The Top End - Northern Territory

Ken has been working out and it is a good thing too,  he had to hold up one of the rocks at Devil's Marbles while I took a picture.

Good thing I had a big appetite.  A Daley Waters restuarant the Barra Burgers put the Big Mac to shame.

Flying Fox bats hang like grapes on the branches of the Gum trees at Katherine Gorge.

The view of Katherine Gorge from Pete's (or Bob's or Bill's ???) Lookout.  We opted for the hike instead of the cruise up the Katherine River.

A cute little joey was not ready to leave the pouch but he and mom smiled for the camera.

A Red-Collared Lorikeet...we love the birds down here.

At Edith Falls we took a walk along the creek taking the time for several swims in the plunge pools along the way.

The view from Bukbukluk Lookout of the savahnna gasslands in Kakadu NP.

Now that is a big cathedral termite mound.

A Magpie Goose calls out for its' mate in Kakadu NP.

Yellow Water cruise in Kakadu, this croc was incognito, waiting for a tasty treat.

The view of Arnhem Land in Kakadu NP.

White Lightning goes through the water no problem.  The wet season is just finishing and there is a lot of water laying around, in fact, a lot of the roads were still closed in Kakadu NP, even to 4x4s.

Adelaide River Jumping Crocs...these big guys can jump 2/3 of their body length out of the water!!!  Especially when there is food involved.

Ken checks out the prehistoric skeletons at the Darwin Museum and Cultural Art Centre.  Now that was a big goose!

The Thursday night Meindl Beach market, free entertainment...the fire man.  Lots of fun, food and fire.

Buley Water Rockhole, Litchfield NP.  Ken gets a great massage from the waterfall.  The water was clean, clear and about 26 degrees.

Kens' new favourite bird, a Northern Rosella.

Wangi Falls, Litchfield NP.  You'ld think we would have been pruned after the hours we spent in all the natural swimming plunge pools.  With all the heat and humidity here they were a welcome sight.

These little ants are a tasty bushtucker (aboriginal food) and the green bottom tastes like a burst of lemon lime.  How do we know this, you ask?  Ken has developed a taste for them.

It is all about the water up in the 'Top End'.  Waterfalls, hot springs, plunge pools, billabongs, and wetlands.  Lots of water means lots of birds and CROCS.   What are some of the highlights in the Top End?  Darwin, at the very top, is the largest city in the Northern Territory located just north of Kakadu NP, one of the most visited National Parks in Australia.  Litchfield National Park full of waterfalls and plunge pools.

1494 km from Alice Springs to Darwin, just over 500 km was back tracking up to Tennant Creek with the only stop at the Devils Marbles.  After that it was 'new road' with new sights starting with Daly Waters, a famous cattle watering stop where the drovers stayed when herding their cattle across the top, the last cattle drive being in 1987.  From there on we started to hit the water holes, Mataranka, with the natural Rainbow Hotsprings, Katherine Gorge in the Nitniluk NP,  a beautiful gorge full of water at this time of year but unfortunately with no swimming allowed in the river due to salties (crocs)...but they did have a great pool at the campground that felt real good after an afternoon of walking the gorge trails.  The rangers check the rivers for crocodiles after the wet season, it is only after they give the thumbs up that people are allowed in the water.  We were surprised that salties can actually live in fresh water and as far away from the ocean as 1000 km, freshies, however can't live in saltwater and (according to the locals) freshies will not attack humans, but...I don't want to test the theory!   A little farther north and in the same NP was Edith Falls, our first taste of swimming in water holes or plunge pools at the bottom of waterfalls.  Fantastic.

Continuing north, we turned off to Kakadu NP,  famous for its wetlands, birds and aboriginal culture.  We took a sunrise tour at Yellow Waters, on the South Alligator River, where we saw a lot of birds and crocs just waking up and the guide explained a little about the importance of the area to the aboriginals.  The highlight of Kakadu, for us, was the sunset at Ubirr, overlooking the Aboriginal Arnhem Land and the East Alligator River.  Breathtaking.

On the road to Darwin we stopped and did a tour on the Adelaide River...jumping crocs!  They feed the crocs chops on a line, training them to jump out of the water for food.  Actually kind of makes you think...training crocs to jump out of the water for food...at a boat full of people!  Hmmm!  Darwin was great, for a city.  We camped just 9 km out of town at a Discovery Park and drove into the centre.  The city was very easy to drive around in and we took in several of the parks, the Museum and Cultural Arts Centre, and even stayed downtown for the Meindl Beach thursday night market.

Darwin was the top of our Top End, the place where we turned around, we headed south to Litchfield NP.  We really enjoyed Litchfield!  Water!!!  Creeks and plunge pools...Buley Rockhole, Florence Falls, Tolmer Falls, Tjaetaba Falls, and Wangi Falls.  We spent two days going from one pool to the next and we were very thankful for the cool water (cool, not cold) as the humidity was high and the temperature was higher.

A 4x4 would have been good to have in Kakadu and Litchfield and even in The Red Centre, I think we would have got more out of those areas being able to go off the beaten track a bit more.  White Lightning is very comfy but not very tough and we have found this a little frustrating at times.  Another thing that is unfortunate is we had several instances of loud and inconsiderate campers in the park campgrounds...we are getting too old for that!  But overall campgrounds in Australia have great facilities and there are lots of them.

Finishing up The Top End we stopped in again at Edith Falls for a swim and continued on to Katherine to get ready for our journey across to Western Australia and to have one last dip in the Katherine Hot Springs (not really a thermal hot springs, but just water naturally warmed by the ground temperature-still great).

WA here we come!

The Red Centre

The Red Centre is not quite what I had expected, flat and barron with little to see but mile of road with a big, very big rock off in the distance.  Instead, the Macdonnell Range goes right through Alice Springs and the area around it is quite hilly, mountainous really, with many National Parks full of gorges, trees and has lots on great walking trails.

We visited the East MacDonnell range first when we arrived at Alice Springs, spending a couple nights at Trephina Gorge NP, at the Bluff campsite, surrounded by red cliffs.  What great NP campsites, $3.30 p/p and the campsite contains toilets, water and a propane barbeque all located in a beautiful location.

200 km south and 250 km west of Alice Spring is Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock and what can you say about such magnificent sight.  We arrived at Uluru at sunset and we were not disappointed by the grand display of literally glowing rock.  The next day we were up early to see the sunrise on Uluru and did a walk around the rock and also visited Kata Tjuta, also known as Mt Olga, which we found just as nice if not better than Uluru.  

Just a quick 200 km drive north and east from Uluru is Watarrka NP and Kings Canyon...we were so glad we took the day to drive up and do what we are classifying as one of our favourite hikes yet (7 km of amazing scenery, huge cliffs and hills of sandstone).  A long way to go for a walk but..wow.

After three days in the parks it was back to Alice Springs to visit with Jeff and Sharyn (friends we met at Cradle Mt, in Tasmania), a sleep in a real bed and homemade pizza!!!  Yum.  They also gave us a few good tips on some more sights to see in the area and to top it all off they treated us to a day 4x4ing to Palm Valley in the Finke Gorge NP,  Ken was more than happy to sit in the back of their Toyota Prado and look at the sights.  What a great time we had in Alice! 

What a great time we had at the Red Centre of Australia!

The Trephina Gorge, not a drop of water to be found but the cuts in the rock are proof that sometimes there is.

The white bark of the The Ghost Gum at Trephina NP stands out beautifully against the blue of the big sky.

Uluru at sunset, the orange rock glowed as the skies lost the light of day.

Uluru at miday, not quite the show as the night before but still pretty impressive.

A few people were climbing Uluru, but we had chosen to do the 11 km walk around it instead.  The native people ask that you don't climb the rock because it is a sacred place to them.

 Kata Tjuta, also a very impressive sight as we approached in the late afternoon.

Ya, the flies were bad at Tata Tyuta...flynets are in fashion here.

The hike into the Karingana Lookout at Tata Tyuta was even more impressive than the one around Uluru.

The cliffs of Kings Canyon hang in the background. They have a sheer smooth drop which looks like butter (or maybe chocolate) cut through with a hot knife.

Around the cliffs of the Kings Canyon, rolling hills of sandstone are reminiscent of sand dunes they once were, a long, long time ago.

There was rain in Alice Springs a week or two before (yeh!) we got there but the fire danger was still high...at least it was not catastrophic. 

Due to the past rain, flowers covered the desert floor as well as a lot of the trees...and everything looked so green!

Jeffs homemade pizza :)  Not much left.  We tried an Aussie pizza...lots of ham and topped with an egg or two.  Good, really!

The Ochre Pits in West MacDonnell NP.  The Aboriginals used this rock, ground fine and mixed with water, to make a paint for their skin in ceremonies, wall art and for trading.

The flowers of the waddle bush are out in full force after the rain in the past weeks.

Sharyn, Jeff, Me and Ken sit on the ledge of Palm Valley.  Red rock, blue sky, hats and lots of sunscreen.

The Finke Gorge, accessible only by 4x4.  White Lightning had to stay home for the day.

Palm Valley, who would think that a valley filled with palm trees would be in the middle of the outback, surrounded by desert.

Just Drive

Drive, drive, drive and drive.  Drive is the majority of what we did after leaving the east coast.  We got on the Savannah Way Gulf Developmental road and headed west for over 650 km on what started out as a great road then quickly turned into a single lane which we shared with mostly the locals and road trains, but we did see a few animals...some very large Emus' (we just about hit a couple that looked down on us as they ran across the road in front of us), dingos, freshies, and taipans (the worlds most veromous snake).  The road took us across to Karumba and the Gulf of Carpentaria, still in the northeast of the county.  We stayed in Karumba at the Sunset Caravan Park for a few days...a nice spot to catch up with laundry etc and get off the behind for a bit, but after a few days it was time to cover more ground (we only have 7 months here after all).  Heading south we took the Burke Developmental road from Normanton to Cloncurry where we finally got on a main road, The Flinders Highway, which took us through Mt Isa and into The Northern Territory, a quick 1140 km in two days.  

Drive, drive, drive some more.  We caught onto the Stuart Highway which traveled south...another 530 km to Alice Springs.  

A couple of days with not much more than this to look at.  It's a long, long road!

With only one lane to share, it is a good idea to make room for the "road trains".  It can be a little testing on the nerves.

After leaving the coast a quick stop at the Innot Hotsprings can rest a weary butt, but look out for the 'freshies', the Australian word for fresh water crocs.  The water was so hot coming out of the sand in the creek we had to be sure to mix enough cool creek water into our pool so we didn't poach.

Termite mounds line the side of the road.  At times there were millions of mounds and at other times the mounds were just huge.

In Normanton 'Krys - the Savvanah King' could have easily taken my head off!  He was killed in 1957 by a woman croc hunter, Krys weighed in at over 2 tonnes and measured 28 ft 4 in (8.63 metres).

 

At Karumba, hundreds of grey nomads spend their winters fishing and prawning but without a boat we settled for a drink or two as we watched the sunset.

Checkout this road train.  They can be up to 53 metres long.  How would you like to have the bill for this guys 70 tyres?

Flys? What flys?  I don't see any flys.

Even I took mt turn at the wheel a time or two.

Ken cleans out the van before we get into bed.  We don't want these little critters crawling into bed with us at night.