on the road to Darwin, part 2!

One town we stayed at was Daly Waters which was really just a pub and a caravan park. The pub has been there since the 1930's when the area was used as an airstrip during the war. The pubs a little different now! and its famous for its Beef n Barra nights over the busy dry tourist season. There was also a country singer/comedian -a fun night..

We also stopped to look at an old drovers town called Newcastle Waters originally discovered by John Stuart where drovers could stop in for food and rest after weeks in the hot, lonely outback. The biggest drawcard though was the pub (nothing really changes!!) -the old fridge in the pub was funny! and there was also an old petrol pump you can see in the photo.. Most things were in there original state which made it reall interesting.

...on the road to Darwin, Star stories

At one of the roadhouses we stopped at, Wauchope, we were lucky enough to get a particularly amazing night for star watching -not even a moon so it was an extremely dark sky and bright stars. At one point the 3 of us were walking back towards our van and looked across to see the most enormous and incredibly bright shooting star fly low across the sky. It was amazing and so exciting.
In Alice Springs at the caravan park, if the night is clear an astrologist comes to give a talk on the stars on a Tuesday night. He takes you right up the back up a hill where its nice and dark and has a massive telescope that everyone gets to look through. We looked at the left point of the Southern Cross only to see a huge star cluster that sits around it of about 200 stars. The highlight however was at the end when he turned the telescope to Saturn -unbelievable, we could see all the rings around it, it was ridiculously exciting!! You'd swear it wasnt real.. happy days!

Litchfield National Park - last stop before Darwin

As has constantly been the case, LNP was a pleasant surprise. Driving towards these places the surrounding bush and landscape is often a bit dry and sparse so its so amazing to get into these parks and gorges and see such lush diverse vegetation, dramatic gorges and or stunning rivers and waterfalls etc.
We had great fun exploring LNP as it was a series of rivers feeding into each other and dotted with beautiful swimming holes and waterfalls where we could see fish and turtles and much to the boys delight they popped up out of the water one swim to find a water monitor next to them on the rock. We also went on our first 4WD track to the Lost City. A series of ancient rocks which as they have eroded do resemble an ancient lost city. The road in was quite hairy and it took me 1/2 hour to go 10kms! Boys loved the 4WDriving more than the lost city of course! The second photo is of a Magnetic termite mound who build them so the narrowest line faces east west and therefore the mound doesnt overheat -aint nature clever!

The spiders are Golden Orbs -they were everywhere at one particular area and make the biggest webs. The photos are of females whose bodies can be around 5cm long and then add the legs, but the male is only 5mm! and the female will sometimes eat him once shes had her way!! he he The Golden Orb can make you very sick but not fatal, unusual for northern Australia!

The 3rd last photo we liked because if you look at the profile of the rock carefully it looks like a face..?

Finally, i'd like to introduce Wil's new school tutor, Praying Mantis, or Manti for short. After watching Kungfu Panda i thought it the wisest choice ; )

Leaving Katherine..

We really enjoyed Katherine and will stop again on the way back down as theres a great aboriginal culture experience there that we want to do -learning to throw a spear with a woomera, light fire with sticks and how to carry the embers with you so you can start another fire, and a painting lesson -taught by a traditional aboriginal man who didnt see a white man until he was 7 years old. Should be terrific.
A few extra snaps from the caravan park which was a great place in itself. The photo of the Fig tree which is about 150 years old is outside the bistro which is next to the pool. All the food and desserts are made on the premises so we treated ourselves to a night swim and dessert one night! The next day, the head chef, who is also a hairdresser! gave Harry and i a hair cut. First for the trip!
We havent watched TV now for 7 weeks and we havent missed it all. I thought we might a bit but i guess we're either busy or too tired anyway! ..anyway, onto the next town :)

Katherine Gorge - bushwalk to North Rock Hole

We went on an 8km bushwalk in the gorge too which felt longer because of the heat! We were rewarded though with a beautiful rock pool oasis at the end that we had all to ourselves! We had to be ferried to the other side of the river to start the walk which a ranger obliged us but we had to be collected by a tour ferry on its way back to so it was important we got to the river bank again by 1pm or we'd be stranded! The landscape had started changing now -less arid and more bushy and no red dirt in sight.
At Katherine we learnt more about how the aboriginals utilised the bush around them so cleverly to survive. The mango bush leaves were swished through the water releasing a substance which took the oxygen out of the water and the fish would float to the surface. They would take what they needed for their meal then the children would get into the water and run about to re-oxygenate the water and the remaining fish would spring back to life and swim off! Pandanus which are a common plant up north were used for making all sorts of handy things such as weaving the leaves for bags or stripping the trunk and tying it together with vines for little canoes. Nothing was wasted or depleted.
You'll notice we're wearing gators on the walk -putting our snake safety knowledge to good use!