Litchfield National Park

Litchfield is 100 odd kilometres South of Darwin We headed there after hearing nothing but great reports about the place and we weren’t disappointed. We loved it, it's famous for the huge magnetic ant hills in the park. We saw heaps of them and they are huge!




We decided to base ourselves at Wangi Falls and do the park in halves, we spent two days there. The waterfalls are spectacular here, our favourite being Florence Falls and Tjaynera Falls, or Sandy Creek as they are known. Down near Sandy Creek there is Blyth homestead to go and visit, it's in great order and demonstrates how hard it was in the early 1900's to live in Australia, an old tin mine was up the road as well and interesting to look at. We also went and saw a lost city, made up of sandstone features that look like an ancient city abandoned.

Blyth homestead.



A little water fall spa we found.



Tin mine in Litchfield.



Sandy Creek Falls.



We basically went to every water hole/water fall in the park, bush walked to it, swam for a bit then onto the next one. We had a ball here and would recommend it. Onto Katherine now and west from there to Kununurra.

Darwin and Berry Springs

We headed to Darwin to catch up with my uncle, he lives in Berry Springs and works in the Territory Wildlife Park nearby. The visit was perfect timing to get a few things done. I updated my mobile plan to Telstra, finally I have reception more than 5 klm out of a major city! We had the van in for a wheel alignment as one of the tyres were scrubbing out. Topped up the lure box from fishing at Shady Camp and did some shopping, We ended up staying a week. On the tech front I replaced all the fluoro and halogen lights in the van with LED lights we sourced from a mob here in Darwin. Saves heaps of power when you are living on 12V batteries. Hopefully money well spent.

We visited the city of Darwin and did a tour through some underground oil storage facilities they used during world war II. Learnt allot about the bombing of Darwin throughout the city as there is monuments and historic places pointed out throughout the town. We also went to the Aviation Museum where they have a B-52 bomber in a hangar and heaps of WWII and Bombing of Darwin photos and movie footage in displays. Well worth the visit to that museum if you are up here.

Oil Storage Tunnel



B52 at the aviation museum.



While we were up here Tracey wanted to go to see the Mindil Beach Sunset Markets, they are on a Thursday night. We had a bite to eat as it's quite famous for the variety of Asian cuisine, my eyes were too big for my belly and ate too much. Delicious food and a cracka sunset to watch, a first for Tracey to see the sun set over the water. There will be many more of them to come as we head West.

Sunset at the markets.




We washed the car and van and headed to Litchfield National Park for a couple of days. We liked Darwin and have it on a short list of places to spend more time in. Let's face it, it's winter and the days are 30 degrees and we are going to swimming holes. Swimming in winter! Really easy to get work there as well. Don't know what the wet and the build-up to the wet would be like here though, like I said, it's on the short list.

Shady Camp

We left Kakadu and headed westward along the Arhnem Highway toward Darwin. There was one spot I wanted to go before we got back to a large town and that was Shady Camp in the Mary River National Park. It's a very popular spot for barra fishing and crocodiles, we were not disappointed. We have been here 3 days already and are having a ball. All we do all day is go fishing and croc watching with spectacular sunsets at night.

There is a barrage at the boat ramp here that separates the salt tidal waters and the fresh water of the wetland river system, this prevents the wetlands getting too much salt water in them and helps to preserve the fresh water ecology up river. It's interesting to watch the fresh water crocs on one side and the salt water crocks on the other.



Trace and I have both realized one of our goals for this year and that is to catch a barra. We had a cracka of a day today as we found a nice hole in one of the wet land estuaries and proceeded to spend all morning catching small barra and sharing the bank with crocs. Tracey went for a walk to a different spot and saw a big croc I saw yesterday. I only saw his head in the water as I was keeping an eye on him while I was fishing the other day, his eyes that were poking out if the water were were about 10-12 inches across. Trace came back today to report the guys she was with surmised him to be about 16-18 feel long as he was sun baking on the bank!! Below picture.

We are going for a boat ride tomorrow with a guy we have me here to go and have a look at the really big crocs up stream. Should be good.

Update, we went for the boat ride and were astounded at the size of some of these beasts. They were easily 20+ feet long! I have no words to convey how fantastic it is to see these guys in the wild. The crocks we saw today made all the guys we have seen up till now look like babies. Fantastic!



The barra we were catching were about 30-40cm long but the legal size up here on the Mary River is 55cm, we were having a ball!!! As the morning went on the fish seemed to get bigger and bigger when finally I landed a keeper, dinner! He ended up being 58cm, next to get a meter barra. So we had some salad and barra cooked on the barbie tonight for dinner.






An excellent day today, I think we will stay a few extra days. Next step is to head to Darwin, I have an uncle that lives in Berry Springs so we will stop in on him, have a look around Darwin and head back down to Katherine then west to the Kimberlies.

Hope everyone is well and I will update soon.

The Rest Of Kakadu

We headed off from Gunlom and proceeded to all the walks and attractions around the Kakadu loop. We were headed for Jabiru and the sights there. The park is pretty cool into Jabiru as there are many sights to see and walking to do. We stopped a couple of times on the way up there and based ourselves in one spot as we did all the walks and sight seeing in the area.

We went for a drive off the main road to a place called Sandy Billabong and saw our first croc in the wild there as we approached a river. The billabongs are nice spots with most having board walks around them to view the wildlife.



We made it to Jabiru and stocked up on food and fuel and headed off to Ubir that is on the border of Arnhem Land. Ubir was fantastic with heaps to see, we stayed in a camp ground called Merls and travelled without the van to the nearby sights. There is a walk up to a lookout over the wetlands that was fantastic, this is the location of all the photos you see in the media of Kakadu and the scene in Crocodile Dundee where he is sitting on top of a mountain looking over the scenery.






The was aboriginal rock art to see here as well. If you are coming up this way Ubir is a must.

Back down towards our camp there is a barage, or causeway (They call them barages up here) called Cahills Crossing that separates Arnhem Land and Kakadu on the East Alligator River. The tides through here are fantastic to watch as the river drains away and as the tide comes in reverses the flow over the causeway. We grabbed the rods and fished for barra, there were a couple of guys over the other side of the river hauling in 1 meter fish. No luck for me.