For us to polish.

Zebra Rock Mine site and some finished products   

That evening I left the girls behind and went for a sunset cruise on Lake Argyle. Max, our tour guide was fantastic and the scenery and the sunset was breathtaking. I better let the pictures speak, as I simply don’t have the words to describe it.

Just to make everyone jealous - some pictures of the Lake Argyle Sunset cruise (out of Zebra Rock Mine)

Keep River NP 6/8/15

We left the Zebra mine around midday after our mine tour and some scones and complimentary coffee from the shop. We didn’t pump the tires as we only drove about 10km on bitumen until we hit the gravel road into Keep River National Park.

Keep River NP - more boab's and rock formations, some like the bungle-bungles. The structure in the last picture -what was it used for by Aborigines? Write your guesses in the comment section below? It will be revealed in the next blog.

We stopped at the Cockatoo Lagoon next to the Ranger Station, but Sarah had fallen asleep on the gravel road, so Regine only went there briefly to take some pictures. After another 15km we parked the caravan at the first campsite within the park and then went for a hike another 12km up the road. Apparently Aborigines used the rock overhangs as shelter, however there is very little to see apart from some shell grid, accumulated over thousands of years (i.e the dump).

However our campsite was an absolute gem - there was a little walk that we did in the morning with some bungle-bungle like formations. Spectacular. What a beautiful little National Park! 



Litchfield NP to Edith Falls 31/7/ - 1/8/15

Back on the road: towards Pine Creek 31/07/15

We had a fair bit of driving to do to leave Litchfield and get back onto the Stuart Highway and towards Pine Creek. To split it up we stopped after 70 km in Batchelor at the Butterfly Farm for morning tea. Another 70 km got us to Hayes Creek / Butterfly Gap where we had some lunch. Despite being midday we set out for a little walk - jumping over the creek and into the woodland to find the promised “hundreds of butterflies”. Hidden in the bush on the shady side of a huge rock wall we found butterfly gap with thousands of butterflies. Some sitting, some flying, some flapping their little wings: thousands of common crow butterflies. We could even get close enough to gently touch them and it was beautiful to see them fly off and come back 2 m further up. Another little gem on the side of the road!

Hayes Creek's Australia stone, walk to Butterfly Gap and the Crow Butterflies

Since it was still too hot to be out in the open, we decided to drive further towards Pine Creek, top up our Diesel and find a campsite on the local caravan park at the old Pine Creek Turf Club. We got a bit of a funny place right in front of the bar but Sarah was happily making friends with a little boy and his bike straight away. They had fun riding around and cheering on the older brothers doing stunts with their bikes. There was also a little playground and a dog happily returned the balls Sarah was throwing. The sunset was red and beautiful, the full moon came out right on time before we finished our dinner and due to a powered site we had the pleasure of a cool van – what a great day.

Sarah's new friends at Pine Creek

Edith Falls 1/8/15

With an early start from Pine Creek we managed to be at Edith Falls around 10 am and we just got the last caravan parking spot! Edith Falls has a 2.5 km loop walk from the large bottom rock pool all the way up to the top pool, where you can swim and than walk back down again on the other side. Sarah wasn’t impressed at first since the path started out too straight for her liking. But soon it went uphill and became more of a climb. Martin got her to find the path by following the arrows and she managed well until a little fall where she scratched her hand and she was in tears. Luckily the Ranger came around the corner that very moment and distracted her enough but Martin still had to carry her for a bit. A bit later we met the Ranger again and Sarah was brave enough to ask him about crocodiles in the pools. He explained to her that there are some small Freshies in the lower pool but that they only eat insects and little fish and there are no crocs in the upper pool… When we reached the upper pool, we were all keen on getting into the water, because it was getting hotter. We had a lovely swim through 3 connected rock pools and than enjoyed a snack on the rocks before heading down again. We were all hot again and jumped in for another cool down in the bottom rock pool.

Edith Falls bottom pool, the upper pool with the Falls, back down at the bottom pool again

We spend some more time playing in the shade of the trees with Matt, Cass, Luka & Sullivan from Sydney (we've met them in Litchfield before) before heading to a free camp site 20 km off Katherine. It was a relaxed afternoon, Sarah had time to play and we all went to bed early.

Sarah in the Box

Litchfield National Park 28-30/07/2015

Litchfield National Park 28-30. July 2015

A lot of people told us how beautiful Litchfield National Park is, so we decided to spend a couple of days there. Beside Kakadu, this is the other major National Park at the top of the Northern Territory. Regine was keen on trying out some more gravel road so we took the ‘Tumbling Waters’ way into the park. Learning from past experience, as soon as we hit the gravel I lowered the tyre pressure down again – and of course we had 25km of the best gravel road we ever travelled on. And as soon as you get into the National Park it’s all bitumen again. We planned on staying at ‘Walkers Creek’, but there were only walk-in camp sites available so we headed to the main camp site of Wangi Falls – only to find all the campsites already taken. Apparently you have to be here by 10am to get a site. We weren’t keen on driving out of the park again (50+ km), so we just camped on the side of someone else’s site and soon became friends with Liz and Rob.

Once the camping was sorted we headed to the Wangi waterfall and had a fantastic swim in the fresh water. After the cool down we had enough energy to do the 1.5 km walk to the top of the falls, seeing the bats in the trees and a wild pig in the bushes. In the middle of a steep and rocky climb Sarah suddenly said: “I’m so happy”. It’s interesting how she now prefers sticks and leaves, stones and sand over any toys we carry in our van.

Cooling down at Wangi Falls

In the evening there was a ‘Ranger Talk’ about the park which was quite interesting. Liz and Rob went as well and when we came back, Regine joined us for a lovely night of socializing in front of the vans. 

Next morning I prowled the camp site for anyone leaving and soon we were able to setup our van in a proper site. Next we headed back to Bamboo Creek to hear another Ranger Talk about an old tin mine. Tin must have been a very important metal in the early 20th century to endure all this hardship for what seems very little tin. We arrived just as the official tour finished, but the ranger offered to take us on another tour of the site. Thanks very much, Wendy.

The old tin mine at Bamboo Creek

It was heating up again so we stopped at the Cascade Falls for a swim. It’s a 1.2 km walk, but the last 400m were pretty challenging rock hopping along the creek bed. Sarah managed just fine while Regine was struggling but soon we were all swimming happily in the rock pool.

The Cascades and a little monitor

We went back to our van for lunch - everything in Litchfield is much closer together and with only one caravan capable camp ground you are forced to leave the caravan behind and drive forward and backward.

In the late afternoon we went to the Tolmer Falls. It’s the highest falls in the park. It’s dry season now, but still a very impressive view from the viewing platform. I thought Sarah would be tired by now, so I wanted to go for a little loop walk (1.5km) and to meet Sarah and Regine back at the car. However Sarah wanted to do the walk with me. I told her that she has to walk the whole track on her own and that I won’t carry her. So off we went – Sarah leading the way. She was walking so fast that at times we had trouble keeping up with her. We didn’t see much of the scenery, as we must have done this track in record times.

You also see a yellow flowering tree at the moment. It's used by Aboriginals to tell the season of the fresh water crocodile. When it flowers the crocodiles mate, when it fruits the eggs get laid and when the fruit pops open the young crocodiles hatch.

Tolmer falls, Cycadias and the crocodile plant - must be egg laying saison.

We decided to stay another night in the park, so we could attend another ranger talk about termites. There are some termites who build their mount in an North-South direction, very flat and thin, to minimize the temperature impact of the sun, and they are known as magnetic termites mounts. The 2 big, bulky mounts are not the 'magnetic' ones but are said to be around 500 years old. Simply amazing.

Magnetic termites, Cathedral termites and the table top swamp

We also checked out the other big attraction: the Buley Rock Holes – a series of small cascading rock holes – filled with hundreds of tourists. (How nice would it be without all the other tourists!!) They even have a sign at the parking lots: “if you can’t find a parking spot, the rock pools are full as well. Come back later.”

Just 3 km up the road are the Florence Falls. Again a fantastic waterfall that you approach from the top, with superb swimming at the bottom, filled with people. We all got tired by that time, so we decided not to swim here as it was a decent climb down to the pool. Instead we headed back to our van and then straight to the little coffee shop on site for some ice cream as the mercury approached 33 C again. Another swim in the Wangi water hole finished our day. 

Buley Rock Hole and Florence falls. Crowded with bloody tourists ;-)

We found Litchfield NP to be everything we missed in Kakadu – full of people, spectacular waterfalls, great swimming and even the information on the park was much easier to obtain and everything was very well signed. I’m sure Kakadu completely transforms during the wet and has a huge variety of habitats, but Litchfield is much easier accessible and has water during the dry.

Darwin 22-28/07/2015

Darwin – a break from traveling

We arrived in Darwin on Wednesday afternoon and set up camp in Doreen & Dave’s driveway. We had promised Sarah to go to the Royal Darwin Show the next day because she had been talking about it since we first mentioned it. But knowing that Friday would be a public holiday and a lot of shops and attractions would be closed we decided to do a bit of sightseeing and shopping on Thursday and visit the show on Friday. Sarah wasn’t too disappointed because we went to the Fish Feeding where hundreds of Mullets, Milkfish and Catfish come into a little bay. The entrance fee ($15/adul, $10/child) gave access to a tray with slices of white bread for the fish and Sarah ran about 50 times from the water to the trays to get a little piece for her fishes. She wasn’t afraid at all and hand fed the mullets that were swimming over and between her feet. She loved it!

Fish feeding (and here I wasn't allowed to fish!)

After that we went to the CBD for some lunch and a hair cut for Martin. Sarah and I went down to the Waterfront for a swim at the artificial but stinger- and crocodile-free beach. A crowded and loud shopping center visit got us all hyped up again and we tried to get out of there as soon as possible. At least Sarah got her new swimsuit and Martin a new shirt and shorts. We’re just not used to those crowds and loudness any more… it’s so nice and quiet in the outback!

We spent the evening at the Mindil Night markets. A lot of food stalls right on the beach and a lot of other stalls that we didn’t see – one of the first stalls was a juggling supply stall and Sarah took the opportunity to show off her hula hoop skills whilst trying out all the different sized hoops. We also enjoyed some street arts – first we watched a flea circus then a monkey puppet show for kids and finally a pretty good fire juggler. Luckily Regine found the time to take some pictures of the spectacular sunset.

Fun at Mindil Beach and night-market

It’s showday 24/07/15

It’s Darwin Showday and we promised Sarah already a day ago to check it out. We must have arrived at peak time as the queues to the entrance were pretty long, however it didn’t take long to buy a ticket and get in. Here we’ve just arrived to see the Monkey show we’ve already seen the night before at the markets. Next we checked out the main arena, but apart from a couple of horses doing show jumping there wasn’t much on. So we went to see the animal sheds. First we found some birds and right at the back the snakes. Sarah had no hesitation to hold and pet the good sized python.

Sarah enjoying any form of animal, scare crows, climbing onto the fire engine, pig racing and the flying pig!

Next was the chooks, goats and bunny shed. Sarah was getting really attached to the little bunnies and it was hard to get her out of the petting zoo. (Rabbits are illegal in QLD, so Sarah never had a chance to hold one before)

We saw the main parade, which wasn’t that big but had some big cattle and little kids, visited the few cattle (which reminded her of Gotte Ang), cats and fire-engine and finally watched some piglets racing and jumping into a pool. :-)

Finally a pic of the blue winged kookaburra and a gutter Darwin style

We stayed a couple more days in Darwin, mainly to do some shopping, cleaning caravan and car, washing, sending parcels of stuff we don’t need back home and to figure out where to go next.

Sunday we went to the local park down the road – which turned out to be a fantastic water park with huge slides for the big kids and a lot of smaller slides and water features for the little ones. It was also end of the holiday, so they had a clown animating children, a DJ playing music and a jumping castle. Sarah was in heaven and we spent pretty much all day there (instead of doing sightseeing in Darwin). The highlight was certainly the hula-hoop competition where a certain 3-year old girl stole everyone else the show with her tricks. So she got a couple of lollypops for her efforts.

Sarah winning the hula hoop competition

On Monday Dave showed us Darwin. The wharf, the town, the beaches, the museums, the navy base and everything else we’ve missed so far. It was really interesting to hear some of the stories he told us and we’ve seen Darwin from a completely different angle. It’s funny how one paints a picture about Darwin in the head, without knowing anything about it. It’s a pretty and green place, but still - I wouldn’t want to be here during the wet and summer. Temperatures rose easily to 33 C and humidity picked up as well around 70%). So it was time for us to say goodbye and a big thank you to Doreen and Dave and head down South again.

Kakadu National Park 18-20 July 2015

Not such a highlight 18/07/15

Spectacular flight over Kakadu National Park for some of us 

As a highlight for our trip we booked a scenic flight over Kakadu National Park. 5PM. To get the good light for photos and a sunset.

It was a small plane, 7 passengers (and Sarah) and the pilot. After a short drive from Cooinda to the little airstrip we got seated in the plane according to our weight. Sarah sat on mummy’s lap on the right and I, with the camera in hand sat on the left. I soon figured out that my window was badly scratched and with the setting sun on my side all the pictures (and the view) turned out to be blurred and hazy. On Regine’s side the landscape looked spectacular. Unfortunately Regine was counting the minutes until landing as she got very airsick and missed out on the great view on her side.

Nevertheless it was a spectacular flight with the escarpment to Arnhem Land and a lot of Stone Country on one side and then fantastic flood plains and river landscape on the other.

Sarah loved the flight and enjoyed it, however she had to hold on tight to mummy each time we had some small turbulences.

Nourlangie 19/07/15

Rock Art and vistas from Nourlangie 

After moving to another campsite in the morning we had a look at what is known as ‘Nourlangie Rock’. There was a nice walk to some Aboriginal rock-art and Sarah enjoyed the hiking to those sites as it involved her favorite way of moving: rock climbing. But best of all was the fabulous views onto the Arnhem Land escarpment. Wow! This is what we’ve expected from Kakadu.

 

Cahill’s Crossing & Ubirr 20/07/15

Cahills Crossing - how many crocs can you see?

After packing up our Caravan, which took somehow forever, we drove off to the main visitor center near Jabiru to have a cup of coffee and some cake. They had a nice display about the park and Sarah had fun pushing buttons, which then played different animal sounds. We find the visitor centers here in the Territory a bit strange. There are a lot of tours and other sightseeing sites advertised, but for Kakadu NP there seems to be only one mud map and a small booklet, which gives a rough idea about certain sites. Not having Internet access in most of the park makes deciding on where to go very hard – at least for us. We often don’t know what awaits us at a site...

We drove off to the most eastern part of the National Park. There is a river-crossing into Arnhem Land (Aboriginal Land, Permit required) known as Cahill’s Crossing. There is even a viewing platform to watch the cars crossing the East Alligator River and navigating around some big crocodiles.

At our campsite (Merl, just before Ubirr) we attended an aboriginal drawing demonstration and Sarah tried her own little painting. As she has seen it, she started with the background in red and yellow. After letting it dry for a couple of minutes she added the black and white colours. She enjoyed painting with colour and water a lot!

Sarah attending her first Aboriginal painting workshop

On we went to Ubirr rock. This is a very important rock in Aboriginal culture as it marks the end of the stone country and the beginning of the vast flood plains of the rivers. Ubirr is richly decorated with rock paintings, but the highlight for us all was the climb up to the top and the most spectacular views we have seen so far on our travels. On one side you have the dry Stone Country and the cliffs into Arnhem Land, on the other you see nothing but green from the rivers and flood plains and on the third side there is vast Savannah country with lots of trees and shrubs. The view was so breathtaking that we didn’t want to leave and I even got back for sunset to take some more pictures!

More Rock Paintings and the most spectacular outlook at Ubirr

Bark Hut – 21/7/15

After a disappointing coffee in The Bakery in Jabiru we drove direction Darwin on the Arnhem Highway. There’s a couple more small Nationalparks on the 210 km stretch to Darwin. We stopped in Bark Hut because we needed some internet connection for Martin to work. It was a lovely little campground ($15 for an unpowered site) with a big pub. There was also a cool pool, two water buffalos, two emus, a turtle and two snakes. Enough for Sarah and with a good, fresh meal and a cold beer also enough for us to be happy.

After a bit of driving the next morning we stopped at the “Window to the Wetland”. This is a beautiful, child friendly display of the animal figures and landscape of the area, a great movie about The Wet and The Dry and a lookout over the area. Very enjoyable.

Water Buffalo, Sarah loosing her fear of crocodiles and the Window on the Wet

Another hour in the car and we reached the outer suburbs of Darwin. After some shopping (fresh fruits and veg and BWS had a 30% off in any 6 bottles :-) we finally arrived at Doreen & Daves home where we can stay in their driveway for a couple of days. Sarah wanted to go to the Darwin Show straight away. Unfortunately for her, it only starts tomorrow. We had a relaxed afternoon, Sarah could use the little pool and we opened the many letters and parcels that Doreen and Dave keep for us. Feels like home – thanks for all the great presents and cards!!

Kakadu NP 17&18/07/15

Deeper into Kakadu

An early start today so that we can see a couple of places in Kakadu. First we stopped at the Ranger station to buy the park pass you’re required to have, just to discover that the station was unattended and we should go to Cooinda to get the pass… at least we finally got a more detailed map about the different areas in Kakadu which helped to figure out which places and walks we can do with Sarah. Most of them are too long.

The next stop was 8 km down the road, the Bukbukluk lookout. At the end of a 100m walk (even Sarah managed that after some encouragement ;-) you have a nice view of the old Goodparla Station – I just saw endless green land!

Bukbukluk lookout

Maguk

We drove a further 32 km and then got onto our good old friend, the corrugated gravel road to Maguk. 12 km with a lot of low hanging trees drove Martin crazy but the hike through monsoon forest and along a sandy and rocky creek was well worth the effort. Sarah loved the 2 km hike, running, climbing over rocks and having a swim in the creek on the way back. We even saw a water snake – if you can’t swim with the crocs then a snake will do… seriously, the water was crystal clear and we were on the watch while Sarah was in the water. The only drawback of the tour: too many tourists. About 20 of them accumulated at the small waterfall and plunge pool at the end of the hike (but it increases the chances that you’re not the one being eaten by a crocodile ;-)

Barramundi creek and swim, waterfall

Mardugal

A further 50 km bitumen road brought us to our campsite for the next 2 nights: Mardugal. It's a big NP campsite with a short walk to the Madrigal Billabong and the 2km circular Gungardun walk through woodlands (which we haven't done - Sarah preferred to watch the boys next door playing cricket).

Sarah explaining the sign to Martin, view onto the Billabong

Yellow River / Cooinda

Next morning we drove a few km to Cooinda to do the 2.6km boardwalk. Unfortunately that one was closed. Instead we walked to the Traditional Art Centre to have a look at the exhibition. After that we went on a boat tour on the Yellow River. The tour guide was very good at spotting the wildlife and we saw heaps of saltwater crocodiles on the river bank and got really close to them. We also saw a lot of pretty birds, ducks, a couple of Jabirus (black stork), a white belly Sea Eagle, Brolgas and brumbies (wild horses). A great trip!

Yellow river wetland, Lotus Lilly, Egret, sacred Kingfisher, Azure Kingfisher, Rainbow Bee-eater, Saltwater crocodiles

Katherine - Kakadu National Park 16/07/15

This morning Sarah slipped into our bed at 2:30 in the morning – apparently to wish me a happy birthday. You can’t argue with that one.

Once it was time to get up the girls made me a lovely breakfast with freshly baked 'Zopf', smarties and candles on top :-)

After a quick shopping in Katherine (Martin bought himself a saw since he only got a crafted picture as a present that Sarah had made for him) we made our way towards Pine Creek for Lunch. Just behind the town is a lake where once was an open cut gold mine. During its life they extracted more than 700,000 ounces of gold out of the rock at sometimes more than 10 oz / ton.

Pine Creek goldmine lake

We drove on towards Kakadu National Park but stopped at a couple of amazingly big termite mounts.

Termite mounts - big and small

At one point there was some back-burning going on just beside the road. It’s amazing to watch how these fires just burn the undergrowth and leave the trees completely unharmed.

Backburning in Progress

We stopped for the night at Marry River Roadhouse just outside the National Park. Sarah was very happy as it has a pool and a couple of old bunk beds to climb on and even more happy when we discovered the two little emu chicks (Eric & Edwin, born 30. June)

Sarah, Eric & Edwin

Katherine - 15/07/15

Mataranka 12/07/15

We had a last bit of 44km of gravel road out of Roper Bar which turned out to be pretty rough. :-( 
Just before we got to the bitumen we had morning tea and pumped up the tires to road pressure again. Bitumen! Glorious Bitumen! Finally! After about 1300 km on gravel road between Normanton and Roper Bar we're finally back on bitumen! It was only a single lane bitumen road, but gee, it was heaven. We could finally cruise at 80km/h again and not a bump in the road! The road was so good, that we decided to drive all the way to Mataranka were we stayed on a campground for two nights.
We stayed within walking distance of the Bitter Springs - 34 C hot water. We all had lots of fun sitting on a pool noodle and gently drifting down the crystal clear creek for about 200m and then do it all again! 
The second night we found a nice restaurant at another camping ground. We had a decent meal, alcohol and best of all: there was a buffet of veggies and salad! How nice after swallowing a lot of dust in the last 3 weeks. Sarah had lots of fun with all the other kids on the cushion of the 'mechanical bull' which was a perfect jumping castle. And later on we even got some live music.

Drifting down the warm creek at Bitter Springs - Mataranka

Cutta Cutta Caves 14/07/15

After seeing some of the most remote area of Australia and possible the world, we are back on the 'tourist drive'. Lots of other travellers, tours and camping grounds filled to the bream. Our next stop was Cutta Cutta Caves just south of Katherine. When we arrived we had only minutes to get ready for the cave tour (together with about 40 other people). It's a dry cave with only one entry. The further in you get the hotter and more humid it gets. We only went in about 1/3 of the 700m length and so it wasn't to bad. Apparently close to the end it's about 37C and 100 % humidity...

What a beautiful cave. It's big at the entrance, but the further in you get, the narrower it is. Cutta Cutta actually means 'many, many stars' and a lot of the stalactites and stalagmites are sparkling in the light. It is also very richly decorated with stunning formations. Only Sarah was disappointed - the bats had their home further in the cave in the section that wasn't accessible to us.

Cutta Cutta Caves - as I've always imagined a cave to be

Katherine 14/07/15

It was only a short drive to Katherine and after a visit to the visitor centre and filling up our supplies at Woolworths we setup the caravan on an overflow site in one of the 4 caravan parks. We were surprised to find another hot spring just down from our camp side and soon we were floating on our pool noodles again. This one was a little cooler than Mataranka but had a little waterfall which was a great slide for Sarah. 

Another hot spring in Katherine

Katherine Gorge 15/07/15

We are staying another night in Katherine, and decided to do a day trip to Katherine Gorge. We booked a gorge cruise to see the first two gorges out of 13. Again we joined a group of another 50 people. This gorge is actually quite wide compared to the others we've seen so far. Nevertheless it was well worth the money. After the first gorge we had to disembark and walk about 300m to another ship on the second gorge. Here the gorge got more narrow and very spectacular. The rock formations are stunning and trying to imagine that the water in a good wet season would be about 5-10m higher, is hard to do. The guide said, the water rushing through would fill an empty Sydney harbour every 9 hours...

Crocs close up, Katherine Gorge and a happy Sarah especially when she can train her free-climbing skills

On the way back we (well our tour guide) spotted a freshwater crocodile (the harmless variety) and we've got some good close up shots.

Savannah Way II

Through the Limmen NP – 6-8/7/15

What a lovely first 26 km on bitumen. At the turn off to Limmen NP we hit gravel road again, but it actually wasn’t too bad. We drove about 50 km to Batten creek and found a lovely free camp all for ourselves. Far enough off the road there was nothing except us, birds and stars. A relaxing afternoon and a good night.

Next day we drove on into Lorella Springs, which is a 1.000.000 acre farm (4,000 km2) with a lot of (some hot) springs, waterholes, mountains, and waterfalls. A 4WD paradise. Unfortunately it’s 30 km off the main road and the grader hasn’t been here for a long time (even more unfortunate that the owners are apparently not allowed to maintain the road themselves, even though there have their own grader…). Well, my back hated those 29 km and I paid for it the next day. Due to this we didn’t go exploring the vast area but also weren’t too unhappy about it. Most of the waterfalls and hiking/lookout spots or hot springs are about 20-40 km away and it’s more of a rough 4WD drive to get to them.

Sarah and Taiya building a birds nest to collect eggs ;-) Donkey shower under the stars, hot springs, the resident emu and damper on a stick

Sarah found a new friend, Taiya, and had a great 2 days with lots of swimming in the hot spring, riding her balancing bike and making birds nests filled with seeds to attract little birds (so they can collect eggs in the morning for breakfast). Martin finally found out how to make a damper and we tried the recipe at the fire this night. Delicious! We even got ourselves the treat of a glass of wine from the bar ($8/glass which is better than $6 for a can of beer). So overall a lovey 2 days in Lorella Springs! 

The southern Lost City – 9/07/15

We took our time this morning to give Sarah and Taiya a bit more time to play. We all went for a swim in the hot spring again just before we were ready to leave to enjoy a clean child for half an hour. Saying good-bye to Taiya and her family was a bit sad and Sarah was asking about her friend probably 10 times during the day.

Sunrise and Sunset at the Southern Lost City

Martin was very kind to my back and drove about 10 km/h on the most horrible stretches of corrugation on the 30km out of Lorella springs. It took us about 1.5 h but I was happy! Another 30 min and we reached the turn off to the Southern Lost City – 4km of narrow and corrugated road but, hey, what’s 4 km once you’ve done Lorella?? And this was well worth the effort. A beautiful campsite with views onto the secluded rocks. Can lunch be any better? Even though it was still a very sunny 30C (better than Brisbane, it’s not humid!!) we decided to go for the 2.5 km hike because Sarah was full of energy. Walking into the “City” was magnificent. Amazing to see how the trees seem to follow the line of erosion and bend into the same direction as the rocks. While the rocks in Caranbirini Reserve were much higher, the setting here was nicer. Probably because the pillars were smaller and varied much more in diameter, hight and shape, we felt much closer to them..

Towns River and Lomarieum – 10 & 11/7/15

Driving on from the Southern Lost City we had quite a good road. We stopped for a break at the Butterfly Springs. Sarah had time to play in the water (no waterfall) which unfortunately started to turn green and will probably be stagnant very soon. We pushed on to get to Towns River, which was a long drive again. Sarah is so good in the car and apart from having to listen to the same song over and over again (“Herrn Pastor sin kau”, “Allein, Allein”, “Break my stride” and “Backe, Backe Kuchen” are her favorites) we are amazed at how easy she takes those long hard drives. It looks like we are more exhausted than she by the time we stop. Towns River was lovely. A camp spot right on the river and luckily there was 1m cliff to prevent Sarah from playing too close to the water since Salties have been seen in the area. Martin tried his luck at fishing for a Barramundi and Sarah told him how to do it! They didn’t succeed – we had rice with (frozen) vegies for dinner. Our fresh fruit and veg supplies are nearly empty.

No fish, but another fantastic sunrise at Towns River

After a slow and relaxed morning (including a chat to a couple from Brisbane that is using a Bushtracker from 1998) we hit the road again, not looking forward to corrugation. It turned out to be quite bad and after an hour and a half we stopped at the old ruins of St Vidgeon and the Lemarieum Lagoon for lunch and a bit of relaxation at the water. 

Lunch break at Lemarium Lagoon

The next stretch was a mixed bag but at the turn off to Roper Bar the street got better (we drove up to 60km/h) and we had some great views and very diverse landscape again. Beautiful young green grass shimmering through the burned stems and soil or yellowish savannah-like grass fields. Tomato island campground had phone reception but was very crowed so we decided –unfortunately- to drive on. The last 20km to Roper Bar were badly corrugated and Martin was exhausted by the time we reached the campground. We soon figured out that the campground and shop are a rip off (but well stocked): Fuel costs $2.20/L and all the food was way overpriced (2L milk for 6.90). We’re not in the middle of nowhere anymore. Mataranka (at the Stuart Highway) is only 180km away and only 45 km of this is gravel. And Kathrine is only another 100 km from there. Even the dust patch (campground) costs $15 a head and they tried to charge for Sarah an extra $10. Fortunately for us the sing at the entrance said $10 per adult and only children 4+ have to pay. After pointing this out to the owner they reduced the price for us. We don’t mind spending some money in remote communities as these people have it hard enough and deserve our money, but if we are getting ripped of we spend as little as possible.  i.e. instead of filing up the car, we’ve only filled up 20L Diesel and we only bought little fresh fruit and a bread.