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

Clever ants, creepy crocs and too much iced water

Gunlom was beautiful but the ants were tiny and very clever. They got into jars with screw-top lids, and snuck into supposedly sealed containers. We had to chuck out way too much food and it took ages to pick their little dead bodies out of the peanut butter. The extreme heat was running our batteries down and the fridges were in need of a power up so although we had planned more bush camping, we changed plans and camped at the Cooinda resort and caravan park for a couple of nights. It was actually a very nice place - lush and peaceful with sprinklers everywhere and the obligatory lovely pool.

Zara immediately made friends with a baby next door and spent many happy hours playing with 1yo Will and his patient parents. Although we were initially wary of a family flying the Aussie flag (never a positive sign as far as we are concerned) who were camped on the other side they turned out to be friendly and had good tips for Darwin where they have been living for a couple of years. He works for Defence which explains the flag I guess.

Next day, we jumped on our bikes for the first time in ages and rode a short way to the Warradjan Cultural Centre to learn a bit about the local peoples and their culture. It was a well presented place - very slick displays and stories told from the point of view of the local people, rather than just white historians as is often the case. The kids were particularly thrilled with a display on the spirit 'lightening man' which plays audio of lightening and thunder whenever a visitor walks past. Needless to say our entire visit was accompanied by the sounds of storms.

That evening we took a boat cruise up the spectacular Yellow River. Our guide was a young Aboriginal guy who told us a lot about the plants and birds and animals along the river. He certainly knew a lot but we had the feeling he had done the tour 1000 times before. But we saw heaps of crocs up close which was pretty amazing. Really we can't get enough of these incredible creatures and to be up close and personal with them on the river is a pretty thrilling experience. We also saw beautiful blue kingfishers, white bellied sea eagles and of course plenty Jabiru (or more precisely black-necked storks - although their necks are definitely dark green).  The lotus flowers were in full bloom and looked amazing stretching out over the billabong.

There is always iced water made available on these boat tours - a good idea in the heat except the kids are strangely fascinated by it and so spend way too much time pouring and drinking cups of water - and so need to use the on-board toilet at regular intervals. Particularly annoying on this trip as the toilet (for emergencies only...) was high enough that Sash actually had to be lifted onto it - which meant Bill and Kate were constantly being interrupted to accompany Sash to the toilet...

Next morning we took a quick dip in the luxury pool, said good bye to Hannah and Michael, Kate and Sam, and the baby next door, then headed to a nearby campsite, Mardagul, for one night. We were beginning to realise that the mozzies in Kakadu at this time of year are pretty full on. We decided to use the swag and dome tent but halfway through the night the mozzies were driving Bill bananas - buzzing around his head and biting his face so he squeezed into the dome tent with the kids and left Kate to be massacred on her own. Next morning we decided we wouldn't use the swag again until we are further south - away from the mozzies. We were all pretty covered in bites by this time,  but they were not as itchy as the sandflies so we were able to grin and bear them.

Kakadu - plunging into plunge pools and swimming in natural infinity pools

We were all excited at finally reaching Kakadu. Sash was so excited that he made up a handful of songs about Kakadu with which he entertained us for the entire drive. Most notably Ka-ka-du-du-du (to the tune of Agadoo for those of us at school in the early 80s...). We felt a bit nervous about entering this iconic part of Australia – nervous that it wouldn’t be as spectacular as we were expecting. Our first port of call was Gunlom, which is not far from the Pine Creek entrance to the park. We set up in a pleasant, shady campground and ate dinner quickly in order to go to a slideshow about Living on Country – a good general history of the area, introduction to the Jawoyn people, bush tucker and medicines.

In the morning, we hiked up to the top of the waterfall – a short, steep, rocky climb. And when we got to the top we were gobsmacked by the beauty of the place. A series of crystal clear rockpools, each with soft sandy bottoms in which you can relax whilst overlooking a very spectacular view over the waterfall. People say it is like an infinity pool. The pools are surrounded by lush foliage and trickling little waterfalls. Words could never really do this place justice. We all voted it one of the top spots of our whole trip. Lovely.

After lunch, we swam in the plunge pool at the bottom of the waterfall. It was also wonderful. Again the water was crystal clear and the just-running waterfall towered over us as we swam around the huge pool. Once we got over our slight nervousness of crocodiles, we had a great time. Of course there are salties everywhere in Kakadu, but a handful of crocodile-managed zones made some swimming safe. However, in true Australian risk-management style, the Parks folk have erected signs at the safe swimming spots telling visitors that it is possible that salties have moved into this area and that visitors are to enter the water at their own risk… So even though these areas are supposed to be safe, no one will guarentee that they really are safe… For crocodile-nervous southerners this makes for an element of fear everytime we enter the beautiful swimming spots of Kakadu. But enter we do, because it is so so hot that swimming seams almost as important as breathing! And the beautiful Gunlom swimming spots - what a start to our Kakadu adventure.

Next morning we decided to brave the extreme heat and attempt a walk at nearby Yurmikmik. We lathered up in sunscreen, jammed our hats onto our heads and walked towards a lookout. The view from the lookout was pretty spectacular, but the walking was really hot and exposed. Only early morning walks or late afternoon walks for us from now on.

Splashing at the top of Gunlom

Just another rough day at school