The Top End of Oz

We’re in Darwin and Darwin has turned the heat on. Well for us we think so, hasn’t been a day under 30 degrees in the 5 weeks we’ve been here and by night it hasn’t been under 20 degrees. We certainly haven’t had a winter and I’m not complainingJ Before arriving to Darwin though we did some exploring in the top end which I’ll tell you all about without boring you too much hopefully.

After the Devils Marbles we drove a good days’ worth through more country and made it to an apparent must stop ‘Daly Waters Pub’. We were not disappointed! This funky, eclectic, fascinating pub in the middle/ north of the Northern Territory was a cracker of a night. We got hand ridden to our camp spot and then made the most of happy hour with $3 pots (middies for the New South Welshman) before having a really nice feed in the beer garden. We were then very fortunate to have two live performances from local artists: one singing some originals and covers of some great country music and then a real good comedian/singer Dave ‘Chilli’ Chillcott. Chilli had us curled over in tears of laughter and on the other spectrum tears of emotion from his breathtaking bush poetry, an all-round memorable night not to forget on this trip.

Daly Waters Pub

Some of the eclectic souvenirs travellers leave behind

From our pub stop we drove further north and made it to Mataranka Homestead. Here we enjoyed thermal pools, a canoe down the river spotting freshwater crocs, happy hour drinks once again and more live music this time from a band called ‘The Giants’. We also applied (very casually over the bar) for our first jobs here….. unsuccessful though! Not to be down hearted we moved on to another spectacular place, Katherine Gorge, also stopping at Edith Falls for a quick dip too.

 

Swimming in Mataranka Thermal Pool

A little freshwater croc sunbaking on our canoe ride

Stevie's Waterhole, a tad murky for a swim

 

Edith Falls

Not a cheap place to stay but we made the most of the afternoon lazing around the resort style pool, using the free power to charge everything and using the free laundry! The next morning I wasn’t feeling the best but Ash walked 8km to Pat’s lookout which had stunning views high up looking into Katherine Gorge. By the time Ash got back I was feeling somewhat better and we had a drink and a Skype session with the Chaffey’s to celebrate our nephew Max’s 1^st birthday. We also did an afternoon canoe ride to the 2^nd gorge and went for a quick swim in the refreshing water. Definitely a must see place if you’re thinking about it or up this way haha.

The view from Pat's lookout

On the banks of Katherine Gorge

 

We were only about 2-3 hours from Darwin now but a right hand turn at a town called Pine Creek onto the Kakadu Highway saw us doing a minor detour to one of our favourite spots yet, Kakadu. Our friends Jude and Astrid had been through just a week or two earlier and gave us some great tips and hidden spots, our first night being one of the greatest. We drove Gina and Carmen up, down and around a very rocky but short track to find ourselves alone at ‘The Rockhole’. We had this amazing little camp spot to ourselves all afternoon, night and the next morning. We even had a sneaky skinny dip in the pool below the little waterfall and then hunted and gathered wood for our fire and dinner under the stars. The next day we set up camp further down the road and explored Maguk, down a corrugated road we weren’t expecting but so worth it. One of our favourite waterholes yet and we had it mostly to ourselves. We made a visit to the cultural centre later in the afternoon and joined some grey nomads and 3 French backpackers around a fire that night talking and looking over photos of their journeys. The next day was off to Gunlom, an even rougher track than Maguk but again stunning waterholes and views of the escarpment and land into the distance. We were once again out of power so we stayed at the Gagudju Lodge, Cooinda our most expensive powered site yet, $48. We made sure we used all their kitchen facilities, the pool and were delighted when a lady undercharged us for some souvenirs and icecreams! The next two days we explored Nourlangie, Bowali Visitor Centre, Nanguluwurr and Ubbirr where we saw some truly amazing aboriginal rock art over 20,000 years old. We listened to ranger talks, did some walking, watched crazy fishermen fish for about 4 hours at Cahill’s crossing (a brown river swarming with saltwater crocs everywhere) and a beautiful sunset. This ended our time in Kakadu spectacularly but we cannot wait to return to see it again one day. 

 

Clever little ants build these nests out of leaves high up in the trees

Our private swimming spot, The Rockhole

Floating around in Maguk

 

The view from the top of Gunlom

 

Spectacular rock art, 'Lightning Man'

More rock art

Crazy fisherman at Cahill's Crossing

The crocs with their paws up catching a feed

Listening to ranger talks as the sunsets at Ubirr

Sunset at Kakadu

 

It was finally time to head into Darwin. Three lane traffic, road trains, bad drivers, choice of petrol and groceries, suburbs, tall buildings and bottle shops were all a bit strange and overwhelming after living mostly simple camping lives in the outback for a month, but it was also nice to have some of these creature comforts around. Most importantly though we had friends to see especially Jude and Astrid before they headed overseas! We’ve been in Darwin 5 weeks nearly which is too long to talk about everything we’ve done so I’ll try keep out the boring bits and tell you what might hopefully be a bit interesting to you readers. Our first night we caught up with Michael and Lisa who we’d met at Kings Canyon for a few jugs of beer and to watch the footy in the city. We finally saw Jude and Astrid too, at Parap Markets (which are awesome Saturday morning markets with heaps of fresh local produce and cool market stuff) whilst also bumping into Jessica Mauboy. By late afternoon we all found ourselves at the Ski Club and not long after drinking mega jugs of beer, going out to shenanigans and getting back home to the caravan park at 3am. This was where Ash got lost. I’m not sure how but she left the toilet block without me and I had to go searching back to our camp, back to the toilet block and then with a torch around the park until I found her wandering I think with tears of joy that id finally found her and a laugh haha. It took the greater part of the next week getting over that night but we had some great food and catch-up with Jude and Astrid at Mindil Markets the next night and then went and watched ‘The Great Gatsby’ at the deckchair cinema. We filled our week with things like getting Gina serviced, eating 4L tubs of icecream on the beach, Frisbee, sunsets, uke and guitar jams with friendly grey nomad neighbours and frequenting events at the Darwin Festival Hub like live music, artwork and food! We also made a visit to some friends of ours Bree, Tom and their new addition 4 month old Ainsley (I use to work with both of them and Ash and I both went to school with Tom). Tom was away at training though and Bree kindly offered us a room which we were very grateful for. We have since been staying with Bree and Ainsley helping out with feeding, playing, chores, walking the dogs and outings where we can and also watching many Offspring episodes (nearly watched the first 3 seasons)!

Meeting Ainsley for the first time

 

Outdoor cinema to watch 'The Great Gatsby'

Stalking Jessica Mauboy at Parap Markets

Darwin Festival lights at the hub

We luckily heard an ad on the radio that there were some international squash games being played over the weekend so we decided to go watch some games and Ash even got to catch up with some old friends she use to play with back in the day. A lot of top seeded Aussies were there and it was great to watch.

Aussies mixed doubles beat the Scots

BBQ’s and catch-ups on the Nightcliff foreshore with Jude and Astrid became a regular thing. Sitting in the park, chatting, drawing, playing guitar and eating, it just felt like summer holidays. The smells, the sounds and the people were all amazing! We did a trip out to Berry Springs with the girls and Astrid’s brother Carl too which was lovely. A warm natural spring to swim in and picnic areas to eat and play Frisbee in. A few days later it was a sad farewell (or more like see you soon) to Jude and Astrid who were on the next leg of their journey to Indonesia to sight see and cycle their way up and across to Scotland. An inspiring couple we can’t wait to catch up with again!

Picnic at Nightcliff

Berry Springs mini waterfall

Cold Rock Extremists, our 3rd or 4th tub of the trip with these girls haha

 

Bree showed us around a bit of Darwin taking us to Leanyer Recreational Park which had awesome waterslides, the Darwin Museum and we even went on a Jumping Croc Cruise on the Adelaide River (probably Australia’s most inhabited crocodile rivers). We’ve also taken ourselves around town visiting Stokes Hill Wharf (where Japan attacked Darwin dropping their first bombs in WWII), Forts Hill Wharf, Cullen Bay, WWII Oil Storage Tunnels, the Wave Pool in the City and Lee Point Reserve.

This rainbow tree is all knitted on, clever ay!

A naval ship docked at Stokes Hill Wharf

 

A big salty about to jump for the meat

This croc had no arms but one very strong tail

 

We had a lovely breaky for Bree’s birthday with some of her girlfriends and then caught up with some friends of Ash’s from Evan’s Head who now live in Darwin (Danny and Laura). Plenty of beers, darts, a BBQ and catch-ups. I hit the pillow about 4am but I was woken by Ash snoring on the bathroom floor at about 5:30am haha wifey still knows how to drink.

We’ve since spent the last two or so weeks successfully job hunting (we’ll be cleaning in Darwin, just call us Sadie and Alice), catching up with an old Uni mate who passed through for a night which was lovely, celebrated Ash’s birthday (playing squash, swimming, going to the casino and eating her favourite Chinese for dinner!), watching a 20/20 cricket game, another night with Danny and Laura drinking till half past and trying to go to Litchfield unsuccessfully (turns our Carmen’s wheel bearings were shot on one side and she needed to be towed 120km, thankfully covered by NRMA).

The Perth Scorchers beat NT Strikers 2-1

 

Catching up with Sam at Mindil Markets

Some awesome live music at Mindil Markets

Trying to fix Carmen to no avail!

Carmen getting a tow back to Darwin, we nearly wore the wheel bearings down to the axel

 

We are currently building up cleaning clients day by day and we do our first clean on Friday. Adjusting to the heat up here is sometimes difficult with the ‘build up’ happening a little more everyday but air con is a nice luxury along with smashing 2-3 zooper doopers most days haha. With not much travelling occurring there may not be too much to write about but feel free to call, msg, facebook, watsapp, skype, or just stalk us if you want to catch up or find out what’s happening. Until next time fellow readers!

The Red Centre Way

I’ve started writing this sitting in the middle of the Northern Territory looking out into the vast open space on a very culturally significant piece of land, Karlu Karlu or as some of you may know as The Devils Marbles. It’s very dry and red but unusually green in patches which makes for a nice contrast to this desert like backdrop. This is our pit stop for the night as we journey further north but for now I shall fill you in on our latest travels way back to Lake Tinaroo, QLD.

We decided we needed a break from being on the go and on the road so much so we booked 3 nights in the National Park at Lake Tinaroo to do just that. Chris and Courtney who we met at the tip were close by too and decided to meet us there later and stay a few nights. We set up with a few extra walls to protect us from the light sideways showers that would come and go, had a few beers when the guys arrived and chatted our way into the night. The next day we tried our luck at putting a crab pot out (there was supposed to be some red claw about), cooked up our favourite breakie bacon and eggs, ran some errands in town, relaxed some more, drank beer, made a fire and we all pitched in to cook spag bol in the cast iron pot (which none of us had ever used before haha). Although a little crunchy and some well-done chunky bits we were all pretty happy and even had seconds! No luck with the crab pot though, we left her in overnight to see what the night would bring. Another rainy day as we woke but made the most of the tranquil surrounds playing cards, making scones on a hot plate with cream and jam, watching the others be unsuccessful at fishing, us being unsuccessful with the crab pot again, Skyping the Chaffey’s and having a good yarn with some more beer. We were all ready to get out of the rain the next day and so we both packed up but not before checking the pot one last time to find we had caught 1 red claw, approximately the size of a medium-large prawn. Better luck in a different lake hey?

 

Chris and Courtney from Warnambool, bunking in at Lake Tinaroo

Sunset at Lake Tinaroo

Our red claw we caught in the trap

 

We had planned to stop in the ranges before getting to Innisfail to get our car looked over, but there were road works which were using our intended camp spot to store big machines. We marched on a little further and decided to see what Paronella Park was all about. We were lucky enough to get a spot without booking and were pleasantly surprised by this beautiful hidden treasure. We took the guided night tour and then in the morning a guided day tour which were both very different and unique in their own ways. In short, a man from Spain found this block of unwanted land just out of Innisfail on a holiday and took 11 years to build his dream on it. He built a ballroom, a cinema room, a castle, and tennis courts, had a 15m+ natural waterfall in the middle and had power nearly 40 years before anyone else in the area. I’m sure I’ve missed heaps but if you are ever in the area do yourself a favour and make time for a visit here, there is a beautiful love story behind it too.

Kauri Avenue (a long row of Kauri trees in Paronalla Park)

Jose' Paronella's Castle he hand built

Mena Creek Falls in Paronella Park

A guy we had met coming through Innisfail on our way north, Joe, had offered us to stay with him if we came back through or needed to leave our trailer somewhere, and so we did. We dropped Carmen off there about lunch and then headed out in Gina to do a waterfall circuit near Milla Milla. A cold and wet day didn’t see us swim at any of the falls but all very lovely to see in this luscious landscape up in the mountains. We headed back to Joes and met his dogs, guinea fowls, horse, cows and his pet galah. A really late night getting to sleep around 4am was a bit unexpected but entertaining. We finally found someone to look at our sink and water tank on Carmen and dropped her off nice and early to do some more sight-seeing too. After doing some washing we headed to Etty Bay and then Flying Fish Point for chips and gravy, with a little nana nap after as well. A little uncomfortable in the car we headed back to Joes and had a much longer nana nap (about 3 hours) and then went and got pizzas for us all to watch the 3^rd game of state of origin. We don’t need to talk about that though;) The next morning Gina finally had a date with the mechanic for a look over so we dropped her off early and looked around town by foot, even grabbing some bargains at Sam’s Warehouse. When we picked her up around lunch we drove to Josephine Falls and The Boulders, two great spots just a bit north only we forgot our cossies and didn’t have one towel at all in the car. Our last night at Joe’s though and he cooked us one of the best spag bol’s we’ve ever had, it even had pork belly in it!

Milla Milla Falls

Josephine Falls

The Boulders 

We kind of get itchy feet if we stay at certain places too long and the rain hadn’t eased for over a week so even with some work and accommodation offered by Joe we decided to start our next journey and head west with our first stop being The Undara Lava Tubes. The clouds parted away slowly and by the time we arrived the sun was shining and we were hot enough for a swim in there big, clear, salt water pool. We also booked a tour to see the lava tubes as you can’t just take yourself in. We were very fascinated by the moulded tubes that were left by lava overflowing here millions of years ago but our tour guide had no personality, a monotone voice, yawned several times and ummd and ahhhd a lot. It made for a pretty unenjoyable tour, two very disappointed customers. We easily got over it though, by eating a lovely dinner under the stars and downing a bottle of red between us!

Beautiful tree at the entry into the Undara Lava Tubes

One of the many lava tubes created

Inside the lava tubes

 

Just driving further west again this time to a town called Croydon, seeing many dry rivers, some ratty emu’s, plenty of road kill and really…..not much at all for hundreds of km’s. To kill some of these km’s we have been entertaining ourselves by having acapella sessions and giving different kinds of waves to fellow travellers, these including: the salute, the one finger off the wheel, the two finger off the wheel, the shaka, the fan of the whole hand and even a double wave from both of us (highly amusing for us anyway).The caravan park at Croydon was awesome though run by a young aussie couple with another sweet swimming pool, free laundry and they even joined everyone for ‘beer and bullshit’ around the fire from 5pm.

It was further west and a little north the next day all the way to The Gulf of Carpentaria, Karumba! Everyone said “Oh you must book in there, they were turning people away the other day” and “yes we booked several weeks ago we were lucky to get a spot” but we thought what the hell and tried our lady luck, we got a spot just fine. A short drive through town, a few beers while watching the footy and then we decided to stay for dinner and watch the sunset at Sunset Tavern, spectacular!

Just a Brolga frolicking in the sand dunes

Sunset at Karumba, from Sunset Tavern

Krys the 8.64m salt water croc statue (life size replica)

 

Still with big km’s between towns worth stopping at, we drove all the way to Cloncurry, stopping at the Burke and Wills Roadhouse for a meat pie and sausage roll lunch.  A cute little caravan park called Wal’s Camp was where we set up and then into town to stock up on some meat, veg and food supplies. A goodnight uploading several videos was enjoyable to watch and syncing our new iPod finally. Hundreds of new songs! (We’ve already been through all our CD’s and our 3 other iPods at least twice).

Pit-stop for lunch

Self explanatory

Only about 120km’s today and we made it to Mt Isa. This really was our last big town before going down to the centre and we made the most of it by visiting Supercheap Auto, BCF, Bunnings, Woolworths, Kmart, Telstra and the Caltex for an array of random things we forgot or had ran out of and of course a bottle shop for our first goon bag of the trip haha (soft fruity white). Our shopping efforts took us nearly all day so we found a camp spot for the night and made some mean stuffed mushy’s covered in white sauce!

Beautiful Mt Isa... or not

 

We thought we may cross the border today but not to be as we only made it to Camooweal and found a free camp on the billabong (basically on the river bed as it was dead dry). Our night here really opened up our hearts and minds to the outback and we soaked in every bit of it. We had a guitar jam session, cooked dinner under our solar fairy lights, made a killer fire, watched the sunset into the distant gumtrees, watched the full moon rise, watched the stars from one horizon to the other get brighter as the night got darker and laid on our bed staring through our skylight until we fell asleep watching the stars. Waking up with the skylight open we also saw the beautiful sunrise (not something we do often enough) to start our day.

Relaxing at Camooweal

Sunset and fire

 

We were finally crossing the border today into the Northern Territory and we were lucky to have some fellow travellers at the sign and we could both get in a photo to prove it (in case you don’t believe we’re really travelling around Australia). Yet another long slog to make it to Threeways Roadhouse though today, named simply because it is in the middle of the Northern Territory and you can go North, East or South. We cracked the goon sack that night and ran into some fellow Central Coastarians who’d just come up from Uluru and gave us same great tips where to stop, where not to stop and some good contacts. We’ve also learnt you can do all the research you want on a place you’re going or wanting to visit but the best information is nearly always from someone who has just been or a local.

Crossing the border

Just your regular speed limit in the NT

Feeling happy on gooooon!

We wanted to get a reasonable early get away this day but whenever you plan to it never happens. This time it was the bike tubing on the rear end of our trailer, Sandra and Bella’s only real ride on the bike rack, ¾ snapped off. We certainly didn’t have a welder and weren’t keen on asking anyone so we sadly bid farewell to our rusty pub rides. 530km’s to Alice Springs today, although it may not seem far for some in a day, it takes its toll when towing a one tonne trailer, its hot, the speed limit is 130 and you can only really go 110 with a good tail wind and you’ve seen the same bush and dirt for 8 days straight. We made it into town just before sunset though and were pleasantly surprised at how developed it was with all your modern shops, takeaways, sports complexes, street lights and green grass. We expected much less. G’day Mate Tourist Park is where we stayed and spent the night catching up with our phones that had been out of reception for a while. We decided to have a look around town and found some great local art in some art galleries but everything else we visited seem to be too expensive or just closed. We found a nice little spot called Anzac Hill by late afternoon which had a nice memorial on top and from there we spotted some local league being played down below. We both looked at each other and said “Let’s get amongst it!” $5 each to watch what we’re pretty sure was a 1^st grade level game between two local clubs. It had everything:  tries, biffs, high scores, good talent and cheap beers. That ended our first visit to Alice nicely and it was off to Uluru the next day.

Local footy and beer

Leaving behind Sandra and Bella

 

Surprising to some but Uluru is actually about 450km from Alice Springs but for some reason it didn’t seem to bother us as much as all the other long legs we’d done before hand. It’s something we’ve both always wanted to see with the naked eye and when we pulled over those last few hills and could see it peeking through it was even better than we had imagined. We pulled into the campground to check in for 3 nights and setup as quick as we could and straight to the sunset platform to stare in awe of this beautiful spot. It really does change colour even just in the short amount of time we saw it that night. The next day we travelled over to Kata-Tjuta (The Olgas), which are in the same national park as Uluru (Ayers Rock) about 50km’s away, to do The Valley of the Winds walk. We also visited the Cultural Centre which had a great display of art, instruments, souvenir’s, books, short films to watch, plenty of cultural history and we even picked up a hand painted canvas from a local artist to bring home from our travels. We decided to watch the sunset from a different perspective that night closer to Kata-Tjuta but in the near distance we could still see Uluru, again stunning and beautiful. The next day we had a Skype session with the Cartwright’s with Uluru as our background and then we headed to do the base walk around Uluru. This gave us a whole new viewpoint of the rock and a greater understanding of significant happenings in certain areas surrounding it. We booked ourselves on a sunset camel ride that night too with some free beer and nibbles at the end (that’s what sold it to us of course). We doubled on a camel named Murphy (who has walked from Carnarvon, W.A to Byron Bay, N.S.W) and got to ride through the sand dunes to see the sunset with Uluru and Kata-Tjuta as the back drop. As we were not quite ready to leave this beautiful place we booked another night just to relax, catch up on some washing, buy some souvenir’s, do some last laps around the rock oh and see the sunrise as well (with every other tourist there).

Sunset the first night on Uluru

Valley of the Winds walk lookout

My trendy shoes and Kata-Tjuta

Sitting at a lookout with Uluru in the distance and Kata-Tjuta to Ash's left

Mutitjulu Waterhole on the Base Walk

Sunset camel ride through the sand dunes on Murphy

Beautiful Murphy boy

One last lap and a sunset pic

 

Our next journey back along similar roads was up to Kings Canyon. We set up camp once again and headed to the Thirsty Dingo Bar for a jug of beer. We met a couple there from Wollongong, Michael and Lisa who were also doing a lap. We watched the sunset with them set on the cliff face nearby and then headed for some bistro pizzas next to the bar. The next day (4 months exactly since we left home!) we got up relatively early and did the Rim Walk around the canyon, a good steep climb at the start which they call heart attack hill and then a great view from the top looking into and all around the canyon. Ash had a dip in the freezing pool in the afternoon but I myself did not, we both had a few goons with dinner that night and then met Deb and Scott from Mt Isa and had a few drinks, a yarn and a good laugh with them.

Sunset at Kings Canyon

About to walk up heart attack hill

View from the top into the canyon

All the way in and looking back into the canyon

A little lizard Ash spotted on our walk

 

Back up to Alice Springs the next day and arrived by late afternoon to get the best news of the day that my sister got engaged, proposed to at the vineyards in the Hunter Valley lucky girl. We had takeout that night and then went to a local club to watch some footy but they only seem to watch AFL, cricket and TAB races. We won our dinner back on the pokies though which was a bonus and only put $4 in! The next day we had an adventure out in the West McDonald Ranges (WMR)exploring waterholes, gorges, ochre pits and stunning views of the landscape. We had seen the Red Centre and we were leaving with very big smiles on our faces and a sense of accomplishment of seeing and experiencing this great place that’s in our very own backyard.

Redbank Gorge, WMR

 

Ormiston Gorge, WMR

Glen Helen Gorge, WMR

Ochre Pits, WMR

Ellery Creek, WMR

We made the next days drive a big one and got to Devils Marbles just in time to get a spot, stopping at Aileron for a sausage sang bang lunch and to see the amazing, gigantic, indigenous statues they have there. We watched a beautiful sunset over these beautiful rocks and listened to a ranger talk after dinner around a fire. The left over coals were kindly put in a pit right near our camp and we chatted with our neighbours and boiled a cuppa in the billy as well.  Although we have moved on from here now and are right up in the top end I’m going to leave this blog as it is and hopefully have another one up really soon to keep you all updated and or informed! Happy reading everyone!

Ash chillin with the Goannas

One of the statues at Aileron

Another statue at Aileron

 

Devils Marbles

Sunset on the Devils Marbles

More of the sunset