Outback Adventure - Days 11 and 12

Batchelor - Lichfield - Darwin

We have a day to complete our trip to Darwin, about 200km away via Lichfield National Park. We decide to take it easy and get there by early afternoon.

We get up at our leisure, drink coffee and watch the birds. We see an Australian Fig Eater for the first time. Our complimentary breakfast is a toasted sandwich, coffee and juice. Good. We watch some more birds while we wait for the last of the washing to dry. Eli collects some more seeds from the Red Seed Tree - but gives up when the mozzies start biting.

Lichfield National Park's main attraction is a series of waterfalls feeding swimable rock pools. Our mission for the day is to cruise from pool to pool in the morning and then do the last 100km to Darwin after lunch.

We stop at Florence Falls for a swim. We take the long way to the pool: a lovely 1.6 km walk through the bush. It is very warm and humid, but bearable if you keep sipping at the water bottle. At last we reach this magnificent place. A rock pool, crystal clear, fed by a waterfall about 20m high. I swim up to the waterfall, but it is hard work.

Into the jungle.

We continue on to Wangi Falls, but unfortunately it is closed for swimming. The water level is still high and its not croc-free yet. It is open for viewing, though. This is even more magnificent that Florence. A lot bigger, and two waterfalls feeding it, both a lot higher than Florence.

Wangi falls.

The heat is getting to us and we decide to stop here at the kiosk for refreshment, shade and lunch. Refreshment is had in the form of ice cold Coca Cola. Lunch is what you see advertised in the NT as a 'Burger with the works'. They are not lying either. When this made-to-order, 2-hander monster arrives, it is composed of a bun, some BBQ sauce, a beef patty, a fried egg, 2 rashers of bacon, a ring of pineapple, several slices of tomato, several slices of beetroot, fried onions, a slab of cheese and a lettuce leaf (for colour, I suppose). I have never seen such a thing! At A$9.00 you can't beat it for value either.

If this doesn't make sense, then maybe it's time to update your will.

We hit hit the road again and and don't stop until we hit Darwin. It feels strange to be driving on a double carriageway, and having to contend with traffic. Darwin's main drag is a combination of backpacker digs, street cafes, bars and restaurants. We get a double room in one of the digs and with it access to the roof bar, pool and spa at Melaleuca On Mitchell Backpacker Hostel (http://www.momdarwin.com/). What a great idea! We immediately take them up on the offer. The roof area has three pools, a waterfall and a bar. The music is pumping and the atmosphere is jolly. Assorted backpackers, mixed nuts and weird-beards sit around tables dragging on roll-ups and sipping beer. We swim, sip cold beer and display our many, many mosquito bites with pride.

We empty the car, since all out stuff needs to go back into two bags and hand luggage, ready for our flight tomorrow. We have loads of food left over which we hand out to anybody who is prepared to take it.

We shower and go looking for a seafood restaurant, dead set on a seafood platter. The one restaurant that might supply it is unfortunately closed, as its Monday night.

Undeterred, we decide to go to Hanuman's (http://www.hanuman.com.au), allegedly the best restaurant in Darwin. They do Thai and Indian. We have to wait an hour and a quarter for a table, so we decided to find a beer somewhere and wait. We find a bar showing SA v. Aus one day cricket! Back at Hanuman's we start with a taster plate of prawns, scampi and two unrecognizable sea animals. Washed down with Aussie bubbly to celebrate the safe and successful conclusion of our trip. Eli has a delicious Red Seafood Curry, while I get a Barramundi in Coconut Curry. Very good, but I was hoping for some chilli too. Unfortunately, Eli just about falls asleep on her plate, so a magnificent meal is a bit wasted on weary travellers wearing their cleanest dirty clothes.

We walk back to our digs. Tired, but very well fed and watered.


Farewell Darwin

Today is another travel day. At 7 o'clock Eli is packing. Everything, including out new camping kit, left over wine and spices needs to go into 2 bags and 2 backpacks. We're done at 9 and load the car.

We go looking for breakfast, but Darwin should be called Sleepy Town. Most coffee shops only open at 10. At last we find a pretentious faux-Italian joint with poor service and a worse breakfast. At least the coffee was good, when it eventually arrived.

Second stop for the day is to park on one of Darwin Harbour's piers. We spend a long time staring, mesmerised, at the clear, turquoise blue water of the Timor Sea, imagining Indonesia somewhere over the horizon. It is a slightly hazy day, yet neither of us have ever seen seawater quite as blue as this.

Next stop, and last touristy bit, is the Indo Pacific Marine Institute. In here they build and self-sustaining marine ecosystems. The only maintenance is the addition of rainwater from time to time. We join a very interesting, passionate guided tour and talk. The reason for the crystal clear water around Darwin is clarified: No sewage is pumped into the sea, and no commercial fishing is allowed from the port. Consequently the the natural ecosystems are still functional and are keeping the water clean and healthy.

We fill up the Land Cruiser and hand it back to the rental agency. She was thirsty, but glorious.

Then taxi to the airport. At check-in, we realise that we packed a book of matches in the hold luggage! Everything is unpacked and we find the matches at last. With the suitcases off to the hold, we go in search of lunch. Our only option for warm food is a takeaway chicken burger (well, they call it chicken) from Mr Rooster. This was a mistake.

I get window seat again. Our flight path takes us south to the Barkly Tablelands around Tennant Creek, and then south-east to Sydney. Once again I get to see this magnificent piece of Earth from the air.

We get to see our last yellow, orange, red, purple and indigo desert sunset. Both of us are pretty melancholy. As a rule, we never go back to the same place for another tour. Our philosophy is to see and do everything we possibly can, the first time; never leave with regrets, or 'I would have liked to'. Nevertheless, we realise that there is still so much here that we have yet to see, do and experience.

Maybe, one day. Who knows.

Outback Adventure - Day 10

Point Stuart - Mary River - Batchelor

Today's route.

We would like to stay here for another day, but they don't have any rooms available. We cook breakfast on the barbecue by the pool, Aussie style. While we are packing up one of the fishermen meets us and insists on giving us the 1kg barramundi steak he promised me in the bar last night. It goes straight in the fridge - dinner sorted.

We drive to Mary River, 40km down the dirt road. We see lots of wallabies hopping across the road, as well as a swarm of Galahs.

A wallabie sitting in the shade.

At Mary River we join a boat cruise, guided by one of the locals I met in the bar last night. We had discussed the methods of preparation of kangaroo meat - he was a chef in a previous life. The boat trip is the same format as Kakadu: Spot crocks and birds; don't fall in. This time, we are relaxed, the sun is higher up, so the awning does its job and there is a slight breeze. Result: A much more enjoyable trip. We also see loads more birds.

A Pandanus island surrounded by waterlillies.

As the water level drops around here, water lilies start blooming. We visit several spots where there are white and pink water lilly flowers as far as the eye can see. Croc-spotting is a bit disappointing, since we only so one freshie.

Waterlillies everywhere.

A close up waterlilly.

A freshie giving us the eye.

Some of the birds we saw on the cruise:

Dollarbird
Cockatoo
Great Egret
Intermediate Egret
Little Egret
Jabiru Stork
Magpie Goose
Masked Lapwing
Pied Heron
Plumed Whistling-Duck
Radjah Shelduck
Wandering Wistling-Duck
White Bellied Sea Eagle
Whistling Kite

A Masked Lapwing.

A tree full of Cockatoos.

A White-bellied Sea-Eagle

A Pied Heron

At about noon we go ashore again. We say our goodbyes and head off. We stop at the Bark Hut Tavern for another home made lunch. It is becoming a bit spartan, since we have not restocked for a while, but its good enough.

These kind of taverns are dotted throughout the Northern Territory. It is a restaurant/convenience store one one side and a bar on the other. Supplies petrol and diesel and provides a wide verandah with roof-fans, tables and benches. The result is that travellers and fishermen stop off here to fill up on fuel, food and beer.

Eli finds a place stay outside Batchelor, next to the Lichfield National Park. To get there, we need to do 180km sealed road or 80km dirt track suitable for 4wd vehicles only. We check the condition of the dirt road with the locals - its fine to use as long as your vehicle has a high clearance. No problem for the Land Cruiser then. As it turns out, it was not much of a challenge, except for two river crossings.

At the first crossing I got worried, because a Mazda pickup was parked next to the road. I walked over to find out whats up, but they were just having a beer in the shade. They told me this crossing was no problem, but warned me against the next one. I had a look at the crossing and it looked pretty tame all the way through. This turned out to be the case.

The second crossing seemed quite daunting. About 30 yards wide and dammed up by a rock wall. There are signs up saying 'Beware of crocodiles' and 'No Swimming', but what can you do? So I walked through keeping a very close eye on any movement in the water. Maximum depth was about halfway up my thigh, flowing at about 1 meter per second. No holes or big rocks. Of course the Land Cruiser doesn't even break a sweat. The only sweating is done by me - I don't fancy being crocodile food.

Harry 1, Crocs 0

Our digs for the night is a luxury room in a campsite just outside Lichfield National Park - a portacabin with a double bed, its own en-suite, verandah, and 2 air conditioners. The proprietor provided a gas barbie and gas on the house. This was lovely: Spacious, cool and clean. Once again, we celebrate our good fortune with G&T's while looking at the birds. We move on to the pool for a swim, where one of the other campers introduces Eli to the Red Seed Tree.

For dinner we grill the fresh barramundi the Aussie way. We eat it with lemon butter and boiled potatoes with sour cream. A magnificent meal.

There are a few mosquitoes about, but nothing to worry us since we are protected by our newly purchased, the NT's own, Bushmans anti-mozzie spray. We sit outside, drinking wine, listening to the sounds of night and looking at the stars while it cools down.

Tomorrow: Swimming through Lichfield and into Darwin...

Outback Adventure - Day 9 - Ubirr and beyond

Ubirr - Point Stuart

We reach Ubirr at about 1 o'clock. It is beyond bloody hot. We slap on the Banana Boat sunscreen and pack lots of water. The Ubirr site itself is a series of rocky outcrops on otherwise flat, tropical land. There are more than 5,000 rock painting sites in Kakadu alone, but this is the most important (That they let us whitefella tourists see, anyway).

Eli in the jungle

In Ubirr itself, there are around 120 rock painting sites of which 5 are open to the public. This seemed a bit odd, until I started to understand that this is not a travelling circus. It is not put up for my benefit. It is very sacred to the local people.

Various outcrops poking up out of the floodplain.

Dating the paintings are difficult, but some of them have been dated at at least 20 000 years old. That makes them the oldest examples of human art on Earth.

Bear in mind that the aboriginal people reached Australia between 60 000 and 65 000 years ago. They are the living descendants of mankind's first successful migration out of Africa. Theirs is the oldest living culture on Earth. We are privileged indeed to see their art.

An image of a long necked turtle.

A circular path takes us past all the sites. The rock art is done in white, yellow, orange, red and black ochre. Newer paintings sometimes overwriting older ones, sometimes reinforcing the older ones. Some of the paintings have incredible details, like fishes showing the position of the backbone and internal organs - An anatomy lesson in stone! Others are painted 5 meters above ground level on the lip of the cave!

Images of Barramundi. Notice the backbone and organs.

More x-ray fish!

Several sandstone outcrops are covered in paintings and the path takes us past each. There are also explanatory plaques to explain the context of what we are seeing. In one spot, a whitefella smoking a pipe is shown.

Here's a wallaby and a whitefella with his hands in his pockets. Lots of other, fainter, images.

Here's a turtle done in white, with a human stick figure to the left. The stick figures are some of the oldest drawings.

We walk up to a lookout point, allowing us a view over the entire landscape. From here we can see wetlands, floodplains, savannah, forest and mountain. It is easy to see how someone can feel particularly close to his gods in a place like this.

Looking out over the wetlands.

Another view over the wetlands.

We drive on and reach Point Stuart 2 hours later. This is an oasis close the the north coast of Australia. The birds are singing in the trees, the wallabies grazing on the verges of the forest. Our room is basic. Very basic. 2 Basic boarding school style single beds, separated by a fridge, an airconditioner mounted on the wall. Thats it. But its clean and mozzie free. We think its heaven.

We make our way to the shaded pool where several other guests are already enjoying beers in the not so cool water. They swop fishing stories - this is barra country! Australia's world famous recreational sportfish, and pretty good to eat too.

I'm dying for a beer - all mine are warm, since I forgot to put any 'tinnies' in the fridge this morning. The bar/restaurant opens at 5 pm and we are the first there, complete with binoculars and bird book. We spot several new birds while relaxing in the shade.

The bar/restaurant is a corrugated iron annexe to the main homestead. Inside are numerous photos of guys holding massive barramundi, the odd crocodile skull, bush pig skulls and black and white photos of hunters with their feet on dead waterbuffaloes. They sell two types of beer and don't do tabs for anybody.

We both order barramundi and chips for dinner, which was excellent. The longer we sit, the more people arrive: Rough-necks, fishing types, drifters. Almost imperceptibly, the women leave. Eli is almost the last female to leave the bar.

An AFL game is set to start and the telly's volume is cranked up to compete with the music. Chairs are arranged in more of a cinema style, in order for everybody to be able to keep an eye on the game while getting on with the more important jobs of drinking and talking. I get talking with a few guys and am immediately introduced to a few others. Some of them won't give me the time of day once they find out I know nothing of barramundi fishing; with others I get on like a house on fire.

One guy and his father are on their annual barra fishing trip. They drive the 4 000km from Melbourne every year - in just 4 days, towing the boat. Another guy is the resort guide. He will be taking us on a birdwatching river cruise in the morning, but this evening we discuss the merits of kangaroo flesh and debate the best way of preparation.

This is my second experience of real Australia and real Australians. I realise again how incredibly friendly, helpful, genial and welcoming Australians are. Always ready with "G'day, howya doin?" Direct and no nonsense too, but I like it that way. These are hardy individualists, tough as nails, but equally ready with common courtesy or a pair of schooners.

Stories are told; laughs are shared; beer flows; jokes are exchanged; AFL teams are insulted. The later it gets, the better it gets. I could stay here all night, but the little voice manages to get a hearing too and I suspect I left at about 12, while they were still going strong.

What happens next? Read more on Day 10...

Outback Adventure - Day 9 - Yellow River Billabong

Kakadu - Yellow River Billabong

When the alarm goes off at 5:30 I am already awake. We are both sticky, grumpy and tired. The temperature never went below 30 degrees C. We had planned to spend another night in our idyllic campsite, but with unspoken agreement we just pack up everything in record time - whilst trying to ignore the mozzies.

We hit the road at 6:00 in darkness. Rendezvous with the boat for a cruise on the Yellow River Billabong at 6:25.

Pre dawn on the water.

First light of dawn

Dawn's pinks and blues reflecting off the water.

We are on the Billabong by sunrise. Beautiful pink and turquoise light reflecting off the calm water surface. Birds calling to each other. Crocodiles waking up to catch the first warm rays of the sun.

A billabong is a bend in the river that has been cut off from the main channel by receding water levels. Another clue to the words of that Aussie anthem, Waltzing Matilda. It becomes a self contained ecosystem and a haven for birds, fish, frogs, crocodiles, snakes and spiders as the waters recede.

During the Wet, the water level rises by 8-12 m, engulfing everything in its wake. Now, at the beginning of the Dry, waters have receded somewhat. The waterlilies are in bloom and the birds are just starting to return from to the newly dry trees.

A pair of Rainbow Bee-eaters

Jabiru Storks doing a mating dance.

Our guide is a local and tries to be funny: "You may have noticed the life vests. They are almost completely useless." He is technically correct, since these are crocodile infested waters, but I am suffering from a serious sense of humour failure at the moment.

Our guide quite clearly has a thing for crocs - he spots them in no time and spends a lot of time telling us about them. We see several "salties", some sunning themselves with open mouths, some swimming. No "freshies" about today. Freshies apparently won't go for humans - not that I'm going to test that theory.

A Salty giving us the eye

This one has survived a fight.

One fantastic sight of the day is a fish eagle taking off from its perch, diving down to the surface and pulling a fish out of the water with its claws. You only see this stuff in the movies. Luckily our guide knows his birds as well as the crocs. We have lots of questions.

A White Bellied Sea-Eagle

The sun is now well up and with the sun comes the heat and the mosquitoes - although they are not quite as bad as the night before.

At 8:45 we moor up again. I am usually not at my best if I am hungry, sweaty or tired. Today I am all 3. We decide to find food as soon as possible. This is achieved at the Cooinda resort, where we both do a buffet breakfast, coffee and juice.

After more coffee and juice we decide that this is no way to live. Clearly, camping in a tent in the Top End is a pastime best practiced by the locals, or people who think that 35 degrees C is 'cool'. Our enquiries have also shown that almost all of the more interesting parts (read - where I can make use of my hired Land Cruiser's 4x4 capabilities) of Kakadu is still closed due to impassable roads after the Wet. Is is also clear that our information about mosquitoes not being a problem early in the Dry is completely wrong.

We tally our mosquito bites and I count 95 on my arms and legs. We get to over a hundred on one of Eli's legs, and then stopped counting! We both look as if we a suffering from chickenpox.

At this stage, camping in Kakadu holds very little charm and we decide to find air conditioned, mosquito proof lodgings for the night. It is Easter Weekend, and the whole of Kakadu is booked out. Eli exhausts all the hotels and other options in Kakadu and eventually finds an air conditioned, mozzie free, budget room at Point Stuart in the Mary River National Park, 300 km's away.

First stop, however, is the World Heritage Site of Ubirr....

Outback Adventure - Day 8

Mataranka - Katherine - Edith Falls - Mary River Roadhouse - Kakadu

Today's route. About 300km.

Good Friday: We need to be in Katherine (100 km's away) by 9:00 for the kind man at Hobbit Auto Electrics to have a look at the rooftop tent on his day off. A closer inspection reveals that the wood of the base is mostly rotted away and several of the retaining screws are missing or loose. In short, it is quite likely that one of us will fall right through the base the next time we get in. Mr Hobbit Auto Electrical kindly did what he could to make it safe.

In the tourist info centre we book our places for the Yellow River Billabong Dawn Cruise tomorrow. Cast off is at 6:25 in the AM!

On our way to Kakadu we stop at Edith Falls for a quick dip in this massive, waterfall fed rock pool. Stunning place. Our only look at the Katherine River Gorge National Park.

Palms and Pandanus everywhere around Edith Falls.

We head on and reach Mary River Roadhouse for a late lunch with complimentary coffee for the driver. It is stupid warm and very humid. At least there are no flies. We find a table in the shade where we make a lunch of salad leaves, salami, bread, mayo, olives, tomatoes and cucumber.

This guy, a Blue Faced Honeyeater, sang for us while we were having lunch.

At 3.00 we are on the road again and pass into Kakadu park. Our cruise is based at Cooimba, which is our first stop. This is a commercial resort. We have look around, but decide against staying there. Too commercial and too loud.

We find an excellent spot 2km further on. Sub-tropical forest with palm trees and ferns. Good facilities within walking distance. We have neighbours, but they are only just visible through the forest. We set up camp and drink beers, very happy with ourselves.

A termite mound. We thought this one was quite big, at 2.5m. A few days later we saw several that were 4.5-5m high. It is thought that, gram for gram, there are more termites under Australia than all the surface animals combined.

A Galah. They are everywere.

At sundown we head for the showers and see an Azure Kookaburra. Quite a 'Wow!' moment. As big as a small chicken and completely unbothered by us. Back at the site we start a fire with some wood stacked next to the barbecue.

At this stage things start going pear shaped. Our idyllic campsite, (which in retrospect was surrounded by sheets of water) seems to be equally attractive to mosquitoes. There are fucking millions of them. The Aerogard we have sprayed on seems to have no effect whatsoever and the mosquito coils we burn acts like navigation beacons for them. Even though it is dark, it is still bloody warm. We are sweating just from sitting still. While we are being sucked dry, I realise that the wood is gum-wood: absolutely useless as far as making coals are concerned. At this stage I have not yet realised how the Aussies do their barbecue's and trying to do it SA style with Aussie wood and facilities is an exercise in frustration. I try to get some coals going, but they are just as crap as the previous time. Back to the gas stove and frying pan. We are very hungry and being eaten alive, so the potatoes that were supposed to go onto the coals stay raw and we eat a t-bone steak each for dinner.

Our ground tent is a piece of gauze, to keep the mosquitoes out. We did not bother to put the flysheets out. With great relief and a certain amount of disgust we get into the tent to sleep.

Sleep proves elusive, since it is so hot and humid that I just lie on my back in a pool of sweat. There is not a breeze to cool us down. The full moon on our faces just adds to the frustration. After a while I am awakened by dingos howling a few metres from me. For defence, between the two of us, we have one sat of PJ's and an alarm clock. I lie awake, and quite still, for a long time listening to them sniffing and rummaging through our camp and wondering whether they will take an interest in us humans.

After a seeming eternity, sleep takes me. Into Day 9...

Outback Adventure - Day 7

Devil's Marbles - Tennant Creek - Renner Springs - Daly Waters - Mataranka

Today's route: All the way up into the tropical Top End.

After a long an painful search for the best way to sleep in the passenger seat of a Land Cruiser, I can confirm that that position does not exist. It is merely a painful exercise in futility.

I lie and watch black turn to grey and finally the pink and orange of first light. I wake Eli up. She is not exactly a barrel of laughs either. Apparently, the back seat offers no sleeping comforts either.

We make coffee, brush teeth and head off at 7:15. We have a long day of driving ahead and neither of us have had any sleep of note.

Sunrise over the marbles.

More sunrise

First light hitting an outcrop.

After about 5km we hear a flappy kind of rattle coming from the top of the car. We pull over to discover a fully opened roof tent. The canvas cover have become loose and the wind has blown the tent open. After some swearing, the tent is well secured and we set off again.

A minute later the same thing happens again. A car comes from ahead and flashes his lights at us. Yes, dipshit, I am aware of the tent on my roof. Several choice swearwords are employed. Various cars, tents, rental agencies, natural phenomena and countries are covered.

We realise that the rain has weakened the velcro bonds securing the canvas covering. Added to this is the fact that only 2 of the 8 tie-down straps are actually functional. Just as well Eli sent me back to the camping shop in Alice to buy a bungee cord. This is employed to tie the tent down proper.

40 Minutes into our trip and we have covered 5 km.We both had a night very short on sleep and now we discover mechanical problems with our kit too. From a pretty low base my mood is deteriorating yet further.

We stop at Tennant Creek for diesel. 80 litres for 490km!

161km further north we stop at Renner Springs for coffee and breakfast. It is 9:30 in the morning and already stupid hot. There seems to be less flies, though. At the petrol station I spot a road train with 4 trailers. 82 Wheels on that monster!

The first thing you see as you approach Renner Springs.

The hotel proper. Quite nice, actually.

Eli manages some sleep on the way here, so she takes the next shift to Daly Waters. I try to sleep, but no luck. I use the time to get the diary up to date.

The road north.

Daly Waters is 250km to the north. Things become greener, almost imperceptibly. We stop at Daly Waters for lunch and a beer. It is the oldest pub in the Northern Territory, with a liquor licence valid since the 1880's. It a a lovely, charming pub set in a magnificent, desert-isolation, setting. I could stay here for a day or two. We have our beers in the shaded courtyard and our salad lunch in the shade of a tree. Shade is a godsend. It is midday and the tropical humity has kicked in.

Daly Waters Pub.

Eli takes the next driving shift as well as we head further north. About 300km to go. I take over after a hundred or so. During the changeover I manage to let a few flies into the cabin. I consider giving them each a name, in order to be able to curse them each personally, rather than as a species.

Driving is hard going. I have trouble concentrating, but Eli is in even a worse state and she has done the most of the driving already. I tore a fingernail two days earlier and it has become infected, and throbbing, no doubt helped on by stress, poor sleep and no showers for 36 hours.

At this stage it becomes clear that we are not in the Red Centre any more. The world is greener, with more rolling hills and new types of plants. The grass is high and green, the trees are taller, greener and healthier.

You can't leave Australia without a photo like this. So here it is.

This is what they refer to. Shy little cuties.

After a seeming eternity we arrive in Mataranka. It is 5pm, fucking hot and fucking humid. We need food, water, beer and wine, since tomorrow is Good Friday and nothing will be open. Without beer, I might need to call it Not So Good Friday. This is a roughneck town. I am the smallest guy in the supermarket. Even the checkout chicks will probably be able to floor me if I look at them askew. They are friendly enough, though. No food worth eating to be had here, but I do manage to get a slab of Tooheys New.

We have planned to go to Katherine, another 120km or so, but we decide that this is far enough. There is a hot spring about 10km further on, at Mataranka Homestead, which styles itself as a 'resort'. We are both gatvol, scratchy, tired, dirty, sticky and warm. All of our clothes are dirty and will need a wash before the 4 days that we intend to spend in Kakadu.

We rent a motel room at Mataranka Homestead for the night. Eli, the angel that she is, sends me off to go find a beer and some shade, while she puts the washing in. Two beers later Eli arrives and we wander through the rainforest to the hot spring. The water flows into a crystal clear rockpool where we float about, look at at the sky through the palm canopy, listen to the calls of cockatoos and generally feel our muscles relax and our cares wash away. We reluctantly get out when it gets dark.

We head to the fan-cooled bar where we drink G&T's and generally chill out. Dinner is pan fried barramundi and chips, eaten in the bar. Very good indeed.

We go back to our room, set the air-con to 'Arctic' and take looong showers. Bliss!

Read on to Day 8...

Outback Adventure - Day 6

Ormiston Gorge - Tyler's Pass - Hermannsburg - Alice Sprigs - Barrow Creek - Devil's Marbles

Today's route.

Today is a big travel day, but we oversleep! We only wake at 8! Breakfast and breakup in a flash. We decided last night to press on and get to the Top End as soon as possible, rather than taking a leisurely road trip up the Stuart Highway.

We arrive at Glen Helen at 9 am to purchase our Mereenie permits. Then it's off to Tyler's Pass. On the way, we drive past another flock of budgeriars and see some wallabies on three different occasions. Grey, with darker legs and tail.

We stop at Tyler's Pass to look at the Tnorala meteorite crater. This vast impact crater was made 132 million years ago. Today the walls of the crater still rise up like a vast mountain range. The locals believe that some ancestors were dancing in the Milky Way, when one of them dropped their baby. The baby fell all the way to Earth and impacted here.


Up on the ridge, it is so cold that Eli gets a jumper out. It's quite hazy and overcast, so I doubt the photos will look like much.

That's the crater wall in the distance.

Onwards. The road turns back west and we are on the dirt track to Hermannsburg, where we don't stop. We plan a shopping list for Alice, since we need to buy food for at least 2 days, fill up with diesel and eat lunch. This needs to be done in record time - we need to drive another 400km before dark. In the outback, you generally don't drive after dark. 80% of the animals are nocturnal and have no fear of humans. A Red Kangaroo going through a windscreen at night usually means death for all involved.

Nice of them to name it after me!

All done within an hour and we head north at 1pm. 1450km to Darwin. The plan is to get to Tennant Creek, about 500km away, tonight. Tomorrow will be another big drive to get us about 800km further north into the Top End, around Katherine.

A few km' s out of Alice.

The road generally stretches from horizon to horizon. If it ever happens to bend, they announce it with a sign! It is an easy, relaxing road. The Land Cruiser doesn't do much over 110km/h and at that speed it gets about 4km/litre! I shit you not. Much more economical to keep it going at 100km/h in 5th gear.

That's where we came from.

That's where we're going.

The landscape is desert, but beautiful: Red sand with spinifex grass and clumps of Desert Oak, giving way to clumps of Blue Malee, Wichety, Mulga, Ghost Gum and open field. Flatlands give way to outcrops, ridges and flatland again. Open field will suddenly change to gum forest the almost completely overgrows the highway. On the way we see masses of Whistling Kites, Black Kites and the occasional Wedge Tailed Eagle.

We stop at Barrow Creek for a beer. This is possibly the most dilapidated hotel I have ever drank a beer at. No matter. The fridges seems to be working, since the XXXX Gold is cold.

Barrow Creek Hotel. Ahh, yes.

A shaded verandah. Not to be sniffed at.

The pool room. With emergency power supply, christmas lights and sound system.

You had better not get in trouble with the man.

The campsite and motel. Call me a perfectionist, but it just didn't do it for me.

The bar / reception / restaurant.

A 62-wheeler road train filling up. They brake for nobody.

Back on the road to Wycliffe Wells, the self proclaimed UFO headquarters of Australia. We stop only long enough to photograph the locals next to green alien dolls.

It's weird, Jim, but not as we know it.

17km Further is Wauchope Hotel. Not quite as dilapidated as Barrow Creek, but a close second. We did consider this as a overnight spot, but decided to press on.

11km North is Devil's Marbles, our major goal for the day. It is a vast expanse of rounded granite boulders, weirdly stacked and lying about. They range in size from pebble-size to house-size. We have an hour to spare before sunset, but we can only visit and marvel at a fraction of rocks. We find a good spot on top of a large rock from where we can watch the sunset. It's a good one. It has been cloudy all day.

Some of the Devil's Marbles.

Oops! Sorry.

Rocks everywhere.

A good sunset, at last.

Last light.

There is a basic campsite here, filled with campers and grey nomads. We set up camp. The wind is quite strong, but we decide to barbecue anyway. An hour later I realise that the charcoal I bought in Alice is complete and utter shit. It gives a nice red glow to the barbie, but most certainly no heat. Back to the camp stove, then.

In the distance, we hear the cry of a dingo.

The pan-fry effort is not too bad: Medium rare t-bone steak, mushroom and garlic cream sauce, yellow string beans and roasted sweet potato with butter.

As we are sitting down for dinner we spot a dingo about 5m from us. After a brief 'Oh Shit' moment, I try to chase it off. It's either too tame or too hungry and never goes further than about 10m away. Eventually we both don our headlamps. We watch the dingo as he moves about, while trying to enjoy the food. This is not the most relaxing meal! After dinner I get a few photos and then finally manage to chase him away.

Too close for me.

At 9:30 we are in bed on top of the roof. The wind is blowing, but not too bad. At about midnight I am woken up by one of the flaps of the tent flapping incessantly. I can't sleep and lie awake for what seems hours. Eventually, I get to sleep, only to wake up with a howling wind at 2:30. Eli is oblivious, since she is wearing earplugs. I wake her up and tell her that there is a storm coming. We need to get the tent stowed away and beds made in the car.

Eli is dressed in some PJ's, but I'm in the buff. I therefore split my attention between stowing the tent and defending myself against a dingo that might want to grab my bits. Luckily, we saw no sign of the dingo.

We are barely in the car, or the rain starts pattering. How charming. The wind starts to howl and rocks the car. The rain becomes louder and louder until it is an deluge rattling the car's roof windscreen and engine flap. It seems to vary in intensity, but it never stops. Lightning is hitting the earth a few times a minute, sometimes deafeningly close. This racket, combined with the fact that Land Cruisers were not built to allow 2 adults to sleep in comfort, makes for a night of tossing, turning, swearing and very little sleep.

We are dry and safe, which is something, but that's about it.

More on Day 7...