Losing a wheel in Litchfied, seedy hotels and plastic bowls in Katherine

We decided to take the scenic 4WD track out of Litchfield towards Douglas Hot Springs, our next destination. It was pretty rough, but fun and very pretty and so we were travelling along happily until Bill glanced in the side mirror and screeched a series of expletives. One of the trailer wheels was wobbling madly and threatening to fall off altogether. We had no choice but to creep slowly along in an attempt to get into phone reception range so we could call for help. Bill did an excellent job steering carefully over some pretty rough patches and through a couple of water-crossings but finally with a tremendous thump the wheel fell off and the trailer crashed down on the right side.  It was unmovable and in the middle of the track. At this point, Bill burnt two fingers badly on the fallen wheel –just to add to the general drama of the moment. Sasha was still talking 19 to the dozen about Harry Potter and Zara was deep into a book and hadn’t really even noticed that we had stopped…

We reckoned that 4WDs could get around us ok and anyway there didn’t seem to be anyone else using the track, so we unhitched the trailer, grabbed a few essentials from it and headed towards the main road to call the trusty RACV. Bill travelled with his fingers in a container of water while Kate navigated a few more water crossings and was relieved that we didn’t meet anyone coming the other way who would come across our discarded trailer. We couldn’t get reception for at least an hour after we hit the main road, but eventually we got onto the RACV total care people and discussed all sorts of options for towing and accommodation. I’m not going to say much about RACV total care because I don’t want to be accused of having the blog sponsored… but wow they have totally saved our buts twice now…

We knew we would have to bypass Douglas Hot Springs, Butterfly Gorge etc and head straight for Katherine to wait until the trailer was towed and fixed – and so we began the long drive to the seedy Katherine hotel into which the friendly RACV folk had booked us… So much for our return to the bush… But the kids were besides themselves with excitement – they LOVE hotels and felt it was the height of luxury. Kate and Bill less impressed – particularly by the knock on the door at 3am by drunken woman asking for water!

Next day we learned that we would be in Katherine for about a week whilst the trailer was being fixed. We were glad we had our cases of clothes etc but quickly realised that we hadn’t grabbed our crockery/cutlery box, any food, books and other necessities. We spent the week eating very basic food (lots of BBQs) from plastic bowls with teaspoons… All part of the adventure.

While Katherine might not be everybody’s cup of tea, it’s really not a bad spot to be stuck for a week. The kids were happy to spend some time in the excellent Katherine library, we enjoyed the hot springs again, checked out the three local op shops, and had a ‘cultural experience’ at the Top Didj Gallery. This involved an friendly Aboriginal guide called Manuel who chatted to us a bit about his life out bush, his first experience of white people, his sadness at the lack of cultural knowledge in areas like Katherine, and tried to explain a bit about the complicated kinship system. Manuel then taught us how to do a simple painting and we all had a go, which was heaps of fun. Bill painted a squid (!), Zara a yam, and Sasha and Kate painted long-necked turtles. Zara and Sasha also painted their clothes! After painting we learnt how to make a fire with sticks, which was remarkably quick and easy. We were all beside ourselves with excitement at having done this especially Sash who has been telling everyone since that he started a fire without a clicker. We also had a go at throwing a spear using a woomera – aiming at a cut-out kangaroo. Sash then announced that he would be hunting for our dinner each night from now on, but Manuel told him gently that boys didn’t start to hunt until they are in their mid-teens.

We also used our time in Katherine to do some day trips. We visited Douglas Hot Springs which was total bliss – shallow pools of water of varying temperatures in which we wallowed for hours chatting to a physics teacher and a bloke who specialised in making stuff from animal by-products. As they often do, the kids joined another family leaving Kate and Bill to wallow and chat in peace… Another day, we drove down to Bitter Springs and Mataranka for another day of wallowing in hot springs. Really, the NT has a ridiculous amount of beautiful natural swimming spots. We feel a bit sad at the thought of returning to Melbourne where, lovely as it is, swimming is usually confined to indoor pools.

A highlight of our week in Katherine was a visit from Tanya. We had been hoping to see her because she has recently accepted an exciting job offer for which she will be based in Katherine and so is travelling regularly from Darwin to attend meetings etc. Lucky for us Tanya decided to visit despite no meetings being scheduled. We were all excited to see her but Sash was positively trembling with anticipation. Tanya took a room in our lovely (?!) hotel and each of the kids had a sleepover with her. We did a day trip to a lovely place called Edith Falls – yet another glorious swimming spot north of Katherine. Zara, Tanya and Kate swam over to the falls and saw a water monitor whilst Bill and Sash played a game called ‘dump me under like rumbling thunder’- another of Sash’s inventions.

Sad to say goodbye to Tanya again the next day but we consoled the kids with the fact that we will see her on Christmas Eve - which is not that far away (frightening!). We shopped up a storm, collected and packed our trailer and resumed our journey.

Bill and broken trailer (note burnt fingers in water...)

Zara with Jill the Agile Wallaby

Manuel playing the didg

Success!

Zara in Bitter Springs pool

Family pic at Edith Falls

Finding heaven in Litchfield’s waterholes

After any stretch of time in civilization, no matter how enjoyable, we are happy to be out bush again. The open spaces and simple, outside living are addictive. Indeed we are beginning to wonder how we will survive going back to Melbourne… But we’re not there yet… So, it was a short drive from Darwin into Litchfield National Park but having indulged in 10 extra games of ‘hide the poppets’, numerous photo-shoots, countless returns for forgotten belongings etc we had headed off late and hence rolled into Florence Falls campground at dusk.  A beautiful spot and hooray, we had it all to ourselves. We had been warned that Litchfield’s close proximity to Darwin meant it was always crowded, so we felt lucky to have some peace and quiet.

It was so hot that our time in Litchfield was spent mainly in glorious waterholes. And if you are ever going to attempt to camp in ridiculously hot and humid weather, Litchfield is the place to do it. The waterholes are truly fabulous. The lure of life in Darwin became stronger for us as we imagined popping down to Buley Rockhole on the weekend and luxuriating in the natural hot tubs and scrambling over rocks in search of water monitors. Florence Falls, Buley Rockhole and Wangi Falls were highlights. A couple of times we walked before we swam, but mostly we just splashed and giggled and clambered and jumped off rocks into the cool depths.

At the campsite, the kids played footy with Brody, a mohawk-sporting 7 year old BMX champion from Alice Springs and we had an interesting chat to Brody's dad who is a prison officer in Alice. Brody reminded Bill of his childhood years in Alice -  burning around with his mates on his BMX.

On one day we visited Batchelor for a few supplies and to download emails. We had been unable to tear ourselves away from Buley Rockhole in time to lunch before we went into town, so by the time we got there we were starving and so decided to go to the Batchelor Butterfly Park for a bite. The place was weird and deserted except for a bunch of bronzed and bikinied foreigners who were obviously working there and the loud-voiced owner of the place – who, despite a slightly obnoxious air, was interesting. Not only had he set-up and owned a butterfly park, he has also ridden the length of the UK and searched for the almost extinct Javan Rhinoceros… The food was ok, the butterflies were plentiful and the kids enjoyed feeding carrot to some very hot fluffy bunnies. Sash and Bill swam in the pool whilst Kate and Zara learnt Indonesian and the capital cities of the world (boring suggested curriculum has finally been disregarded and replaced with subjects of our whim) under the whirring fans.

Florence Falls

Wangi Falls

Gian Orb Weaving spider

Termite mounds

Heavenly Buley Rockhole

Hiding the poppets in sweaty tropical Darwin

Darwin had long been a much anticipated destination for all of us for various reasons – memories of great Asian food an mango smoothies, jumping crocodiles, big supermarkets (thanks Sash), the tropical scent of frangipani, beach-side markets and of course the fact that it is home to Bill’s lovely cousin, Tanya. We were thrilled to accept Tanya’s invitation to stay at her comfy place because as much as we love our trailer, it always feels great to be in a house. And it gave us plenty of opportunity to disrupt Tanya from her study…

Tanya had another friend staying with her – Patsy, a health worker from Utopia – and so it was a quite a crowd of us that headed down to the waterfront to sit by the water and gobble up delicious Pad Thai and Laksa on that first evening. It was lovely to sit outside in the warm air and catch up on all Tanya’s news – and to grill her about her work in Aboriginal health. It was also interesting to chat to Patsy about her community and her work with all its challenges.

Next morning we set about redecorating Tanya’s lovely house with our dusty plastic boxes, piles of dirty clothes and crusty old tarps. We’re sure she loved it! Her washing machine worked tirelessly all day while Tanya herself exhibited extraordinary patience – not only with our general chaos but also with Sasha’s constant demands to be tied up with octopus straps and to play ‘hide the poppets’ (a riveting game that involves hiding 4 small Winnie the Pooh character soft toys around the living room and making the other player find them – over and over and over again). One day when Kate and Zara were at the museum, Bill watched in total astonishment as Tanya and Sash played ‘hide the poppets’ at least 25 times in a row. Needless to say Sash fell deeply in love with his cousin and is desperately looking forward to seeing her again in Melbourne for Christmas (as long as she brings the poppets…).

Saturday was also AFL Grand Final Day and Bill was half-inclined to watch the match so we headed to Darwin’s Trailer Boat Club where we met our travelling friends Hannah, Michael, Kate and Sam. There was a great excitement in the joint as the Swans and the Hawks battled it out – with the Hawks going down in the end (Kate felt a brief twinge of sadness for her childhood suburb’s team’s loss – but then quickly remembered that she doesn’t give a fig!). A playground and pool kept the kids happy – and later they crashed some bloke’s 21^st birthday and boogied the night away on the dance-floor set up in a cordoned off area of the club. No-one seemed to really mind and Sash really cut a rug while Zara teamed up with another crazy kid and together they hooned around the tables causing general mayhem, In the evening, Tanya and Patsy joined us and we all ate a delicious dinner overlooking the beach and the beautiful Darwin sunset. After dinner Sam took the kids down to the beach on a very successful hunt for hermit crabs.

On Sunday morning we awoke in our snug little beds to the sound of the first rain of the season. We were pretty desperate to stock up on food so we didn’t eat Tanya out of house and home, so we headed out in the rain for the Rapid Creek market – a fabulous Asian-style market. We had a great time poking around the stalls and buying tropical fruits then lunching on Laksa, Vietnamese rolls and sticky rice with mango. In the afternoon, Tanya kindly took the kids around to have a swim and a play at her friend Barb’s place. Bill and Kate felt a little shellshocked by the sudden peace and so indulged as only parents-who-have-been-travelling-with-2 little-kids-for -8-months would – Bill happily tapped away uninterrupted on the computer for 2 hours and Kate read the entitre Weekend Australian – cover to cover! Heaven.

Next day, Kate and Zara checked out the excellent Darwin museum where we freaked ourselves out in the Cyclone Tracy simulator and stared down Sweetheart – the MASSIVE stuffed croc (‘terror of the rivers’) before calming ourselves down with an iced chocolate and a visit to the old Darwin jail. Meanwhile, Sash and Bill hit the Darwin waterpark – a huge area of pools, waterslides and playgrounds and it’s FREE! Amazing what the local Gov will do to keep the kids out of trouble. Who needs skateparks when you can have Wet ‘n’ Wild (well, not quite) for nothing. That night, Bill and Michael tried to revive their fishing commraderie and success at the jetty in Dawin – but nothing doing except for some interesting chats to some of Darwin’s Longrassers.

Next day, we were thrilled to take Hannah and Michael up on an offer to look after the kids for a couple of hours while we saw a movie and had lunch together. Unfortunately there was not much on at the cinema and so our romantic date consisted of pretty average shopping centre Japanese food, and THE WORST MOVIE EVER. If for any reason you are ever tempted to see ‘The Watch’ – don’t (and if you have seen it and thought it was really funny – either don’t tell me or never speak to me again!). However, despite this it was actually lovely to spend some time together and actually have a conversation. We are very very grateful to H & M for this – and just sorry that Sash took this opportunity to do his famous triple-pike-somersault-land-flat-on-my-back-on-the-concrete-at-the-bottom-of-the-waterslide trick. Poor Hannah and Michael had to mop up the tears, patch him up and then take them both home for ice-cream! It was very sad to say good-bye to Hannah and Michael at the end of the day as they were heading for Indonesia for a holiday before settling down in Darwin. We were finally heading in different directions and we knew we wouldn’t see them again for a long time.

The rest of our days in Darwin were spent indulging in all sorts of pleasant things. We bought fisherman pants and drank mango smoothies at the fabulous Mindil markets, took the kids to see Hotel Transylvania at the cinema, washed everything we owned, goggled at croc feeding and glorious big tigers at Crocodylus Park, road the waves at the local wave pool, and let the kids sit up in Tanya’s bed and watch Shrek 1 and 2. But one of the major highlights of Darwin was going to the Deckchair Cinema – a beautiful open-air cinema - where we munched on delicious smokey curries and watched a really incredible documentary made by a young Melbourne film-maker called ‘I am Eleven’. See it if you can.

On our final night in Darwin we ate Bill’s hearty cannelloni and watched the Julian Assange tele-movie – interesting in itself but weird for us because a lot of it was filmed at Bill’s parents house!

It was sad to be leaving Darwin and Tanya, but exciting to be on the road again and heading to Litchfield and beyond. Massive thanks to Tanya for her incredible hospitality and patience.  We had such a wonderful time.

Zara feeding a massive croc

At the fabulous Deckchair Cinema

With Aunty Tanya (and the poppets!)

Sash and the Poppets!

Bloodthirsty mozzies, fishcakes and buffet breakfast

Next stop on our Kakadu adventure was Jabiru - the main town in the park. Bill had developed a nasty earache which he had Google-diagnosed as 'swimmers ear' for which he and Zara attended the Jabiru health clinic. In the meantime, Sash and Kate enjoyed a cold drink at a local cafe - Sash did mazes and wordsearches (latest passion) while Kate read the NT News - a dreadful tabloid newspaper filled with stories of croc attacks and such. The day's headline promised horrifying details of a fatal dog mauling - however when Kate poured over the morbid story it turned out to be a pet dog who was killed by another in a dog fight... Soon enough Bill and Zara appeared with some ear drops and we all decided to cool off and relax in the Jabiru library - an excellent place with a great Indigenous literature collection. Kate blogged and browsed, Bill read to Sash and downloaded, Zara read to herself and we were all as happy as pigs in a mudpit. Long live the airconditioned local library.

We didn't stay in Jabiru - just used the place for its amenities and then moved onto Ubir - famous for world-renowned rock art and for being the gateway to Arnhem Land. We set up and at nightfall we soon found ourselves surrounded by an army of massive mozzies grinning at us and waving their stingers hungrily. We managed to protect ourselves a bit the first night - slaughtering thousands of them by squashing them against the canvas of the trailer - leaving the roof littered with little bodies.

Next morning we visited the rock art site and saw some pretty amazing stuff. Rangers (some local and some white) gave talks about the stories behind the art which made it a lot more meaningful. We climbed past the art to a lookout and were gobsmacked at the view over the floodplains to Arnhem Land - it was gloriously green and open and unexpected. It made us wish we could visit Arnhem Land - but the only way is via a tour which are pretty pricey. Next time.

We had been told of a local secret: great Thai food at Borderstore - a little store near Ubir which happens to be owned by a Aussie guy and his Thai wife. They work like crazy during the dry season - 7 days a week from dawn until late at night, and then close up for the wet and go back to Thailand for rest and to bring back ingredients for the Thai food available in the evenings at the store. As passionate lovers of Thai food we were keen to try it - and we weren't disappointed as it was delicious and authentic. After dinner we drove up to Cahill's Crossing - the road over the river to Arnhem Land which is famous for its many salties. At high tide the crocs can be spotted standing on the roadway looking for fish. Unfortunately the tides weren't high enough and so we hadn't seen during the day, so we decided to go and look for glowing red eyes at night. Disappointingly we didn't see any but we did have an interesting chat to a fisherman who was standing precariously close to the river but who wasn't too fazed about the fact that one of the many crocs could jump up and grab him at any time... Kate was relieved when Bill decided he wouldn't chuck a line in! A drunk fisherman was actually taken at the spot a few years back - mind you he was swimming back and forth through the croc infested river so perhaps it wasn't so surprising...

That night we got massacred by the mozzies. Sash was by far the worst - he looked as though he had caught the chickenpox. We decided that we couldn't bear another night of having our children's blood sucked and so we packed up a day early. Before we left Ubir we wandered through a rainforest along the river. We were thrilled to spot heaps of salties in the water - nice and close to the path and hundreds of chattering flying foxes hanging from the trees. The walk took us towards a sacred women's site with a sign asking men to take a different path and to respect the cultural sensitivities of the area. We decided to all walk the alternative path but as we wandered along we noticed a couple emerging from the women's site. We tried to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they couldn't read the sign, but we weren't really convinced... Seriously, how hard is it to respect such a basic request.

Hot, sweaty and covered in mozzie bites, we decided to indulge in a night at the Gagadju Hotel in Jabiru. Anyone who knows Kakadu will know the massive green hotel that is indeed shaped like a crocodile - although this is most apparent from the air. It sounds pretty tacky but is actually kind of cool and seemed like the height of luxury to us. Really, for a family who was thrilled by a lino-floored cabin in the Sterling Ranges, a 5-star resort seemed ridiculously luxurious. We spent the afternoon by the pool where families subtly steered their children away from our son who looked highly contagious. Despite this, the kids managed to team up with a couple of friends and had a wonderful time splashing and playing. We ate dinner in the restaurant and watched Narnia in bed before going to sleep. But the highlight for all of us was indeed the buffet breakfast the next morning. The kids were practically jumping out of their skins with anticipation and we were almost as bad - just disguised it better! Something about long-term camping makes the bottomless plate of the buffet breakfast ridiculously appealing. An hour or so later we rolled out of the resort and back to reality. It was time to drive out of beautiful Kakadu and onto Darwin.

Three sleeping beauties

Looking over the plains to Arnhem Land

Rainforest walking in Ubir