Kakadu to Cairns

What you staring at then, want some do ya, do ya?

It has been a while since the last blog and unfortunately some of the best moments since then were not caught on camera. For instance the charging water buffalo on the Kakadu highway that threatened to plough into the car but changed its mind at the last moment, probably just did it for a laugh just to see the reaction on my face which would have been one of horror. Further down the road just a few kms north of Katherine there was a bald and bare footed man carrying two plastic shopping bags walking down the road. Not that unusual but he was only attired in a pair of black speedos which had been hitched at the back up his bottom. Same horror face twice in one day.

Daly Waters Pub, how did I get behind the bar.

Welcome to Queensland, Finn is impressed.

Panning for for gold in Charlies Trousers AKA Charters Towers.

Another tricky foot shot, shoes on because it dipped below 25.

Pie fail on the road

We decided not to stop in Katherine again and travelled down to Mataranka where we had a great time swimming in the springs observing turtles. Bitter Springs just over Mataranka but if you ever do stop in Katherine go to the springs there a well. Also make sure you have beer to take into Mataranka as a six pack of VB will cost $28 at the local. Mataranka was a quick over nighter before we shot down to Daly Waters pub where we had lunch and stuck one of Finn's thongs on the thong tree out in the beer garden seeing as Amanda would not give up her bra for the bar. Then on to Threeways, we heard Tennant Creek was a bit rough so I can only imagine because camping at Threeways was spartan. The bar was good though and I learnt the fishing was particularly bad up in the gulf so Karumba was struck off the list in favour of Townsville.

Crossing over to QLD the next day the roads predictably got worse but the burgers got better. Camooweal Pub is a fine dining experience and massive burgers for $8. The sun was shining and QLD was looking pretty good. We headed down to Isa for an over nighter and stopped at a caravan park over the road from housing commission. Barking dogs and colourful language made it a memorable night for all the wrong reasons. Onward to Charlies Trousers (Charters Towers) the next day for three days. Great place which was built on a mine, gold mine. Once the richest place in world and was subsequently nicknamed The World. It may not been as rich as it once had been but it is still doing very well for itself and we really enjoyed doing its mining museums and learning about its rich past. We also came across cane toads for the first time. I cannot say too much for fear of incriminating myself too much but I can say they travel through the air quite well although a little ungracefully. After several flights my friend just looked at me and bounced away. Respect. I think this might be the reason QLD seem to win State of Origin, even their mascot is a hard bastard.

Townsville was the next stop. Reef headquarters was excellent, watching the Cowboys getting beat by the Roosters at a rain soaked Dairy Farmers stadium was not so great. The Strand was a great place for a stroll and the kids enjoyed the playgrounds that the council had built along it. We had plenty to do in Townsville for a few days but we were looking forward to moving up the coast to Mission Beach. and taking a visit to Dunk Island where Amanda and I spent out honeymoon in 2000.

Mission Beach is a beautiful spot. We stayed down at South Mission but all the way up to Bingal Bay is world heritage tropical forest lined with white sandy beaches dotted with black volcanic boulders. Trouble is jelly fish, mosquitos and cyclones. Walking in the tropical forest was impossible, we abandoned one walk because we were almost picked by vampire mosquitos and taken to a nearby island to have all the blood sucked out of us. They were like a black mist. We could not swim at the beach because of box jelly fish, although there was a netted area. And cyclone Yasi had bashed the resort at Dunk Island into oblivion so we could not go there for a visit. We did however go on a little cruise around the islands and had a snorkel at Badarra island and ate coconuts on the beach. And if you come up to this part of the world expect to see Cassowarys. These are prehistoric punk birds which eat everything. Amusing and scary at the same time and not an animal to be messed with. I was starting to think all animals in QLD were tough, weird and a crazy looking.

"What you staring at?" Your bum you ridiculous looking animal. Ed

Kakadu

"I'm from Darwin I should not be in this part of the blog."
Shuddup your a frog, stop talking. Ed.

Leaving the big smoke of Darwin we headed south and east out on the Arnheim Highway towards Kakadu. There was a stop we had to make on the way and that was for the jumping croc's out on the Alligator River. It's called the Alligator River because some bloke called King had seen alligators in South America and mistook our friendly crocs for alligators. He should have counted their exposed teeth or talked to a nine year old called Callam who would have put him straight on the differences. Anyway before we got to the crocs we were able to visit the Windows to the Wetlands centre just up the road. Great place and lots of interactive displays which gave us a great idea of what the Kakadu wetlands are all about.

Down the road we hopped on small boat and headed out with our all female crew for a bit of croc feeding. I think the girl that did the feeding was the same chick in The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo, very wierd, but she was very well behaved and did not kill anybody. The skipper looked a little like Fifi Box but when she talked she was very intelligent, again a bit wierd. Crocs don't actually jump, reallyyyy, no they don't but they get a long way out of the water by using their tails as propellers and their jaws make an awesome snapping sound.

Say arrrrgggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

They are a very impressive animal and although dangerous they have a very likeable smile on their chops.

Mmmm..you look tasty, jump in the water with me.

The creepy thing about these crocs is that they come up to the boat very silently and quickly, sometimes two at a time. This situation needs to be avoided because they are not always friendly to one another, even when making out. A couple of days before we got here there was a large 4.5m albino male that attacked and ate a 2.5m female who made the mistake of possibly thinking he was up for some love action but was obviously not in the mood. The other thing we were told was that for every croc you see there are another eight in the near vicinity. Fall in the water here and you become croc poo very quickly because they can pick up the faintest vibration in the water up to 1km away, that includes a heart beat.

After feeding four "jumping crocs" skipper Fifi turned the boat back and Lisbeth Salander fed these Whistling Kites that swooped out of the air and took pieces of meat only centimetres from her hand. She looked like she might just grab one by the neck for the hell of but she never did.

After a right turn at Jabiru we headed down the Kakadu Highway to Cooinda and Yellow Water. The bugs at this place were thick and imune to any sort of insect repellant. They would fly up your nose, in your ears, eyes, mouth, hair and then bite you. The trouble with Kakadu this time of year is that there is only limited access to some of the spots in the park. Best time of year to visit is June/July where everything is opened but there is also an influx of thousands of tourists. We were lucky enough to be there the day Gunlom Falls were opened. A bit of a steep walk up but worth it for the view from the natural horizon pool at the top. 

View from the top

View from the bottom.

And when in this part of the world a trip on Yellow Water is essential. Although the wet was a bit week this year there still seemed to be plenty of water about and plenty of bird life, there were also resident crocs and for some odd reason very large stingrays which you tend to associate with salt water but these were 100km plus up stream.

Alright who left chewing gum on this branch.

Wetland, very wet it is.

Allo, allo. What's your name then.

Got anything to eat, I'm starving.

Next stop before the Isa after Kakadu du du was what's the Mataranka. Quick swim there with the preferred vote going to Bitter Springs over the Mataranka Springs. Both worthy of a visit, turtles a Bitter Springs but better rocks for doing bombs at Mataranka.

Mataranka Springs

Bitter Springs

A Visit in Darwin- Big Write by Callam Thomas

In Darwin we went to Litchfield National Park. At the national park we went to a place so cool called the rock pools. We swam in the really deep pool at the bottom. If you use your goggles underwater it looks amazing. When the water rushed through the rocks it made a great spa.

After we finished at the rock pools we went to Florence Falls and plunge pool. We went for a swim and there were lots of fish in the water. There were people jumping off the waterfall. It was very dangerous and they should not have been doing it because there was a sign that said DO NOT CLIMB OR JUMP OFF THE ROCKS.

Family Shot at Wangi Falls Litchfield Natinal Park.

We also went to a fun wave pool. It had big fans that make the waves for the pool. They also have a boogie board that you can use for free. There were a lot of waves to ride.

We went on a boat called the Duckabout and it also goes on land. I got to drive the boat. It is called an amphibious vehicle. You can't swim in Darwin's harbour because of the box jelly fish and the crocs.

Finally we went to crocosaurus cove. At the start we did fish feeding. A man named Josh did the fish feeding. He taught us about the sting ray and barramundi. Then we went to the reptiles and saw a massive gonna. One half of the display was dark for the nocturnal reptiles and one half was light. Also at the reptiles we got to hold an Olive Python. We also held two lizards. One was called Bowser the other was called Yoshi. Also did a thing called fishing for crocs. They put meat on the end of the the fishing line and the little crocs jump up to get the meat. I caught 2 crocs on my rod. They were really strong.

Did you know!
That saltwater crocs prefer to live in freshwater!

Kununurra and Katherine

Kununurra is in the east Kimberly and a fair hike from Broome. And Kununurra is hard to say with a stammer and can induce Tourettes and that is why we bought the trailer sticker - Kunu "bloody" nurra, where the hell is that? It's actually in the east Kimberly only 40km from the NT border. The town itself was built to service the Ord river scheme which supplies water during the dry for the various plantations around the area. There is a lot of water about and lots of fish, crocs and mozzies as well. We were lucky enough to camp next to the Kununurra diversion damn which was a nice little shady spot on the outskirts of town. It was a short walk from a great restaurant called the Pumphouse which unsurprisingly was converted from a pumphouse which is situated on the banks of the lake. Good food and had the added bonus of lots of catfish and a couple of freshwater cros cruise up for leftovers under the restaurants balcony which was great entertainment. Here is a blurry shot from our campsite of the Pumphouse. It's not an arty shot, I just stuffed it up.

If this shot does't make you bleary eyed, do some more shots!

The camp site also had its own resident croc called George who had the misfortune of only having half a lower jaw and three legs. He is a very friendly fellow and always comes up to the dam bank at 5pm whilst some residents are having sundowners, nobody feeds him and he just seems to turn up for a bit of company. He has a big friend in the campsite owner who the night previously to this shot had to jump into the water to untie some rope that persons unknown had tied around his jaws. Apparently he just lay there quietly while the rope was untied and just hung around for a bit to say thanks and swam off to chow down on some leftovers from the restaurant no doubt. A very laid back croc is George.

Handsome George

There is a lot to see and do around Kununurra. Some of it does involve walking, I'm a bit of a fan of a walk. Close to town is Mirima national park which is known as the mini Bungle Bungles.  I am the first to admit that we don't always go prepared for a hike/walk. Often on this holiday we have trekked up waterfalls/hills/small bits of desert or isolated beaches in our thongs carrying one bottle of water between us. Our trek through the ravines and up the hills of Mirima followed a familiar trend.

Finn "Fuzzy stuff and rocks.

Dad "Hey lok there's a short walk to a lookout, let's check it out."
Collective "It's hot, 36 degrees, we have no water and we are wearing thongs."
Dad "Yeah but it's not far."
Collective "Your adventures mostly suck Dad."
Dad "This one will be great, anyway we need some exercise."
Collective "Your the only fat one Dad."
Dad "Right we are going to do this walk twice, three times if anyone complains. We can all drink beer afterwards and if you are under age I will drink your share."
Collective "Daaadddd."
Dad "Let's go now."

It was a great walk and everyone enjoyed it. Amanda and Finn looked like they needed to go on a drip after the walk but they are better and stronger people for it. Surprisingly I am still fat.

The next time I suggested a walk I was left to do it on my own. It was to Black Rock falls and it was beautiful and it was 80 metres from the car!

Wildlife in Nitmiluk

 That was a fun walk, right?

Black Hole Falls

aahhh another sunset shot over Lake Argyle this time.

Probably the highlight of the trip to Kununurra was the trip to Lake Argyle and the sunset cruise we did with Argyle Lake Cruises. Captain Greg was our skipper (may of had a job previously in Canberra) and he was brilliant. Took us to islands to feed rock wallabies, told us all about the development of Lake Argyle (biggest man made dam in southern hemisphere) during the sixties which contains the flow of five rivers during the wet into one massive dam which has the capacity to fill Sydney Harbour 21 times. It also contains 30,000 fresh water crocs and a lot more cat fish and maybe not as many archer fish that are damn good at spitting at you if you hold a piece of bread out for them. Finn must have looked like a piece of bread because they squirted him between the eyes. Towards the end of our cruise we entered the water for drinks and snacks. Captain Greg served champagne and beer with biscuits and dips pushed into the water on an esky lid. The catfish joined in as well enjoying the scraps of biscuit. Telling Amanda a croc was about to partake when she was the only person in the water was also a memorable moment, the look on her face was priceless.

Allo beautiful

An island on Lake Argyle

Cheers darling sweetie.

Next stop was Katherine. It is now in the process of being renamed as Nitmiluk or cicada country. Nit nit is the sound cicadas make and miluk the Jawen word for country. Our first trip out to the gorge involved another walk but you will notice from the photo I forced them all to smile about it. The second trip out to the gorge involved travelling up three gorges and being informed about a lot of the history of the place including the famous rock where Jedda and her lover  Marbuck jumped off in the famous 1955 film. There was also some pretty cool 8,000 year old rock art to look at as well as the abundant wild life. But the kids will always remember the swim they had in the lily pond. I will always remember it for Finn almost drowning me. But we survived and had the privalige of putting my head under a  60m waterfall.

Our collective highlight though was a morning spent with Manuel Pakpal who was a Dalabon man who had trekked with his family to the Katherine area 30 years ago from Arnheim Land. Manuel speaks 4 dialects as well as english. They say dialects but they are actually completely different languages, there are no common words. He played the didge for us and explained a lot about living in the bush and survival in that environment. We threw spears with a woomera and Marley comfortably won that contest spearing the cardboard kangaroo from 25m.

With Manuel after a great morning. And we are all members of the Dalabon, not the best artists but we are good with fire and spears so look out.

We also learnt to make fire with Kurrajong branches and grass. There was also an opportunity for us to do some cross hatch painting which we have all learnt takes a great deal of patience and skill. It was quite funny when we stood around looking at some art a few days later in Darwin all discussing some Top End art in the Darwin museum and listening to the boys say things like "Look at that skillage on that! My god that would have taken centuries to do." We all learnt a lot from Manual and if you do only  one thing in Katherine make sure you visit Top Didg and Manuel Pakpal. Also bring some mozzie repellant and visit the hot springs.