Tropical north

We have traveled over 6500 km and have arrived in the Top End of the Northern Territory. Gradually, the temperatures rose and nights got less cold. Central Australia was a very interesting and beautiful place. Much more beautiful than we expected. Apart from Uluru, there is so much more to see. Kings Canyon for instance was a spectacular place with walking tracks leading up to cliffs that dropped 100 meters. The canyon was quite large and really nice to walk around. The east and west MacDonnell ranges were also very beautiful with their gorges, waterholes, rocks, cliffs and rivers. We especially enjoyed staying in the East MacDonnell ranges. Our 4WD allowed us to stay at a campsite that was only accessible by 4WD and gave us a bit more seclusion. We went for great walks and walked through this gorge that, in summertime, is completely flooded. It was great descending further into the gorge and seeing little rock pools. We also stayed a couple of days at the Finke Gorge National Park (Palm Valley), where you can find palm trees in the middle of the desert. It was very lush and green around the otherwise bare landscape. We spent about 10 days within central Australia before heading to the Top End.

We have seen a lot of beautiful places and have experienced some interesting events. For instance, when we went to pay for our camp spot for the night at Kings Canyon, David left his car key in the ignition and locked the car. It is quite hard to break into a Landcruiser and within a few minutes four people were trying to break into our car! After about half an hour, someone managed to get in and we could get the spare key from a bag in the car.

At Palm Valley, we heard heaps of dingoes howling at night. Jenny was scared to get out of the tent at night and unfortunately had to get up twice during one of these howling dingo nights! She's never run back into the tent so quickly!

When arriving in the northern part of the NT, we stayed at Elsey National Park, next to the Roper River. It's about 35 degrees there so a dip in the river would be great, we thought. Around the river are signs stating that freshwater crocodiles inhabit the river and that they are harmless to people. It also stated that, while none had been spotted/trapped yet, one or two saltwater crocodiles might also be present within the park (though this was highly unlikely). There were swimming pontoons in the river and we decided to jump in the river. But while we were standing on this pontoon, we got a bit scared. We were walking around, looking in the water, then to the shore, then looked back into the water. We stood there for about ten minutes before both of us, very quickly, jumped in the water and then back out again. Later at night, we spoke to the ranger about swimming and he told us it was definitely safe to go swimming. We felt a bit stupid having been so afraid of the water. They don't place pontoons in the water if they don't think it's safe!

When we arrived at Uluru a couple of weeks ago, we ducked into the bush and set up our tent there, about 20 km from the entrance of the park. The following day, we wanted to do this again. We decided to have a better look on the map first, and found out we accidentally slept on Aboriginal land! We quickly booked into the Ayers Rock Resort that night!

When we left Alice Springs to go further north, we had about 700 km to travel to our next stop (the Devil's Marbles) and after about 100 km we realised we had forgotten to fill up our jerry cans with water. We had about 5 liters left. This is not a smart thing to do! On our way we passed through a few towns, but none of them had drinking water available, so we had to do with bore water. This water tastes awful, but if it's the only water you have, it will have to do. We added a lot of cordial to make it taste better but that didn't help. Three days later we finally got some decent drinking water from the Katherine River.

The Devil's Marbles was an interesting stop. A lot of guidebooks make places such as these look like there is only one rock to see and that's it. But the place was scattered with funny shaped rocks, big and small. It was quite nice to see so many of them scattered throughout the landscape. We found the same with Uluru; there's a beautiful rock about 100 km from Uluru (Mt Conner) that no guidebook ever mentions.

After the Devil's Marbles we had another big drive ahead to Mataranka, about 100 km south from Katherine. We didn't make it in one day, because we stopped at the Daly Waters pub for a beer and it was so lovely there that we decided to stay the night. Mataranka (Elsey National Park) was next, and we set up our camp next to the Roper River. Such a beautiful place! Nice and tropical with lots of palm trees. From there, we went to the thermal pools where the water temperature is always around 34 degrees. The turquoise water was very clear and the pools were surrounded by palm trees and other lush vegetation. A great place to relax!

We also visited Katherine Gorge (Nitmiluk National Park), which was nice, but not spectacular. At least this gorge was full, unlike the ones we have seen in the centre.

We also spent a night at the Douglas Hot Springs Nature Park, where the hot springs are very hot, around 60 degrees! A little further downstream the temperature changes to a very pleasant 40 degrees. It was just beautiful swimming in such warm water, with no fear for crocodiles! The next morning, we had a dip in the warm pool as well. A bath like that beats any shower! Especially when you haven’t had one for a while.

Now we’re in Darwin. A little sooner than expected, but the car seems to be making noises more frequently and we want to get it fixed before going to Arnhem Land, for which we need to arrange permits first anyway. So the plan is to fix the car, get some permits and head off into Kakadu, Arnhem Land and back to Darwin via Litchfield National Park. We are expecting to get back in late July/early August and then we’ll need to get some work in Darwin for the next few months.