for a coffee break. They had an interesting half FJ Holden out front, as a sign (see photo). Coffee was free. Went on to Adelaide River for lunch, wasn’t impressed as food was not hot, buzzer didn’t work. Val was happy to see Markets in progress (3 stalls) and did buy some soap for hard water, which will be good for Roadhouse stops. On arrival at Darwin, went to The Lee Point Village Resort, who had told us, on the phone, that they don’t take bookings and always have plenty of sites, to find they were full. We ended up at Malak Caravan Park, owned by the same group. All sites have ensuites, a very basic park with lots of long term tenants that are caravaners that came for a visit, found work and have stayed. Some up to 4 years. We were told that once you are in, you have the site for as long as you keep paying your weekly rent. Very shady park with friendly neighbours and the only slight inconvenience is that you have to go next door to another Park, also belonging to the same group, to do your washing.We spent the next 3 days getting ready for our Sydney visitors.
July 28th, Picked up Steven & Mum from Darwin Airport at 4.30pm and took Steven to the Vibe Hotel, in the City, where he was staying for the first night. Mum stayed with us at our Caravan. We all drove into the city and had a few drinks at several bars along Mitchell Street before heading for the Wharf Precinct for dinner on the Wharf. It was very busy, parking difficult but both the Food and the Harbour Views were great. We couldn’t believe the size of the fish swimming under the wharf, absolutely huge barramundi and lots of others I couldn’t identify.
July 29th, Steven & myself went on a sightseeing tour of the
WW2 Oil Tunnels. It involved a very interesting talk by a Tour Guide then a self guided tour through 2 of the underground tunnels. A very expensive project at the time which never did get used for its intended purpose as the war ended before they were ever used. We took a few photos of the Government House gardens and then went on to the Museum to mainly look over the Cyclone Tracy exhibit. It was also very interesting and brought home the devastation caused by that event. The highlight of the exhibit was the stand where, on entering, you were subjected to the sound of the Cyclone, it would have been terrifying in reality. Hardly a building was left standing & only 40 people lost their lives, which is hard to believe when you look at this exhibit. We can only imagine the enormity of rebuilding the whole Area from scratch. We picked up the girls and headed off on our Kakadu Adventure. We stopped at the Humpty Doo Hotel for lunch and visited the Bowali Information centre. Had a quick look around Jabiru Township before booking into our cabin at The Jabiru Caravan Park. Went to The Jabiru Sport & Social Club for drinks and dinner. It was nice sitting in the outdoor area looking over the billabong until sundown when the mozzies drove us inside. The food was good and the pokies were terrible.July 30th, Today we went on the Yellow Water Cruise, about 50klms from Jabiru. We spent 1.5 hrs cruising the Yellow Water Billabong and the East Alligator River, viewing the vegetation, birdlife (including the Jabiru’s, which the town was named after), wild brumbies and many Saltwater Crocodiles. We would recommend this cruise to anyone visiting the area. We lunched at the Coorinda Lodge in Yellow Water. On our way back to Jabaru we stopped at the Warradjan Aboriginal Culture Centre, which had a great display of the Aboriginal History in Kakadu and a good souvenir shop and Noorlangie Rock where there is the best aboriginal rock art on display. After walking around the Gagudju Crocodile Inn and checking out the menu/drink prices went back to the Sports & Social Club for dinner.
July 31st, 11.30am Steven & myself drove to Jabiru Airport to meet our Tour Bus for the Ranger Uranium Mine Tour. This was the best run Open Cut mine tour that I’ve been on. Very informative guide, who used video clips to show us the activity inside their buildings, as we passed by them. In the next 2 years it will become an underground mine to allow them to extract the bottom section of the uranium lode. Highly recommended. Moving on towards Katherine ,we stopped at the Mary River Roadhouse for lunch and then carried on to The Knotts Crossing Resort, in Katherine. A quick spruce up and off to the wharf at Katherine Gorge, to pick up the Katherine Gorge Sunset Dinner Cruise. This was a WOW factor cruise, the rock faces of the 2 Gorges we saw was fantastic. Took lots of photos and was topped off with a great 3 course meal, a complimentary champagne, beautiful sunset and a very good tour guide.
August 1st, Steven & myself went to the thermal springs in Katherine for a soak. Very nice at 32deg. Nowhere near as hot as the Artesian Pools I had been to in Moree (NSW). We headed to our next stay at Batchelor, stopping at the Emerald Springs Roadhouse for a coffee, and timed it nicely to look over their local Markets. Moving on, we had a light lunch at the Batchelor Festival and then drove to the Banyan Tree Caravan Park, in The Litchfield National Park, and booked in for the night. We ventured further into LNP and saw the very large Magnetic Termite Mounds, Buley Rockholes, Florence Falls and Tolmer Falls. Fascinating scenery, water still flowing in the rocks and falls, even though this is the dry season. Lots more we couldn’t visit , as I don’t have a 4WD. We had a very good evening meal at The Batchelor Resort Caravillage.
August 2nd, Up early, we set off for Darwin and went straight to Cullen Bay, in the city, and had a great lunch at the Buzz Café. We all went for the home made pies but Val had the most spectacular with a Leaping Prawn Pie. We then went to the Mindil Sunset Markets, very good and large selection of stalls, and saw a great sunset from the beach. We finished off the night with a trip to The Sky City Casino.
August 3rd, Put Steven & Mum on the 8am flight back to Sydney and back to the Van to pick Val up and head for the Darwin Cup Race day. We drove to the local shopping centre and used the free
express bus to travel to & from the races. We didn’t have a winning day but a very enjoyable one. It was the biggest race crowd we had ever seen. The fashions on the field were colourful and it was a very hot day.August 4th, Quiet day, needed after a great Kakadu experience.
August 6th, Woke up with a sore throat yesterday and after a bad night, now have a full blown cold, so off to the Chemist for some medicine and feeling much better to-night. I’m blaming the huge crowd that were at the Darwin Cup for passing the bug on to me. We did find time to look at the next leg of our travels and plan to leave Darwin on Tuesday, August 18th. with a few stopovers, we expect to be in Broome on September 1st.
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