Australian Outback Adventure - Day 8 - Waterfalls, Billabongs, and Crocs

Our alarm blared us out of bed at 5:00 am. We were up late last night having dinner with new travel acquaintances.  We got ourselves dressed, ate some cereal and yogurt, packed our bags, and checked out.

A New Crew and Revised Itinerary

The morning heat and humidity was thick, and our clothes dampened up as soon as we stepped out of the air conditioned hotel. The 4x4 bus with a new guide/driver Luke picked us up at 6:30 a.m. This  was the smallest minibus we had been in yet,  and it had no utility trailer.  Not sure from the lack of trailer whether the roads would be too challenging or the need to carry as much equipment as we did to the outback.  Turns out, that it was a bit of both.

Our Alice Springs to Darwin guide John, and trainee Tarynt, were on this tour as helpful passengers refreshing or in the case of Tarynt learning the ins and outs of guiding this particular tour.  Three other passengers from our Alice Springs journey plus 5 new faces, 3 women from Germany, one from Estonia, and a young man from Canada joined the group.  We totaled 13 plus our guide.

Our Top End Guide Luke

To keep things fresh our Guide Luke decided to mix up the scheduled Itinerary.  We would be doing day 10 on day 8, day 8 would be on day 9, and day 9 on 10.  Got that?  No Worries Mate.  Fortunately,  Luke had it under control, and we went with the flow.  The trip itinerary was going to be reversed and we would be going to the Mary River National and Lichtfield National Parks today instead of day 10, then return to Darwin through Kakadu National Park the last two days.  At our first rest stop, we changed into our swimming suits, as there were no changing rooms at the waterfall.  

Way Outback Itinerary for Day 8 (originally scheduled for Day 10)

The Mary River Region is home to over 250 bird species and has the highest concentration of saltwater crocodiles in the Southern Hemisphere. Keep a look out for ‘crocs’ and other wildlife as you cruise along the tranquil Mary River. The remainder of today is spent exploring the waterfalls, spring-fed streams and rugged sandstone escarpments of Litchfield National Park. Discover intriguing cathedral and magnetic termite mounds and swim, hike and explore Florence and Wangi Falls (seasonal). We return to Darwin in the early evening.

• Mary River boat cruise
• Florence Falls
• Wangi Falls

Termites in Australia Build Big Homes While Eating Yours

Before reaching our swim destination we visited the giant termite mounds in Lichtfield National Park.  

Wouldn't want to build a wooden house in this area!

These mounds look like tombstones in the field.

These particular termites live most of their lives under ground and feed on grasses and trees of course, burrowing up from their underground subterranean network. Apparently they are beneficial to the environment, keeping the soil loosened up for plant matter to grow, but they are also destructive to the trees and wooden homes. Some of these termite mounds were 15 feet high and decades old. 

Florence Falls

Beautiful - No Croc Swimming Hole

Our first swim of the day was in a beautiful rocky-cliffed pool fed by two Falls (Florence Falls). The water, falls,  and swimming were a refreshing way to start the morning.  I swam across the pool to swim behind the falls if I could.  As I approached the base of the falling water, the wind and current challenged my swimming.  I tagged the wall and worked my way behind the falling water looking for an indent in the cliff to tuck into.  I couldn't find one, so I hugged the wall and swam out as the water pummeled my head and shoulders.  I pushed back from the walls and floated on my back looking up through the splash of crystal waters shooting off the edge of the cliff.  Wow and double wow.  Spectacular.

Wangi Falls

Our second swim of the day was in a series of cascading pools dropping into a canyon (Wangi Falls).  We found a shady one we liked  and just enjoyed lounging around.  

A large curious goanna lizard decided to join us.  I didn't see him at first nosing around my stuff.  They aren't aggressive, but just his size and his presence gave me a start.  

He seemed both wary and curious about those of us who came close enough to him to take photos.

Once our morning swim was over, we returned to the Banyon Tree Roadhouse and Caravan park for a lunch in the shade.  Fed and watered, we drove into the top of the Mary River Billabong to catch a two hour ride on a flat bottom steel boat. with our river guide Dave.

Dave explains Lily Pad Habitat

Whistling Kite

Sea Eagle

Jabiru - Stork

Lurking Under the Lily Pads

It was an extraordinary ride through the lily pad habitat of numerous bird species and crocodiles, fresh and salty.  The photos just don't do justice to the incredible variety of birdlife and the beauty of the flowers.

We only had a short drive to our campsite, gathering some firewood along the way, and oh what a treat!  Behold!  Green grass, and spacious - screened 2 person tents with real beds, lights, and a rotating floor fans greeted us. No swags tonight.  We were really going to live large, and I for one was giddy with excitement.

Sunset from Inside Our Tent

 The cook/dining tent was large, clean, and screened.  This time of the year, there aren't a lot of mossies (oz talk for mosquitoes), but afternoon thunderstorms and rain are common place, neither one happened while we were here,  but this is the reason for the tents.  We were in heaven.

After a tasty dinner of vegetable stir-fry, butter chicken and rice, we gathered around the campfire.  

Our river guide Dave came by with his guitar.  Luke had a collection of drums, sticks, and didgerydoos.  We sang songs, and took turns tryIng to make some sounds on the didgerydoo. These instruments are not easy to play.   

Little  by little people started to drift away, taking showers and preparing for bed. We slept well throughout the warm night not needing any covering.  Yep! It was nice to be on a bed in a screened and spacious tent.  I think this was the "top-end" I had been expecting  from the beginning.

Australian Outback Adventure - Day 7 - Katherine Gorge

Canoeing Up The Katherine Gorge 

Thursday, October 25, 2012 - Push to Darwin - Two Fabulous Water Activities

Way Outback Itinerary for Day 7

Your guide will wake you early this morning for the short drive to the Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge) National Park which is owned by the Jawoyn Aboriginal people. Ancient sandstone has been carved away by the Katherine River to create a deep and picturesque gorge. You may like to take a boat cruise or paddle a canoe (seasonal) through the peaceful water (both optional and additional cost). In the afternoon, relax and watch the changing landscape as we travel to cosmopolitan Darwin. Overnight accommodation in Darwin is included (hotel room with ensuite).

• Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge) National Park

Bitter Springs in Mataranka

We were up at 5:00 a.m. this morning and immediately dressed in our swim suits.  Today we would travel nearly 500 km, about 300 miles to Darwin, with the usual pit stops, plus two major activities - a swim at Mataranka thermal springs (delayed from yesterday afternoon), and canoeing on the Katherine River through Katherine Gorge and picnic lunch.

It was so warm and humid at 7:00 a.m. in the morning, that the thought of a thermal swim didn't seem all that enticing.  The bus swung off the main road onto a side road.  Shortly after the turn  the topography changed from desert brush to jungle tropical as we approached the springs.  

Our group of 10 were the only people in this magical place of green in the desert.  After a short walk down a path we came to a beautiful crystal clear spring fringed with budding lily pads.  The pond meandered off through palm trees and grasses.  We were told that this stream meanders with a slight current for a couple hundred meters, where there are stairs at the end.  We can exit and walk back along a trail to repeat the float.

Most Fun in the Outback - Bitter Springs

We eased ourselves into the mildly warm water, just about body temperature. 

 It felt wonderful.  There was no perceptible current or odor. One of my gifts is being able to float easily on my back (fat floats).  Heading down stream on my back with feet forward the palm trees and and jungle meandered past as we drifted downstream. Russ is more of a forward facing swimmer. Whatever the viewpoint,  

it was delightful, so much so that several of us wanted a second go of it.  We spent an hour floating down the thermal stream.  So far, I've enjoyed this activity, one which I hadn't really looked forward, the most.  We left on our swim suits, as our next activity two hours down the road would also be a wet one.

Canoeing the Lazy River in Katherine Gore

The Katheine Gorge is a sandstone eroded river that meanders through towering cliffs.  We paid for our double canoe at the Nitmiluk museum and cultural center and after a brief look around proceeded to the launch point where we picked up our life vests, canoes, and paddles.  We were to paddle two kilometers up stream to the turn around bay for the canoes prior to the rapids.  There we could swim if we chose, turn the canoe around and let the current push us back down the river.

Since we were going up the river we didn't need to worry about the rapids presumably ahead of us.  We were paddling against a mild current even though the current on the river surface seemed invisible. If the bow of the canoe wasn't nosed directly into the invisible current, the bow would be caught and veer to one side or the other.  We were a bit of a comedy routine going up the river and seemed to zig zag all over the place. Finally, we got the hang of digging the paddles on the lee side to bring the bow in line with the current.  Russ was much better at this than me because he has more patience. 

Most of our mob is behind us

I tend to paddle faster for a correction then over correct.  Oh well, it was fun and good exercise.

We paddled by several lovely sand beaches that warned us away as this was a crocodile nesting area.  

These aren't the nasty saltwater crocs.  These are the smaller more docile freshwater crocs, and there is a $45,000 fine if you trespass in their nesting areas.  Well, they didn't need to worry about us.   We didn't see any crocs or even any prints on the sand.  

When we reached the turn around bay, we beached the canoe in an area where there was no crocodile nesting signs.  There were dry rocks where we expected to find the rapids, but it is the end of the dry season and the water is low.  The bay was clear, shallow, and inviting.  So we took a swim, walked about a bit, then paddled back down the river. 

We thought the paddle back would just be a float, but it turned out that the same invisible current that caught our bow going up, caught the stern going down so we had to pay attention to our paddling downstream as well.  

Hello Darwin

After our last picnic lunch, we hit the road again for Darwin.  It was just after 6:30 p.m. when we were
dropped off at our hotel.  The bus departed and we as we check in, we find out that we do not have a reservation at the Holiday Inn.  Oops. These arrangements were to have been made by the tour company.   We were given a free drink at the bar coupon while the tour company and hotel worked out the details (since there was no room available at this hotel tonight).  

Our Guide John and Russ

The hotel had a sister property of comparable quality next door and eventually everything worked out okay, but it was 7:30 before we were in our room.  We had just enough time to get  showered before it  was time to  walk into town for an 8:30 dinner reservations at Monsoons.  It happened to be ladies night so the ladies all received a free flute of bubbly wine (champaign seems to be the popular Oz sundowner drink of choice with the ladies).  





Had we stayed until midnight we also would have seen the male strip show, however, we left just prior to midnight wined, dined and exhausted from our road trip.  We are no longer in the hot dry outback.  We are in the hot and humid tropics of The Northern Territory.

This is the end of the road for some of our fellow travelers.  Tomorrow, we start the last leg of our adventure to Kakadu.

Australian Outback Adventure - Day 6 - Ghost Towns

Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - Road Trip Through Ghost Towns

Way Outback Itinerary for Day 6:

No trip to the ‘Territory’ is complete without a visit to the Daly Waters Pub, an important watering hole for explorers and drovers in days gone by and now a great spot for a cold beer, a bit of history and a ‘fair dinkum outback experience’! Later in the day you can take a soak in the Mataranka Thermal Pools, a lush oasis fringed by paperbark trees and nearby where we camp overnight.

• Daly Waters Pub
• Mataranka Thermal Pools

John told us we could sleep in this morning, as we would not need to leave until 8:00 a.m., but I think our bio-clocks and the cacophony of morning bird sounds woke us while the stars were still twinkling overhead.  The birds here are amazing, day and night.  I got up to take pictures of the desert sunrise. 

By 7:00 a.m. everyone was dressed, fed, and ready to go so we hit the road.  More roadhouses and potty stops.  We passed by several small bush fires and in fhe middle of nowhere there was a police road block and random safety inspection.  Our driver was only obliged to show his lecense and we were on our way.

The brush blurred past us as we continued our journey up the Stuart Highway.  Brush Fires, Safety Check Points, and Truck Trains kept us entertained on this long day of driving.

Truck Trains

Move Over Buddy

Newcastle Waters Cattle Station

We stopped briefly in this little community, most of which is a ghost town remnants of a time in the 1930-1940s when stockmen would stop here for the night as they herded their cattle through to market.  There was enough water here for the herd.

Daly Waters Roadhouse Pub

We stopped at Daly Waters Roadhouse Pub for lunch, swim, and cold beer,  The inside of this roadhouse is filled with mementoes from travelers purposefully signed with names and dates, hung, tacked, and draped on posts,walls, and ceilings by collections of hats, shoes, patches, badges, t- shirts, license plates, paper currency, photo IDs, panties, and bras. The place was chaka with stuff!  Got to have some fun in  this desolation.

Outback or Bust!

Our group spent a couple of hours sitting in front of a large cooling fan in the shaded patio area where we grilled sausages and bacon for lunch.  And of course, nothing helps better to slide down sausages than a cold beer.  After that we submerged ourselves in a lovely little pool off of the bar.  Eventually, we packed up our gear and got back on the road.

We stopped a few more times for breaks along the way, one was an old telegraph station and an abandon airport strip that was used during the war and later as a fueling station for Qantas transcontinental and planes headed to Papua New Guinea. Those abandoned places are eerie as the corrugated metal panels that have broken from their bolts swing, creak, and clank in the wind.  

Our itinerary indicated that we would be visiting the Mataranka Thermal Pools today, but because of accommodation problems near Mataranka, our itinerary has changed a bit.  Instead we will be staying at the Pink Hotel...sounds interesting.

By late afternoon, we reached our evening encampment, at, the Pink Hotel and Caravan Park.  And yes it was pink!  The hotel, out buildings, camping cabins, camp kitchen....all pink.  Besides its pinkness the property had a mini zoo, train and plunge pool (above ground 4 foot high, 10 foot diameter tank) with cool clean filtered water.  The return water gushed back into the plunge pool via and overhead wide mouthed water hose.

Russ and I explored the little zoo, then while he took a train ride, I got into the plunge pool to cool off.  The pink camp kitchen was outback dirty.  I felt compelled to help John clean it up before we started dinner.  John swept up the ground and cleaned out the fridges while I washed off and wiped up tables, chairs, counters, sinks, toaster, teapot, fridge fronts.  By the time everyone returned from the train ride, the kitchen was cleaned up and ready for our chicken carbonara preparation.

Russ and I sat outside of the kitchen in patio chairs sipping wine coolers that we made from merlot and lime soda, while letting some of the other campers work on dinner.  John and Tarynt had built a campfire in a bar-b-que barrel for making the carbonara and pastas.  We had to move our  chairs back because it was blazing hot.  The meal was delicious.  Russ and I help with the cleanup.

We had been offered one of the pink camping cabins.  There was only one pink cabin available.  It had screened windows, two cots, and  four electrical outlets.  Age has its privileges I guess.  It was very tempting, but we turned it down, opting for the cooling breeze that would blow across the outback and skim over the top of our swags as we slept under the starligh just like the drovers of the past.