Cairns to Darwin

30/06/2005
Bye bye Cairns. Onto the roads where you meet plenty of road trains.

We get to Undara Lava National Park in the evening. Eat. Sleep.

01/07/2005
A tour of the lava tubes. Quite interesting but bloody expensive ($36 per person). Not sure if it’s really worth it.

We’ve heard that Cobbold Gorge is supposed to be really nice. We stop at the information centre in Georgetown at about 1pm to see whether they have any tours of the gorge left for the 3pm cruise (our neighbours in Cairns recommended us to do the afternoon tour so we could see plenty of crocs) and they do have spots left so we head to Cobbold Gorge.

We figure we might as well do all the tours in one day. The Cobbold Gorge tour is $32 per person and definitely worth it. We are only six people doing the cruise and we get plenty of space to move around the boat and take photos. The gorge is spectacular – only two metres wide in some spots and the cliffs are about 60 metres high. We see plenty of freshwater crocs sunbake on the cliffs and on the river banks.

After dinner we go for a beer and relax in wooden rocking chairs on the bar verandah.

02/07/2005
On the red sandy road from Cobbold Gorge we run into a scary snake. We decide to stop and take a photo. As Helena leans out the window to take a shot the snake turns around and throws itself towards the car in an attack. Scary stuff. H panicks and instead of closing the window opens the door. Smart stuff! Anyway, the door is eventually shut and we survive. We end up getting a photo from a "safe" distance. (Later on a ranger said that the snake we saw was a non-venomous python and that they usually aren't agressive.)

In Karumba we are lucky to find a spot at a caravan place where they have a free fish barbecue every Saturday. And who says no to free food?!? We go and buy some wine and salad and have a glimpse of the sun going down. Then we join the pensioners for a feast of fish. There’s plenty of entertainment going on. Oldies singing and dancing, telling jokes, drinking. It’s a great night!

03/07/2005
Driving. Burgers at Burkes and Wills Roadhouse. Daniel has the biggest burger we’ve ever seen! At Gregory Downs we find a brilliant free camp spot by the river. We meet Kate and Neil and their two daughters and Brett and Carmen and their little daughter. We join them around the camp fire. We talk and have a lovely night and we are lucky to get a taste of Carmen’s beautiful apple damper with custard. Yum!

It’s so nice camping – when people are so friendly and talk to each other and invite each other over etc. It’s such a relaxed atmosphere. Having said that, we’ve also experienced a few psychos who have exploded over small stuff (if you for example happened to put your chair inside their camping territory). But the heat can probably drive anyone mad!

04/07/2005
Heading off to Lawn Hill national park and trying to get a camping spot in the park. Unfortunately they are fully booked and there is no chance for us, even thou the camp site actually only is half full at any one time. Apparently people book on the internet and don’t show up.

We strap on the walking boots and set off for some bush tracks. Crystal clear water and massive views is just some of the things we see.

We check into a caravan park (Adel’s Grove) just outside the national park for two days, our intention is to go back to Lawn Hill for some canoeing in the gorge tomorrow.

Kate and Neil and Brett and Carmen are also at the camp so we get together for another night around the fire and this time it’s Kate who has made damper with peach, it can’t get better than that.

05/07/2005
Getting up early to beat the midday heat and driving 10 km to Lawn Hill. Expecting to get a canoe straight away but we have to wait 30 min because of all pensioners, it doesn’t matter what you do they are always ahead of you. The canoe ride is magical, perfectly still water and steep rock phases. It’s very relaxing and the temperature is perfect in the morning.

We are back in camp at midday and veg out for the rest of the day.

Having a look at the time table, shit we are about 10 days behind the schedule. A decision is made; tomorrow will be a day of driving, driving and driving.

Kate and Neil have left and it is just us and Brett and Carmen at the campfire tonight.

06/07/2005
Leaving just at sunrise, the plan is to drive to a private home stead called Seven Emu and spend one or two nights there. Calling in at Hells Gate Road House for lunch, Mrs Mac’s meet pies, yum…….. According to people we talked to at the road house the people at Seven Emu has attitude and will charge you an arm and a leg for a visit. We decide to drive on to King Ash Bay, outside Borroloola, for a free overnight stay.

In the end we did about 600 km on dirt roads, but we are lucky, the car is still in one piece.

07/07/2005
Have read about some hot springs at a home stead called Lorella Springs that has just opened up. The distance is just right for the day after a marathon drive, so hot springs it is.

Arriving at paradise, at least that is what the sign says. There are three other cars at the campsite, the care takers are very relaxed and the water is about 37 degrees Celsius. This is really a bit of paradise and you can stay in the water for hours, at least with a beer in your hand.

Meeting some other people on the run, Erika (Sweden), Henne (Germany) and Alex (England). They have all left Cairns together and are heading for Darwin and hopefully some part time job.

We don’t know if we should stay one or two nights here, we’ll see tomorrow.

08/07/2005
It is sad but we decide to leave “paradise”.

As we have just passed the sign to Roper Bar we see some Aboriginal people having problems with their car. We stop and try to help to jump start their car but their battery is totally dead. We are only about 20 km from Roper Bar where they can get a battery but we can’t drive them as we have a bed in the back seat. Luckily Jimmy (that’s what the van is called that belongs to Henne and company) arrives. They drive one of the men into Roper Bar and we stay behind and help the others fix a puncture as well and give them some water. They managed to get a puncture, a flat battery and run out of petrol at the same time. But they don’t seem too worried. We have a chat to a couple of the women and they laugh at themselves. There are 12 of them in the one car and one of them says and laughs: “This happens to us Indigenous people all the time. We are a little bit crazy.”
After a while they are back with the battery and we are off again.

Our plan is to stay in Mataranka where they also have some hot water springs. Arriving in Mataranka rather late, due to the late departure, the camping spot looks so so and the hot springs are only luke warm. We figure we can do another 60km and go for the free option and stay at a rest area by the highway. At the rest area we bump in to Kate and Neil but it is late and we are tired, so we only say hello and fall quickly asleep.

09/07/2005
Leaving the free camp area and heading for Katherine. Checking out the caravan parks and finding them to be half dodgy with stroppy management, “we don’t know if we have any vacancy, come back at 10am”, this was at 9.30am and with heaps of free spots around.

Driving 29km to Katherine Gorge and checking in to an ok caravan park for two nights of relaxation and book reading…… Ok, ok we have to do some laundry and clean up as well…..

And who shows up, if not the Swede, the German and the English (SGE). Having dinner together and sitting up chatting for a while. We decide to do a walk up the gorge the next day.

10/07/2005
The hike is taking us up on the escarpment that surrounds the gorge and it is worth it, the views are breath taking and you get a nice feeling of satisfaction. The collective decision is to try and get down to the water so the path becomes very steep. At the bottom we think we have found some sort of semi private little beach where we can sit and relax for a while, that is until one of the many tour boats decide to come ashore for a look around.

We head back to camp in the midday heat for a well deserved shower after the approximately 10 k long journey.

The SGE continues there trip towards Darwin thru Kakadu National Park, the same way as we are taking. I’m sure we will bump into them again.

11/07/2005
Filling up with petrol and food in Katherine before entering Kakadu National Park. We bump into Kate and Neil in the post office. It’s a small world.

We stop at Maguk and camp for free.

12/07/2005
A morning walk to Barramundie Waterfall close to the campsite at Maguk. It’s a beautiful little waterfall with clear water and luckily we get to see the waterfall while there’s only one other person there. But it doesn’t take long before the tour buses flood the scene. On the way back to the car we see a young woman sitting by a tree – she has twisted her ankle – and the nice tour operators have decided to leave her in the middle of the bush for a couple of hours. How awful! We feel privileged not having to be part of a big tour group.

We go for a walk at Yellow Waters. How beautiful!!! Really green wetlands with plenty of birds. We also visit the Cultural Centre. It’s free and really good. It’s amazing that any kind of touristy things are free these days!!!

Jim Jim falls is next. After a sweaty walk over rocky terrain we finally reach the falls. What a surreal landscape. The waterfall is pretty much dry but next to the rock pool which is surrounded by 150-metre high cliffs there’s a beautiful white sandy beach. There are plenty of people there enjoying a swim. And guess who we bump into if not the SGE. Small world. We didn’t bring any swimmers because we expected there to be crocs (and there might be some freshies but they seem to be hiding) so Daniel jumps into the plunge pool in his normal shorts and drags me with him in all of my clothes. It doesn’t matter. The water is so refreshing and nice and the clothes dry pretty quickly. We would love to stay longer but we have to get out before it gets dark. We decide to catch up with SGE later at Sandy Billabong and camp there for the night.

At Sandy Billabong we also catch up with three Canadians and a German that Henne and Alex have been talking to. We camp by the billabong and are reminded that it was in this billabong somewhere that a German tourist was taken by a croc a couple of years ago. How horrible!

13/07/2005
There’s plenty of walking to be done around Kakadu. We start with checking out Nourlangie Rock. They have some amazing and well-kept Aboriginal rock art. Then we go for a walk around Anbangbang Billabong – a beautiful billabong with plenty of water lilies and birds. Then we check out Bowali Visitor Centre and treat ourselves to an ice cream.

Our plan is to get a permit and head over to Oenpelli in Arnhemland but after speaking to the guys at the information centre you can’t really stop anywhere but an art shop if you enter Arnhemland by yourself and you can’t take photos etc and you are not allowed to leave the main road. So the only way to see Arnhemland is to go on a tour but they charge you between $100 and $200 to do that so we decide to skip that.

We stop at Merl camping, not far from Cahills Crossing – at the river dividing Kakadu from Arnhemland. At sunset we – like hundreds of other tourists – climb Ubirr to watch the sun go down. The views are astonishing. Cliffs. Green open spaces. Amazing!

Back at camp the mozzies are trying to eat us all alive. Can’t do much apart from locking ourselves in the car and sleep.

14/07/2005
Bloody mozzies. After breakfast we pack up as quickly as possible and leave this mozzie infected nest. Off to civilization. In Darwin we go to the Mindil Beach Sunset Markets and have a feast. Great Asian Food. Beer. Sticky Date Pudding. Darwin seems to be a really nice city – quite cosmopolitan!

We are trying to get into a motel because it would be nice to get some more space for a couple of days but we don’t have any luck. The cheapest room we found was $215. No thank you. We go for the cheaper option. Parking in the street. The night is bloody hot and we are literally swimming in bed.

15/07/2005
Puh puh…what a night. Luckily we are just around the corner from Nightcliff swimming pool so we go there for a plunge and a shower. Nice!

It’s time to fix Brutus up. He needs new oil. Daniel has been thinking about doing the oil change himself but it seems such a hassle so we hand it in to a mechanic and after $275 Brutus is feeling great.

A nice lady in the tourist information centre try to help us find accommodation but everything seems to be booked out today as well so we head to Shady Glen Tourist Park where they only have two spots left. We decide to stay for two nights. We are having a quiet afternoon and night. Doing the laundry. Cooking dinner. Drinking wine.

16/07/2005
After much agony we are trying to get our travel blog together. In the afternoon we head into town and have a few beers with SGE and a couple of their friends. Then we (D&H) go for dinner at Cullen Bay – a nice but quite posh area of Darwin where all luxury sail boats are anchored. We look forward to a nice meal – mmmm…pizza. But so much for having expectations. The food is crap and so is the service. We head back to camp and sleep…