Update Map
Here we go again!
Just testing Facebook updates from SuperVarioWorld prior to adventures part II.
Home Sweet Home!
Yep, we’re back in the UK – we flew into Heathrow on the 26th July! We know we suggested in the last update that the shipping was still to be organised, but really we had already got things sorted. It was all a big fib so we could surprise Bry’s Mum for her birthday on the 29th, but more of that later!
So we were in Perth with the plan that Mario would sail on the 1st August, but we’d need to drop him off at the port 5 days before. We had originally wanted to stay in Perth until the ship had sailed - just in case there were any problems – but this would have meant a week in a hotel, so we decided we’d risk it and leave the day after Mario was dropped off. The sailing schedule was subject to change, mainly because of weather issues, so the port wouldn’t confirm to us the date they’d accept Mario until a few days before – so we couldn’t book any flights or hotels – but we were working towards leaving Mario on the 24th, giving us time to get home for the big surprise on the 29th.
Then Ryan, our agent contacted us to say it looked like the ship was going to be delayed, so the earliest the port would accept Mario would be the 28th, perhaps later, but he wouldn’t know until a few days before. That would mean more time at the $42 a night campsite and no chance of getting back for the 29th - damn.
Luckily Ryan came up with a solution. We could drop Mario off at their warehouse on the 24th, they’d look after him and deliver whenever the port opened the next week. This freed us up and meant we could book flights, only 2 days before we would now leave. So on Friday 24th we left the campsite early to spend an hour at a pay-as-you-go jet wash to do the last of Mario’s cleaning. We then dumped our luggage at an Ibis Budget hotel near the airport and drove Mario (for the last time in Oz) to the agents. Then it was a couple of long bus journeys back to the hotel for a few celebratory drinks – we’d be home that weekend!
Up to this point we’d spent most of our time cleaning and preparing Mario for his trip. We gave away or binned loads of stuff that it wasn’t worth or wasn’t possible to bring back – food, drink, cleaning stuff, paint, jerry cans, water containers... The cupboards in the back needed to be empty, so things were stored in the boot or just got rid of – but we were still living in him, so a lot had to wait until the last minute. The last night we spent in him we had no water, fridge or gas – it was a bit primitive. The nights had got that cold that we’d been using the gas heater in the evenings – but not that night, so it was proper brrrr! We could have a hot drink, but only if we braved it outside to walk to the campsite kitchen – which sort of defeated the purpose.
We took a day-off planning, cleaning and lying to parents to see Fremantle which was a nice place, with a huge cafe culture, some gorgeous old buildings and a pretty foreshore. Most evenings were spent under a blanket, watching rubbish DVDs rented from the campsite’s collection, but we didn’t mind as we’d be home soon!
So we left Australia on July 25th, flying up the West Coast and in a couple of hours, we had retraced a journey that had taken us the last 3 weeks. We then flew over Indonesia and spotted the islands of Krakatoa, with one smoking away waiting to blow. 5 and half hours after leaving Perth, we were in Singapore for a 6 hour wait for our connecting flight to Heathrow. Singapore Airport is huge with plenty of entertainment, so there must be worse places to have to kill a quarter of a day.
Then it was on to the BA 747 for the 13 hour flight to Heathrow. Other than some pretty bad turbulence early on, the flight was unremarkable and passed quite quickly. Before we knew it, we could see the South East of England spread out below us in the milky, early morning sunlight. We landed at 5am and were soon speeding down the M4 courtesy of Caroline’s Dad who’d eschewed a decent night’s sleep to pick us up.
So now we’re back at Caroline’s Mum & Dad’s, just like we were before we left – and it feels as if we’ve never been away! We have to keep reminding ourselves of what we’ve done for the last 13 months. We’ve given notice to the tenants in our flat and hope to be back there ourselves before the end of October - then we really will have gone full circle. Similarly, Bry has got a job at the company he first worked for 24 years ago and Caroline has signed up with temp agencies, like she did in her twenties – so even from a work point of view, we’ve gone full circle too!
On Bry’s Mum’s birthday we had arranged to Skype at 3.30, so we’d know she’d be at home. Bry’s sisters were in on it and had also surprised Mum by turning-up unexpectedly, so she was excited we could all Skype together. When the time came, when Mum was expecting to see us on her computer, we walked into the kitchen and gave her the shock of her life! Her jaw almost hit the floor and then came the tears and long awaited hugs!
So Stage 1 of our dream has been realised. We drove 20,000KMS across the world and then a further 18,000KMS around Australia. How do we feel? We don’t really know yet – it hasn’t quite sunk in. Over time, once we’re both working and back to normality, we’re sure the total contrast will bring home what we have achieved.
What did we think of Australia? Well it has some amazing sights, but they’re all very far apart and there’s a whole lot of nothing in between. For example, the top sights of Uluru, Sydney, East Coast and Great Barrier Reef can all be driven in about 5000 KMs – with not a lot else to see on the way. Do the same distance in Europe and you could drive from London to Vienna. Via Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Nice, Monaco, Florence, Rome and Venice! It’s made us realise (yet again) how spoilt we are in Europe for travel options and how we take for granted what is on our doorstep.
The weather wasn’t all we expected it to be, with no one place seeming to have a consistently enjoyable climate that wouldn’t try to kill you at some stage. The South varies between killer bushfires and cold, wet winters. The North gets unbearably hot, humid and has cyclones. A couple of bizarre facts for you: In Australia, more people die of the cold than of the heat and more people die of the cold in Australia than in Sweden. Who’d have thought?!
As evidence as to how extreme the weather can be, there’s the most amazing flood depth-gauge signs where the rivers and creeks cross the roads. We’re driving through these arid plains with every creek-bed just dry sand, but on the road are these markers, some 4 metres above the road surface. It’s hard enough to imagine that it regularly rains enough to fill the creeks, but to then flood to such a degree is almost beyond belief. If only they could harvest that water and use it for irrigation.
There’s lots said about how “arduous” driving the Outback can be, but to be honest it’s a breeze compared with say Kazakhstan. At least in Oz the roads are good and there’s plenty of information as to where the next fuel stop or rest area is. In some countries there’s no info at all and maps are alien concepts. Sure, in Australia you can test your off-road driving skills by tackling some dirt track across the Simpson Desert in a £50,000 fully prepared 4x4 – but that’s your choice, you don’t have to get off the nicely Tarmaced highway in order to cross the country. In Central Asia the locals have no choice but to tackle much worse “roads” in old Lada saloons which are considered “well prepared” if they’re lucky enough to have a spare wheel and an old 2 litre Coke bottle of extra fuel in the boot. In comparison, driving the Red Centre was a relaxed, if somewhat mundane pleasure.
Probably about 90% of the traffic in the Outback was other campers or caravanners and the vast majority of them are the self-proclaimed “Grey Nomads”; retired-folk spending their kid’s inheritance. Some live down South and move North every Winter for the warm weather, others have been on the road for years (20 years was the longest we met) and others are similar to us - sold the house and realising a dream. All we can say is fair-play to them and we’re just glad we decided to do it when we were comparably young, as some of them really don’t look like they’re enjoying it. Some with obvious health problems who can hardly walk across a carpark, let alone climb into the caravan, and as for the rickety eighty-odd year olds climbing in and out of an even more rickety roof-tent every night for months on end – we applaud you. But we really have no idea what they find to look at, there’s so much emptiness and even the “attractions” along the way are rather lame.
Our overall impression is mixed. We met some lovely people, but also some very ignorant people who had no understanding or even interest of anything outside Australia. As we said, we saw some amazing things, but they were just so far apart and the sameness of what lay between just wasn’t interesting enough for us.
Glad we went to Australia? Absolutely. Glad we drove around it in our own vehicle? Well it’s the best way to see a country and we wouldn’t have wanted to do it in anything else. 8 months too long? For us, probably. Want to live there? No way. Go back? Perhaps, but there’s many other places we’d rather see first.
Some of these places Mario will visit before us, as he will now head for Japan, then across the Pacific to California, Mexico, through the Panama Canal, up the East of the USA then across the Atlantic and we’ll pick him up in Belgium sometime in October. He’s having a proper round-the-world cruise, but the old boy’s been busy for the last year or so, so he deserves a nice break!
Our current plan now is to work to get some much needed funds again and then to drive the Americas next year. If we can get there for the Spring, we hope to get a vehicle in East Canada, head West, hopefully up to Alaska and then down the PanAmerican Highway to Central America, ship around the Darien Gap and then explore what we can of South America, ideally getting to Patagonia. If we can’t get out there until later next year, we may have to do the trip from South to North, due to the weather. Lots of planning and research to be done – but we don’t mind that as we now appreciate how beneficial proper planning can be!
We’d like to thank again the people who helped us along the way – Teresa in Bangkok, Richard & PooChian, Simon & Danielle, Martin & Charlotte and Jude & Jeff. Thanks to our friends and family for their messages and emails that have kept us going, particularly when we were low and wondering what the hell we were doing. And a special thank you to Andrew for building and looking after the website for us. We look forward to all your support next year too!
TTFN!
Perthday Presence
Yep, we’re in Perth – our final destination! We can’t quite believe we’ve made it this far, or that our adventure is soon to come to an end – for this leg of the journey at least. It’s currently grey, damp and pretty miserable here, so at least we won’t have a shock when we get home.
So when we last wrote we were in Coral Bay, 1200KMs up the coast from here - it was warm and sunny and now feels a million miles away. The hour’s drive into the town from the highway was very quiet, just meandering through quite desolate bushland and it didn’t suggest there’d be much at the end of it, we couldn’t even see the sea until the last couple of KMs. Then suddenly around a bend this bustling little town appears with campsites, a resort hotel, a hostel, a club and 2 shopping precincts - all for this bay of white sand that’s miles and miles from anywhere else. It felt quite bizarre and we were dreading it would be like staying at Butlin’s. However, although the town was busy, the beach itself was very quiet and there was loads of room for some solitude – we often wondered if we were missing something, as everyone just seemed to disappear!
The draw of Coral Bay is the Ningaloo Reef where sharks, whales, turtles and rays hang out at various times of the year. Not surprisingly, there’s a myriad of diving excursions and boat tours to see the wildlife, but we were advised by locals to just go snorkelling as you can see just as much near the shore as off it. So for the princely sum of $10 each, we hired some kit for the afternoon and waded in – and wow, it was amazing. In ankle deep water, we could see stingrays skimming along and only 100 metres or so off the beach we were swimming with all sorts of brightly coloured Nemos, parrot fish, snappers and the like.
We were lucky enough to spot an octopus and watched him for about 10 minutes as he slithered and slinked along the reef, stopping every foot or so to change colour and shape to mimic the coral below him. It was a fantastic sight, although when it changed from this bulbous blob into a spiky coral-like thing, it was quite creepy too! It was definitely the best $20 we’ve spent in Oz and was probably a better experience than the Great Barrier Reef, and at a fraction of the cost.
From Coral Bay we headed down the coast to Carnarvon, crossing again the tropic of Capricorn and noticing an almost instant change in the weather. We’ve crossed it a total of 6 times now and every time we’ve noticed a change, now it was much cooler nights and the odd cold breeze.
We were to stay in Carnarvon for a week, we didn’t think there’d be enough to entertain us for so long and we were correct – it really is only a one or two day destination. However, with the school holidays on, we just wanted to stay put somewhere and not worry about where to sleep. It’s a decent sized town surrounded by huge fruit and veg plantations, many of which were wrecked by a severe cyclone in March this year and the damage still shows in places.
We did our usual wandering walking tours, one day hiking the 4 or 5KMs along a disused railway to a jetty built in the late 1800’s that sticks out almost a mile into the sea. It was pretty rickety and actually falling into the sea in places, but they run a little tourist train along it, so we figured it was safe enough for now for us to stroll to the end. Near to town is a Space Museum focussing on Carnarvon’s role in the space-race as it was home to a NASA station which communicated with the Gemini, Apollo and Skylab craft as they passed over. Seeing the original equipment that talked to Armstrong, Aldrin and the other one was quite special, as was the simulator ride of their take-off in a life-sized replica capsule.
The site was also used for the normal satellite communications which we take for granted today, but in 1966 an error with the Intelsat satellite allowed the base to carry out the first live TV link between the UK and Australia. The satellite was meant to link the US and Australia, but it temporarily slipped from orbit and the techies realised they had an opportunity of a world first. An ABC crew rushed up from Perth to Carnarvon while the BBC contacted families in London. The result was that 3 families who thought they’d never see each other again were able to chat and wave over a live TV link, for the entertainment of the two nations. A very sweet little story.
However, the best thing about Carnarvon was that we met up with Heather and Dean again, as they arranged to stay at the same site for 3 days. They’re a really lovely couple, both with wicked senses of humour who kept us entertained while we drank and ate together. They even took us out on a day trip in their Winnebago to see the few sites around town that we hadn’t been bothered to walk to. It was sad to say goodbye to them again, as we may not have another chance to catch-up. Thanks again guys for your hospitality, we will keep in touch.
So then it was on to Geraldton, where the continuing school holidays meant we’d pre-booked another week, but first we stopped at the Hamelin Pool Marine Park near Shark Bay to look at some stromatolites. These are perhaps the first living things on Earth - estimated at over 3.5 billion years old and the first oxygen producers that allowed later life - they now only grow in a few places in the world and this is the best one to see them. All very impressive, but the reality is they just look like some cowpats and weird shaped rocks in the sea. Geraldton is a proper sized city surrounded by farms which seem to specialise in wheat and canola (rapeseed), but we also saw some lupins and sheep. The city itself is based around a huge port, but has lots of surrounding beaches. It was now quite cool, even during the day, so we would not be visiting these.
Our main aim while staying here was to start preparing Mario for his journey home – sorting out what would be left in him, what we wanted to take with us and the remainder which would be got rid of. The bullbar, roof-rack and empty gas cylinder are now living at the Geraldton “Waste Transfer Station”, or tip to us Brits. Our clothes have been purged yet again and the cleaning process has started once more. Mario doesn’t need to be as clean to be exported as he was to get in, but it’s still going to be a long and ongoing process – inevitably some of which we can’t do while we’re still living in him!
We took one day away from our chores and rode the bus into town for a wander, looking at everything and yet nothing in particular. A highlight was the HMAS Sydney memorial, high up on a hill overlooking the city. It’s a moving tribute to the 645 men that made up the entire crew of the ship when it was sunk in a battle with a German warship that had been disguised as a Dutch merchant vessel. Both ships sank without trace, but the majority of the German crews survived. Part of the memorial includes a statue of a lady looking out to sea, to represent mothers and wives waiting for the return of their loved ones. The memorial and statue were built in 2001, but the wrecks of both ships were not located until 2008 – and the wreck of the HMAS Sydney lies exactly in line with where the statue is looking. Spooky!
We had a wander around the Art Gallery that was the usual mixture of same, same but different Aboriginal Art, contemporary pieces and some “socially engaged” stuff by a bloke called Tim Burns, which was either confusing, disturbing or just plain weird. On our way out, the receptionist asked if we’d sign the visitor’s book and we soon realised that her husband comes from Cheltenham too. It was hell of a coincidence, not least as she was German, but was one of 4 people working there and just happened to be the one to speak to us. Small world scenario again!
Now we’re in Perth and we spent Bry’s birthday (the 18th) in the city seeing some of the sights. It’s a beautiful city with some quaint arcades that wouldn’t look out of place in York or Chester and lots of lovely parks. We went up the Bell Tower, a modern structure on the riverside which houses 18 bells, 12 of which came from St Martin’s church in Trafalgar Square. Here we had some more strange coincidences. Not only were the St Martin’s bells made by Rudhalls of Gloucester in the 1700’s, but the curator who chatted to us was from Burford! We stayed and watched a bell-ringing demonstration, standing next to the bells as they dinged and donged. Even behind the triple-glazed windows, it was deafening and the 7 tonnes of metal swinging about made the whole tower shake. We then climbed up to the observation deck to look out over cloudy Perth and the Swan River, where the swaying of the tower was even more noticeable!
We went to the Perth Mint, originally set-up in 1899 as a branch of the British Royal Mint using the gold found in Western Australia. Here we saw the world’s largest solid gold coin, which weighs over a tonne, is legal tender and has a face value of $1 million, although based on current gold prices, it would be worth almost $56 million! We were allowed to pick-up a gold ingot valued at $600,000, had a machine tell us our weight in gold (almost $8,000,000 combined) and had a demonstration of the traditional melting and pouring process in the original refinery. This refinery used to contain 14 furnaces, but only one now remains for these demonstrations. They melted down the other 13 to see what gold dust had leaked into them, and came away with $250,000 worth. So then they wondered how much may have evaporated onto the ceiling, spent a week brushing it and collecting the dust, and ended up with $28,000 worth! Even the crucibles they use to do the pouring demonstrations are smelted every two weeks and $200 worth of gold recovered.
The remainder of the day we spent wandering around and having a lovely lunch with a Happy Birthday cake, before returning to the campsite for a few drinks and a DVD. It was a great day, much better than Bry’s birthday last year spent arguing with Russian Customs and Immigration and then an evening in a lorry park! Now we’re in Perth we can start visiting some agents to sort the shipping out and see how long it’s going to be before we can head home. Hopefully, between the paperwork and bureaucracy, we’ll be able to spend at least another day in the city and also get to see Fremantle.
Hoo Roo!
Wicka Wicka Wild Wild West
Getting Ourselves Into Hot Water!
Hello from Darwin, right-up at the Northern end of the country, which the Aussies call, with typical unpretentiousness, “The Top End”. The Snowy Mountains, The Blue Mountains, Little Sandy Desert and Great Sandy Desert are other fine examples of their no-nonsense nomenclature.
So, having left Uluru, we headed back East towards the Stuart Highway. We had initially intended to take a detour to King’s Canyon, another geological site to rival Uluru, but the weather was pretty grim and it would have been another couple of days of dust and flies, and in reality we just wanted to get back on the road. So we made the difficult decision to skip it and instead headed South so we could spend 1 night in South Australia - just so we would have visited every state - even if we didn’t see anything other than the “Welcome to..” sign.
Having ticked that box, we headed North back towards Alice Springs, stopping on the way at the Cannonball Memorial which we’d seen on our way down and presuming it was something of historic military interest, made a note to stop on our return. We were quite surprised to see that it is in fact to remember 4 people killed in a horrific accident that occurred during the Northern Territory Cannonball Run car rally in 1994. A Ferrari F40 that had been travelling at up to 170mph (quite legally as the road is unrestricted) lost control under braking while trying to stop at a checkpoint. The Ferrari skidded sideways into the checkpoint, killing the two Japanese occupants and two marshals who were trying to run away. Despite this tragedy, the rally continued, albeit with a 110mph speed limit.
At a rather more sedate pace and limiting ourselves to about 200kms a day, we continued North to Alice to stock-up with supplies and once we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn (for the third time), the weather almost immediately improved. Gone were the cold nights and cloudy days, hello again huge blue skies and balmy evenings. The free camping is a bit limited along this stretch, with the best spots filling-up by mid-afternoon, so we spent a few days bumbling along until lunchtime and then parking-up, getting the chairs out and chatting to the other travellers.
At Newcastle Waters we met Dennis, a lovely older chap in a Mercedes Sprinter camper, who we would bump into a few times over the next few days. We both took a shine to him - he had a sort of benevolent, favourite Uncleness about him and was forthcoming with helpful info, without all the doom-mongering “you don’t wanna be doing it like that”, “watch-out for the natives” and “if the mozzies or snakes don’t get you, the crocs will” that we’ve endured from many of our co-travellers.
Also here we met Ian, a Kiwi bee-keeper, who was driving his parents’ motorhome from Brisbane to Perth for his sister to use. He was more our age and had travelled extensively, he even lived in London for a while where he worked at Madame Tussauds. We had a very relaxed afternoon and evening swapping stories and sharing jokes about our Aussie hosts.
Our next main stop was Daly Waters to view the airstrip that Amy Johnson landed on in her record breaking flight from England in 1930. It was subsequently used in World War II, but other than the tarmac itself and some dilapidated metal buildings, not much remains. There is a great pub nearby though, similar to the one we visited in Prairie, Queensland, that is decorated with all sorts of tat. Business cards, foreign currency, armed and emergency forces insignia, bras, knickers, number-plates, you get the idea. We had a great lunch here and discussed what “ornaments” we could donate, but decided we have got so little with us, we couldn’t part with anything – and certainly none of our underwear.
Next it was on to Mataranka, a nothing-much-town but there are two thermal springs nearby that you can swim in. We spent the first day at Rainbow Springs, which was a bit disappointing as although the setting was beautiful, surrounded by palm trees and squawking parrots, the bathing hole itself had concrete sides and was quite small. It gave the impression of a neglected public bath that was slowly being recaptured by nature. We stayed that night at the Mataranka Homestead campsite, which was quite basic with gravelly plots, but was right on the edge of the National Park, so we had lots of visits from peacocks, hawks and some beautiful wallabies, one of which had a joey in her pouch, that kept poking his head in and out as if he was playing peek-a-boo. The evening entertainment included a whip-cracking display by Nathan Griggs, the World Record Holder for most whip cracks in a minute using two whips, at 530! He did lots of tricks, cracking to music, making sounds of horses and then used two whips on fire that sent up huge balls of flame when they cracked. It was different.
The next day we went to the other thermal pool, Bitter Springs. This was much nicer, same sort of setting, but other than some steps to get in and out, it was all natural and much longer. You can swim up and down the little river in crystal-clear 34 degree water, with a monsoon forest above you, little fish and turtles below you and beautiful dragonflies, butterflies, lilies and lotus flowers alongside you. It really did feel like a bit of paradise.
We then headed towards the Kakadu National Park, the biggest in Australia at 20,000 square KM, apparently it’s bigger than 75% of the World’s countries which we find hard to believe, but all the tourist bumf here is full of such claims and mind-boggling stats that you just accept it after a while.
On the way we stopped at Katherine for more provisions, including some beer, as you can’t buy take-away alcohol in Kakadu. Katherine itself has alcohol restrictions in place, so we had to provide ID to the police first and we were then explained the laws as to where we could and couldn’t drink the booze (eg only at campsites, not near licensed premises). There’s a daily limit you can buy too, although the 30 can box we picked up would be fine for our meagre needs!
That night we had intended to free-camp at another disused WWII airstrip (there’s loads in the Top End). The road in to it was bit rough, but we were looking forward to a peaceful night, well back from the highway, to enjoy the simple but humbling surroundings of the “billion-star-hotel”. When we got there, it seemed perfect – not another soul in sight - and stopped on an old taxi-lane about halfway along the runway. Soon we both thought we’d heard voices in the bush, but couldn’t see anyone or anything, but got an uneasy feeling. We drove up and down the 2kms of runway looking for other spots, but something just didn’t feel right. Most probably we have become too accustomed to parking up with other travellers, so the feeling of isolation spooked us a bit. But we have always moved on if we’ve had a gut instinct that something wasn’t right, so we bounced back along the road to the highway and in to nearby Pine Creek, to stop at the delightfully named Pussy Cat Flats – an old racecourse.
Here we met the charming Jenny & Dave who gave us loads of info about Kakadu and the Top End. We swapped stories and they recounted their travels in the UK, their love of The Cotswolds and around Europe in an ex-Thames Water Commer van, reminded us of our travels in Europe in our ex-AA van. We were like kindred spirits!
So then it was on to do Kakadu. The place is huge, but to see most of it, you need a 4x4. Even the unsealed roads “suitable for 2WD” were too rough for us – too many rock-hard corrugations caused by speeding motorists for poor Mario and us. We did try one road, but soon turned back – the risk of damage was too great and we’ve come too far to wantonly damage our “home”, so we decided we’d stay on the black stuff and just see the main sights.
The weather was now again truly tropical, so although it’s winter, the day temperatures are in the 30’s and don’t fall below 20 at night. Due to this, we decided we’d pay for camping with electric hook-up while up here, so we can have the fridge running as well as our myriad of fans, to keep cool at night without worrying about our batteries. The campsites also provide drinking water, shade and have the benefit of a bar and swimming pools, things you don’t get at free-sites!
First we spent 3 nights at Cooinda, near the Yellow Water wetlands – cue a lot of mozzies! We donned our walking-boots and mozzie-net hats and did some leisurely walks, including one at dawn watching the sun rise over the waters with loads of huge magpie geese and white egrets. It was an unforgettable experience, Caroline getting up so early that is. What we really wanted to see were the crocodiles, though. There’s the small and relatively harmless “freshwater” variety and also the bigger, aggressive, killer “salties”. You can do river cruises to spot them, but we decided we’d only do this if we couldn’t find them ourselves. The first 3 days drew a blank.
Somewhat ironically, the Aussies get a National Holiday on the 2nd Monday in June for the Queen’s birthday, so a “long weekend” was upon us. The campsite started to fill-up with lots of families from Darwin and soon we were surrounded by a load of them who seemed to be having some sort of reunion. The evening air was full of raucous laughter and singing from the boozing adults and the morning brought a cacophony of screaming, rampaging rug-rats who had been turfed-out of the caravans by their hung-over parents. It was time to move on.
After some phone calls we found a place in Jabiru with plenty of room, where you could choose your own pitch, it sounded perfect. As there’s not much in Jabiru, it was a very quiet site, but a perfect base for a couple of nights and would allow us to drive out and visit the nearby Ubirr area. So we picked a quiet spot, dumped our table and chairs to bagsie it and set-off.
Soon we were driving through a thick forest canopy and then suddenly we’re among these huge rocky outcrops. If you’ve seen the movie Cars you’ll probably remember the mountains around the town of Radiator Springs are shaped like 1950’s American car bonnets, complete with “hood ornaments”. This place looked like that. Some create overhangs which the indigenous people used to use as shelters and there are many examples of ancient rock-art in these. Some are estimated to be 15,000 years old, which is incredible enough, but the fact that they’re all water-based paints and still visible is amazing. Some of the art was in the traditional “x-ray style” – although we doubt this is what the artists called it at the time. These pieces show fish as if dissected, highlighting the backbone, intestines and what have you, like an early biology-cum-cookery book.
Some of the art was a bit ropey, even if ancient. What was truly breathtaking though was the view from the top of one of the outcrops – highlighting that the true master painter is of course Mother Nature. Wetlands with shimmering blue lagoons, verdant monsoon forests and majestic mountains in every direction, as far as the eye can see. Photos don’t do the view justice, let alone words. Easily the best view we’ve seen in Oz, perhaps the whole trip. Apparently the sunset there is amazing, but we could also imagine the mozzies and trying to climb back down in the dark, so we took one last look and left. Besides, we had crocodiles to find.
We drove to Cahill’s Crossing, where the road literally goes through the East Alligator River at the far North-east of the park. Here, we were told, we would see crocs. We parked up and strolled to the water’s edge and immediately saw a big “saltie” just swimming along, luckily not interested in the 3 anglers stood at the edge trying to catch barramundi. We couldn’t quite believe there was this huge croc in its natural environment just swimming past us. It soon went under though and disappeared, so we walked up the bank to a raised viewing platform which would give us a better and somewhat safer view of the river. It turns out we were quite lucky with our first sighting as it was ages before any emerged again and then it was only briefly. We were there for about an hour and saw 2 salties and 2 freshies, but apparently for every 1 you see, there will be up to another 9 lurking beneath. We didn’t go swimming here.
So that about brings us up to date. We are now just outside Darwin and will go in to see the city tomorrow, not really knowing what to expect other than a city rebuilt after WWII and then again after a huge cyclone in 1974. We’re quite looking forward to seeing the sea again.
Quick wildlife check - at our various free-camps since Uluru we have encountered dingoes wandering around outside the van, a very cute furry caterpillar which turned out to be a Gumleaf Skeletoniser with venomous hairs and a few live snakes. One we drove over (accidently) in the van, so that posed no danger, but another, a small venomous brown shared a toilet with Caroline, but she only realised it was hiding over the top of the door when she had sat down. And we’ve seen lots and lots of bush fires. We drove through one yesterday and you could feel the heat off it in the van. They just seem to be accepted here, either started by indigenous people rejuvenating their land, natural causes or whatever, they’re just left to burn themselves out and no-one seems to mind too much. It’s made us wary of where we park up at night though.
Bry’s shoulder update – no more sling, now doing strengthening exercises with one of those big rubber band things. He no longer needs to stand on the cool-box to get in and out of bed!
Hoo Roo!
12/6