Australia! - the 'top end' (Darwin area) (3/5)
This post is part 3 of the "au-2013" series:
- Australia! - South (1/5)
- Australia! - the 'classic' outback, up through the middle (2/5)
- Australia! - the 'top end' (Darwin area) (3/5)
- Australia! - heading East (4/5)
- Australia! - far north Queensland (5/5)
I spent nearly three weeks at the beginning of July in Australia. David & I flew into Melbourne (via Auckland on Air New Zealand), and rented a "Voyager" campervan from Britz, for a one way rental, with the intent of ending up in Cairnes. We planned to drive up through the middle of the country, to Darwin, then head roughly east to Cairnes. Overall, the trip was amazing, and exceeded our expectations. I'm going to break up the trip report into several posts, since combining three weeks of info into a single post would be a huge monstrosity. For the curious, the rough route that we drove is mapped here on Google Maps.
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Monday:
It never got cold last night. We actually left the side windows (with screens) on the van open all night, because when we went to bed it was uncomfortably warm. David complained for quite a while about how hot he was. However, around 9pm or so, these crazy winds came through, and much of the night, the van was getting rocked side to side by the winds. Even with the winds, it wasn't cold overnight, and i occasionally used one sleeping bag (rather than the 2 that I had been using). Since we had driven so much yesterday, we were
technically about a day's drive from Darwin at this point. However, I had about half a day allocated to explore Litchfield NP, which is about an hour south of Darwin. So there wasn't any way to get to Darwin & do the park in the same day. Instead, I decided that we'd camp as close to the park as possible, so that we could do it first thing the next day. As a result, we slept in a bit this morning, without any alarm.
We both woke up just after sunrise (around 7:30), and David was thrilled that I didn't wake him before dawn.
We were on the road by 8AM, and the drive was fairly uneventful. One thing that we've noticed for the past few days are termite mounds. At first they were really tiny, just a few inches. However, the further north we've driven, the bigger they've gotten, and now they're 6+ feet tall, everywhere. Another thing is that its now warm enough by mid-morning, that its uncomfortable in the van without the AC on. We stopped for lunch & gas in Katherine, which was previously where I had planned to camp tonight. We kept driving, and when we were roughly 90 minutes south of the park, we started hunting for a good campground that had wifi. This turned out to be far more challenging than I ever thought possible. While we passed many places, they all either were already full for the night (at 1PM!), or didn't have wifi, or both. I was beginning to think that we'd have to just suck it up and do without wifi again. Finally, we got to the
last town before the park entrance, and found a campground with wifi & powered sites open. Its actually a
really pretty campground. Lots of grass and trees (tons of palm trees growing wild everywhere now). Plus it has free showers, and a free minigolf course, which david is having a blast at. At this point, the weather is just like Hawaii. Its warm & sticky, and as soon as I move at all, I break out into a sweat. Also, when i was checking into the campground, there were huge posters warning people to stay clear of
all bodies of water because there are crocodiles everywhere.
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Tuesday:
Sleeping last night was a bit rough. It never cooled down much, and I was so hot that I was trying to sleep without a shirt, and no blankets, yet I was still warm. I did eventually fall asleep, but i woke up often. David was complaining about the heat for a while too, but he claims that he slept ok. We woke for the day just after sunrise, and were driving just after 8AM. Litchfield NP was really awesome. The first thing we saw were hundreds of huge (6+ ft tall) termite mounds spread through this field, all of which were perfectly aligned north/south. Apparently these are a unique species of termite that builds its mounds aligned with the magnetic poles. Next we did an amazing hike through the jungle, to Florence Falls. The falls are several hundred feet tall, and have a huge pool, about 3-5ft deep at the base, where people
were swimming (legally). It was really pretty. Just above the falls, were bats hanging in the trees. They were huge bats, like the size of a small dog, and they were making all sorts of squawking noises. After that, we drove onward to Tolmer falls, which plunged into a deep canyon. We could only see them from an overlook a distance away, but they were impressive. One thing we noticed repeatedly throughout the day is how much damage very recent forest fires have caused. Huge swaths of the jungle were completely burnt down in places, and there was smoke in the air in some spots. The last stop of the day, was the best. It was for Wangi Falls, which is actually 3 sets of falls that plunge into an enormous lake, which people also used for swimming. There was a hiking trail loop that ran from the front of the lake, up the canyon, upstream of the falls, and then back around the other side. The trail was really pretty, as it curved through the jungle. At one point a kangaroo leaped out of the forest just a few feet behind us on the
trail, and then dove back into the jungle on the other side. David was thrilled. Later on, I saw a huge wild black pig wandering around in the jungle. The lake at the base of the falls is apparently full of
crocodiles in the wet season, but now it only had small fish. After that hike, we had lunch, and then proceeded to drive the rest of the way to Darwin, about 105km.
My plan was to stop at every campground that we passed within 30km of Darwin. The first place we stopped was full. The second place we stopped had a sign in front stating "no vacancies". When we got to the 3rd spot (about 24km out), they had a vacancy, so I took it, rather than driving onward, and risking not finding anything else, and then wasting time backtracking too. So we're in Howard Springs for the next 3 nights (Tue, Wed & Thurs). The park is huge, something like 300 sites, plus cabins, a swimming pool,
a balloon bouncy room, a water park (more on this in a bit), laundry, and evening programs. It does have
decent landscaping with tons of tall trees everywhere. We're kind of sandwiched in between several monster
RVs, but they're all retired aged people, so I suspect that they'll be in bed asleep at a reasonable hour. Once we got settled in, David was begging to play on the balloon bouncer and in the water park. I told him that he could choose one, but not both. He chose the water park, so I got him changed into his swimming clothes, had him later up in sunscreen, and we walked over. Its a fairly impressive park, kinda similar to
that one in Dublin, only this one was larger, and had a huge 200L bucket suspending above the park, which would fill and then tip over every minute or so, dowsing anyone below. David thought that bucket was
the most amazing thing ever. He'd stand directly underneath, waiting for it to dump the water on him, then scream AMAZING. While he was having a blast there, I did laundry. Actually, I started the laundry first, then we went over, then i returned briefly to put the clothes in the dryer, then I had him got dried off when the clothes were done. In total, he was playing for nearly 90 minutes. After that, we headed off to go grocery shopping. I stocked up on more tuna, PB, bread, cereal, and tomatoes. Then I also got some ground beef (for pasta), and some lamb sausages, a block of feta, and some shredded cheddar. Once we returned from shopping I made dinner, which was rotelli, diced carrots & tomatoes, olive oil, and diced feta
cheese. I thought was delicious. David thought it was ok, although he wasn't too thrilled with the chunks of cheese. So at this point we've got the next 2 days (Wed & Thurs) completely free. I need to do some
research online on what kind of stuff we'll be doing. I'm thinking going to a beach, and maybe an animal preserve, but i don't have any ideas finalized yet. We'll also eat dinner in a restaurant either tomorrow of the next day. Also, David keeps begging me for ice cream every time he sees it. While no where near as bad as Finland, they do have ice cream freezers in a lot of places. He also started begging me for a Coke
today, but i didn't agree to that yet either. Unfortunately, when I attempted to get connected to the internet i was presented with a username/password screen, and I had neither. Apparently I needed to go to the office to get that, and I failed to realize it until after the office had closed for the day. For some retarded reason the campground offices always close around 6PM.
A few other things that I've been forgetting to mention. For some bizarro reason, they never post the direction of any highway in this country. Like all of our highways have clearly posted directions (South, East, etc), yet that doesn't exist here at all. I've now driven all 1761 miles of the Stuart Highway (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Highway ), yet at no point was there ever a sign indicating that I was driving North. And there were a few random times when I wasn't 100% certain I was going the right way. The only information that they ever provide is a sign pointing to the next major city in a particular direction, but unless you are familiar with all the town & city names, that's kinda useless. They also rarely post signs indicating the distance to the next town. I can count on maybe 2 hands the number of signs that I saw during those 1761 miles that indicated how far off the next major town was. It was
frustrating because I had to keep track of distances on my own. its damn good that I had the GPS working, or there would have been times when i had no clue how far i was from anything. This also relates to the gas station nonsense, because they rarely indicated how far the next fuel was, and when they actually did, they posted the sign *after* I passed the turn off for gas. So basically if I realized i didn't have enough to get to the next one, I had to make a u-turn. just dumb. More silliness with accents. when i checked into the current campground (or any really), they ask for the license plate on my vehicle (XAT-596). well, at the current place, they apparently mis-heard what I said, and wrote down X80-596. because the letters A followed by a T sound kinda like the number 80 if you're expecting an australian accent, or something. i drove through the town of "Humpty Do" today.
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Wednesday:
We had a really nice day. We drove into the center of Darwin, which took about a half hour. Parking was a bit of a pain, as nearly everywhere required a meter, with retarded restrictions. They were all expensive (\$2+/hour), but they also all had time limits, and since I had no clue how long we'd be, I didn't want to be running back to the meter often. Eventually I found a free space a bit further away than I would have preferred, and we walked a bit. We started by walking the length of Bicentennial Park, which runs along the southern edge of the city on the waterfront. It had really nice views of the harbor, plus some pretty
trees. Along the way there were a number of signs noting historic events from WW2, where a number of US navy vessels were either sunk in the harbor by the Japanese, or shot down Japanese planes. Over the past few days, we actually saw a number of old WW2 historic airstrips along the highway. The highlight for
David was an automatic (free) toilet, where you pressed a button to open the door, and it played music inside. After walking the length of the park, we cut up 2 blocks, and walked along the main commercial
district where all the shops & most of the restaurants were. We ended up having lunch at an Australian fast food chain called Red Rooster, which we'd seen as far away as Melbourne. Its kind of like a Chick-Fil-A, where all of the food is based on chicken. The food was ok, but nothing special that I'd ever want again. I let David get a Coke with his lunch, and he was thrilled. Following lunch we walked several blocks east to the wharf district. At the base of a steep hill was an old WW2 oil tunnel, which was used to store oil reserves used by the military during the war. It was a bit of a disappointment (especially for \$10), as it was literally just two long concrete tunnels, with no actual interpretive information. At this point, we were planning to go to a beach up on the north shore, but there was a huge new housing development across the street called "The Darwin Waterfront", which had a huge water park, and many restaurants. When David saw that, he changed his mind about the beach, and really wanted to go there instead. Unfortunately, all of his swim clothes were still in the van, a 30 minute walk west of there. So we walked all the way back to the van, then I drove back, found a place to park (for a \$5/day fixed rate), and we headed over to the water park. I asked David before we entered whether he wanted me to join him in the pool, or if he wanted to go alone, and he insisted that he didn't want me with him. It was basically a huge pool with a wave machine, which generated these crazy 6ft ocean-like waives every 20 minutes. The deep end was about 6ft. There was also a shallow wading pool with wacky sprinklers of all different types, which was a foot deep. They also provided free boogie boards & inner tubes, and had life guards. I found a spot on a bench under an umbrella, and David headed in first with a boogie board. Being the crazy kid
that he is, he immediately paddled out to the deep end, where the deepest waves were, and he was having a blast. I kept an eye on him the entire time, as I listened to podcasts. After about an hour, he finally came out, told me it was great, grabbed an inner tube, and went back for more. When the waves stopped, he paddled out to the deep end again, and then just laid back in the tube, waiting for the chaos to resume. Then he literally just laid in the tube, and let the waves push him back to "shore". When he came back to me he claimed that he was talking to a "pretty Australian girl". I never saw this conversation, but I guess
its possible that some random girl said 3 words to him, and he interpreted it as a conversation. In the end, he was out there for nearly 3 hours. I re-applied sunscreen to him about half way through. One
interesting thing about the Australian sunscreen is that it has no scent at all. You know that weird beach-like scent that US sunscreen has, but the stuff here doesn't smell. I have to assume that it works, because David should have been burnt to a crisp after 3 hours in the blazing tropical sun, yet he's not.
After going back to the van to get David changed back into his clothes, we returned to the area, and found somewhere for dinner. The food was ok, but the service was horrible. David got a chicken Caesar salad (with whole anchovies & a poached egg on top, which he decided he loved), plus cheesy garlic bread. I got a steak with a salad & fries. The steak was supposed to be medium, but it was closer to well done. I can't tell if Australian medium isn't the same as ours, or if their chef is incompetent. After dinner, we went to a really great ice-cream place called Trampoline, which had all these creative flavors. David got chocolate and honey-comb + vanilla, and I got lemon & raspberry yogurt. Mine was really really good, and David said his was yummy too. We then drove back to the campground, where we're now settled in for the night.
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Thursday:
We had a nice day. We slept in until 7:30, and then drove down to the Territory Animal Park. Its basically a zoo run by the state, which highlights the animals and distinct ecological zones within the state. Each zone has at least one show each day, where an expert shows off the animals, and explains what makes them special. The first place we stopped was the Billabong, where the animal handler talked about the
pelicans which were swimming around, and then he fed them fish, and let all the children throw fish to the
pelicans too. Apparently these pelicans have the longest beaks of any pelican in the world (about 2ft long). After that, we walked through a bunch of other aviaries, and nearly walked into a golden orb spider. The thing was about the size of my hand. At one point, this herd of kangaroos stampeded through the forest not far in front of us. David was thrilled. We both liked the nocturnal animals house, which had a bunch of different rodents, snakes & other wacky animals that came out at night. I think the highlight of the park was the bird show, where a number of different birds of prey were shown off. The handlers had them trained to fly to specific places around this amphitheater, and do special tricks on command (like diving into the water for food). We finished up around 1PM, and headed back to the campground to relax. David wanted to go on the jumpy air balloon thing, and I got a shower. Then I had him get a shower, and pack up a few things, for our departure tomorrow. At 4:30 we left for the night
market. The market was really awesome There were so many different food stands. I saw Italian, Mexican, Indian, Sri-Lankan, Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, and Greek food stands. There were also several fruit smoothie & crepe stands. David ended up eating a spring roll, a lamb pita wrap, a slice of pizza, a mango-lime-pineapple smoothie, and half an orange poppyseed cupcake. I had spicy chicken curry, chickpeas with spinach, pumpkin curry, lamb curry, veggie pizza, an avocado-mango smoothie, and half an orange poppyseed cupcake. It was all so good. In addition to all the food, there were a bunch of random vendors selling the
usual assortment of shirts, dresses, stuff carved from wood, jewellery and other trinkets. They also had two different stages with performers on them. And just behind the market area was a huge beach facing the setting sun. It was all quite nice, and apparently this market happens every thursday during the dry season. When we returned to the campground, we found that some other person had setup a tent in our site. Apparently there was some mixup, and they gave away our site because they thought we had left. It was all sorted out, and we were given a different site for tonight, with copious apologies.
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Friday:
We got up early, and we were on the road before 7AM. The drive to Kakadu NP was uneventful, and we pulled into the first stop just after 9AM. There was a 2km loop hike at the Mamukala Wetlands. In the wet season the entire area is under water, but right now it was fairly dry, until we got out to the far point of the
hike, where we saw huge wetlands stretching for miles with lilly pads, a lot of birds, and fish. One thing that has stood out the entire trip is how few Americans we've encountered. In fact, we haven't come across any. I can't tell whether we're just off the beaten track, or if Americans just don't come to AU. However
today we ran into a French family, and an Italian family. After the wetlands, we continued driving through
the park to the Ubir Art site. This is a loop hike past some of the oldest rock art in the world, some of it dating back over 20k years. The art was really amazing, and very different from what we've seen in North America. They often used multiple colors, and the details in the animals were really stunning. They drew a lot of fish, and they included all the bones, and scales. There were also kangaroos & crocodiles.
The one oddity was that the people were all stick figures, even though the animals were so detailed. Part of the hike included a climb up this butte like structure, which provided amazing views for miles in all directions. We could see wet lands, lush grass, and distant mountains. David really enjoyed this hike a lot. After that we had lunch at the van, and then continued driving. I don't know what it is about birds in this part of the country, but there are a lot of birds of prey, and they're all fearless of humans. So much so that they are dive bombing the van while i'm driving. Through no fault of my own, I had 3 different hawk-like birds smack right into the roof of the van while I was driving, and there were countless others that barely missed. Also these are huge birds, with 6+ ft wind spans, so its not like i'm hitting a tiny sparrow or something. After driving for over an hour we came to the park's visitor center, and they had a movie plus a lot of exhibits. David was in heaven. The film was this 30+ year old National Geographic tv show (remember those on PBS decades ago?) about Kakadu NP, narrated by Richard Kiley (i
vaguely remember his name from movies that my parents loved). It was a pretty good film, but it was also very very dated. The exhibits were really nice too, and we probably spent a full hour at the visitor center. One thing that I've noticed is that most of the national parks in this country have no entrance fee. However, Uluru, and now Kakadu both charged \$25/person (not per vehicle). Thankfully children under 16 are free, so it worked out to about the same price as for an American park. From the visitor center we drove a bit further down the road, and did a 1.6km hike up the side of a steep hill to a lookout which had some nice views in all directions. However, the flies were merciless, and David was seriously upset by them. We did see a distant fire, sending up huge plumes of smoke. After all that, we drove less an hour further, and got to the Yellow Water resort, where our campground & boat cruise were. The campground is fairly nice, however they have no wifi.
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Since the boat cruise was at 4:30, we had a small snack before, and then took their free shuttle down to the boat dock. The cruise was really nice. We saw many different types of birds, and at least a dozen crocodiles, some sitting on land, others in the water. David, however, was super grumpy the entire time. He spent most of the cruise playing with a drinking cup, or staring into space. When I asked what was wrong, he said that he was tired, or bored, or hungry. I made sure to have him eat a granola bar before getting on the boat, so I'm sure he couldn't have been all that hungry. As for being tired, perhaps, but all he had to do was sit and look around him. The cruise finished up around sunset, and the sky was gorgeous. Dinner tonight was rice, diced carrots, peanuts, cannenelli beans & red curry sauce. David
loved it, and I thought it was pretty good. It was very mildly spicy.
All trip pictures are posted HERE.
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This post is part 3 of the "au-2013" series: