Farewell Darwin

We’ve enjoyed staying in Darwin. It’s a small, well cared-for city with enough things to keep us interested for the week we’ve been here – world war 2 oil storage tunnels, the indo-pacific coral aquarium, the museum with its cyclone Tracey display and aboriginal art and Darwin’s many lovely foreshores and beaches.  But now we’re packing up and it’s time to go home.

Casuarina Beach

We caught the bus out of the city to Casuarina beach and walked along the wide and long beach as far as we had enough energy in the building heat of the day. It was lovely to be on a beach again, but swimming is off the agenda due to crocodiles and box jellyfish.

Nightcliffe Sea Breeze Festival

Saturday just happened to be the start of one of Darwin’s festivals, so we thought we go and check it out. It takes place along the foreshore at one of Darwin’s suburbs. It included a wide range of arts from different countries, including dance, music, painting…..Best of all a blues stage; superb while the sun was setting.

Mindil Beach Markets

The Dry season is here! The humidity has gone and the nights are a comfortable temperature. It also means the start of the Mindil Beach markets in Darwin. There are food stalls reflecting the multicultural mix in the city. We tried jack fruit curry from Malaysia – different and yummy, enjoyed while watching the sun set.

Being the first market of the season we were treated to all kinds of music, fireworks and fire eating!

Darwin

Here we are at our final destination at the end of a total of 11 months and 40,000km. The campervan is and our buyer is coming to collect it tomorrow. We’ve checked into an hotel apartment in Darwin for our last week. The apartment has superb views over one of the harbours and we enjoy lovely sunrises while we eat breakfast on the balcony.

Territory Wildlife Park

Territory Wildlife Park was a fabulous day out. It displays and explains the wildlife found in the Northern Territory; all in their natural environments. The rangers gave talks and demonstrations of birds of prey, fish feeding and monsoon forest birds. We found it particularly fascinating as we had seen or heard (at night) much of the wildlife and this enabled us to find out more about it and meet other creatures.

We often hear these barking owls at night and really thought they were dogs at first until we realised the same dogs couldn’t be following us everywhere! We also hear dingoes at night, howling like wolves.

Manton Dam

We’re just pottering about various scenic spots near Darwin. Manton Dam was a lovely spot for a picnic. Had a close encounter with a Golden Orb spider!

Barramundi Fishing

We came down to the Daly River, which is the top spot for the iconic barra fishing. Luckily, we were able to find a guide who took us out in his boat and showed us the ropes. After trying a couple of fishing spots we eventually found where the fish were. We each caught about three barras, with mine topping out at 72cm; that one we kept for the dinner table – delicious!

Douglas River

We explored some reaches of the Douglas River. Near its source there are hot springs which bubble up through the sand where you can paddle in the water and burn your feet. The main spring is fenced off as it is a sacred site for the indigenous owners.

Further downstream, there are some interesting rock formations called the Arches. You can’t paddle or swim here because there may be crocodiles.

Magnetic Termite Mounds

The termite mounds we’ve seen while travelling around the tropical regions of Australia have kept us amused on long journeys with their variations in shape, size and colour. The termite mounds in Litchfield National Park are a bit special as they are flat, like tombstones and are aligned north-south to minimise the amount of heat received from the midday sun in the north. Unusually, in the same area are some cathedral shaped mounds which are particularly tall.

For the night we found an idyllic spot by a creek near Robin Falls. Much refreshed after a swim in the cold plunge pool at the base of the falls we dined on buffalo sausages by a roaring camp fire (too hot but mossie repellent).

Litchfield Waterfalls

More waterfalls to discover today. We started with a walk around the top of Wangi falls to explore Wangi Creek and the varied monsoon rainforest and savannah woodland, ecologies that change depending on whether a source of water is available year round (around creeks).

Then we took a hike alongside Creenant Creek to a lovely spot at the top of Tjaetabe falls. We respected the wishes of the indigenous land owners not to swim at this sacred site.

Finally, we went to a look out over Tolmer Falls where Tolmer Creek descends into a gorge.