Darwin to Katherine

Well we returned from Kakadu to Darwin, here we are all set up, Jenny & John are visiting us before they head of the Kakadu & beyond.

Another visit to the Mindil Beach Market with our picnic on the grass.

Water is everywhere in Darwin, this lovely fountain in the Botanic Gardens. It was the best feature of the gardens

The USA Navy in town again for resupply

Darwin's Beer Can Regatta on Mindil Beach. This one only just made it to the beach

USA Hospital Ships entry

Government House is just such a pretty house & the oldest european building still standing, it was damaged in the WW11 & Tracy

Bogonvilla hedge in front of the house

Fanny Bay goal building

John, Jenny & Ian at ruins in the centre of town

The wave pool looked fun

We had fun with visiting Darwin with John & Jenny.

The Rainbow Bee Eaters where around the van every evening catching flies & insects.

We left Darwin for Litchfield on 19th August, the next day we went to the Termite Mounds & The Lost City

Magnetic Termite Mounds, aline North / South & only in this site.

This is a huge Cathredral Termite Mound, that's Ian in front of it.

The drive into the Lost City was 4X4 only & quite fun, not a had drive just a bit soft & narrow.

the week before we went to Litchfield there where fires in the area, this is the result, termite mounds in the blacken bush.

The Lost City is lots of sand stone rocks in unusual stacks, quite spooky.

This is the only water buffelow that we saw & he was in a fenced yard.

Butterfly in the Butterfly Farm, he is just beautiful.

Another day we went to Tolmer Falls

This is Florence Falls, these are great to see.

From Florence Falls we went onto Buley Rockhole for a swim

Marilyn having a nice swim @ Buley

The last day we went to Wangi Falls, you can swim here as well when the park people have removed the Crocodiles.

On Tuesday we moved onto Adelaide River, this Great Bower Bird has made its nest on the edge of the road opposite of van.

We went for a day drive to Daly River Crossing, we had a picnic lunch in the ground of the Pub.

The Daly River Crossing, old & new

This is the crossing that Dad helped build in 1942. A newer one is beside the old one. We could not walk over it due to the croc's in the river.

snowflake crossing on the new crossing

The weather in Adelaide River was very hot & humid, the last afternoon there we went to the War Cemetery.

On Friday it was off to Katherine for a short stay, but more about that on the next issue of Ian & Marilyn's travels. We are on our way back to Melbourne with 3 months to do it in. Just for your interest so far this year we have travelled just over 19,000 km, we have had to replace tyres, driving lights & suspension stuff & power steering hoses on the truck, the RCD in the van, the black ants got our TV. But we are still smiling.

Kakadau

Well here we are again, for a quick trip out to Kakadau. That's right a quick trip. We left Darwin on Saturday for a cruise on Sunday on the Corroboree Billabong lunch cruise. 3 fantastic hours floating round, heaps of birds, crocodiles fresh & saltwater. We camped at Corroboee Park Tavern for 2 nights, so on Monday we set of for Jabariu.

Corroboree Billabong

We feed the Whistling Kites the bread crusts after lunch

The wild life just sat around waiting for you to take a pic (most of the time)

Another view of the Billabong

A baby Night Heron waiting for a small fish to pass

There where great areas of water lilies

Magpie Geese abound

Crocodiles watching our boat.

The Tuesday we went to Ubirr to look at the rock art. Our photos can't show the feeling you get looking at painting so old.

The painting show many aspectes of life, this one is a long neck turtle, other pictures where of many fish.

The view from the top of the rock looking toward Arnhem Land across the wetlands of the East Alligator River

Rock formation at the top of the Rock shelter

More Rock Painting, this one was sick, many lumps on joints to show what could happen if you ate the wrong thing.

We had morning coffee & lunch at the Border Store.

The road down & across Cahills Crossing on the East Alligator River very good fishing spot.

If you cross & don't watch what you are doing when the river is up you end up upside down hoping that the crocodiles don't see you.

Fishing from the rock near the crossing, heaps of traffic crossing the crossing

This fellow must have felt lucky as 5 mins before he got to this spot a big crocodile was floating about 15 meters from his spot in the middle of the crossing

The crocodile moved to the bank to watch

Next day we did a mine tour, this was interesting as the Uranium is the all the mine here

On Thursday we headed for Nourlangie Art site, above from the lookout to the Kakadu Escarpment.

The country around the area looking at the rocks, the art site is about 2km from this spot.

Lightning man & Namarrgon at the Anbangbang Gallery, there is also a shelter that date back some 20,000 years of Aboriginal occupation

Jim Jim Falls

The next day we went 4x4 driving to Jim Jim Falls. 40k of dirt & 10 k of real 4x4 driving. Snowflake did well. It took as long to do 10k as the first 40K. Once into the falls carpark it was another 1km walk, not far you say, 900 meters of rock track one way.

Me rock climbing on the track

View down stream of the falls, you can swim at the falls but not down stream

On our last day out there we did a sunset cruise on the Yellow Waters.

This Jabiru was fishing

She pinched his fish when he walked away

Don't think they new it was undersize

We saw a lot of birds again this Sea Eagle was enjoying the afternoon in a tree by the water. Its mate was just a few trees away.

Sunset on the Yellow Waters

On Monday we headed back to Darwin for a bit so will tell you all about that later