Darwin 2012–Alice Springs to Home

Well, Unfortunately the trip had to come to an end. On the way up i took heaps of photos and tried for a blog post per day. As what seems my normal trend on the way home, considering we are again traveling the reverse route, i have not taken as many photos, or updated the blog as much.

G’Day Mate turned out to be a great, quiet park with clean amenities. We stayed here 2 nights and really enjoyed the break from driving. We gave it a rating of 4/5.

Leaving Alice springs was nothing like when we arrived. On the way up to Darwin it was around 38/39 deg but as we left to go south it was only 17deg and raining. The rain was to stay with us for most of our drive south to Melbourne, and rather than the highs of 41deg on our northward journey we did not see the temperature rise above 21 deg on our journey south.

We ended up heading straight home rather than venture out to new areas, however we tried to target new parks. We stayed at Cadney Park station again, and surprisingly considering the Nomad traffic heading north, we were only one of 3 vans at the park that night. The flys were still there but not in their previous numbers. One highlight of this trip was having to pull right off the Sturt Highway to make way for some wide loads, 8.5m of houses. We encountered 4 of them heading into Port Augusta. We also managed to obtain the Colorado’s first stone chip in nearly 20,000km of trips.

On the second night we stayed at Port Germein. This is where we had lunch on our second day north. Unfortunately the rain set in and it blew a gale all night. That said the park was great, nice and clean and close to a nice little pub where we enjoyed a great, recommended, meal. I was planning to do a bit of fishing but the weather was bad. It was raining, very windy and the water was very choppy. I believe the jetty would not of been a very nice place to be.

From Port Germein we headed through Adelaide and on to the Bordertown caravan Park where we made our last stop. This campsite proved to be the nosiest for the trip as it was situated right on the main road. Other than  the noise the park was good with very clean amenities.

From there it was a short trip home. The Colorado performed flawlessly throughout the trip, however we took a big fuel economy hit on the last couple of days due to heavy head winds. The final figures from the Gas Cubby app are below.

 

Thank you for following the latest of our Caravan Holidays.

Darwin 2012–Katherine to Alice Springs

This update encompasses 2 days of travel, Katherine to Three Ways station and then Three Ways to Alice Springs. We are on our homeward stretches now.

Before we get into the trip, here are some animals i photographed at Rachel's before we headed off.

We left Katherine a bit later than we normally would as we saw the kids off to their school busses first, then off we went. The trip was mostly uneventful with the only really interesting part where we needed to stop due to a truck accident. From the chatter over the radio it seems the driver was OK, a few cuts and bruises. The truck, a tanker road train, “chucked a wobbly” and from that it seems the last trailer out of how many we are not sure, but normally four, started to wobble all over the road. i suspect it then unhitched and went over the embankment. We got there at the end of the recovery operation.

After that excitement we pulled into Three Ways happy to get out of the caravan. Unfortunately the park did not live up to expectations. We stopped here as we wanted to avoid Tennant Creek, somewhere we had heard nothing good about, but the park turned out to be the worst of the whole trip. The water out of all the taps, including the showers, was brown, smelled and we paid more for a night here than in Alice Springs. We would not recommend staying here to anyone.

I did, however, get an opportunity in the evening for some Astrophotography. I am in the process of stacking and post processing the images but below is some single frames that have turned out OK. With the moon now almost gone the sky looks great.

 

We awoke early the next day to find the starts still out, however after a brown water shower, the sun was rising and we were on the road again.

We had a few stops however the highlight, as always, was the Devils Marbles. We stopped here again for photos and during one of my climbing missions i grazed my leg, taking a sizable bit of meat away. Not Happy.

The camp ground at the rear of the marbles looked good and had a number of campers just puling out for the day. We also stopped at the Ti Tree roadhouse for lunch, where we caught up with the trailer from yesterdays accident.

For our stay in Alice Springs the time we have stopped at the G’Day Mate caravan park, on recommendation. So far it is a nice clean park with great amenities. For the first time we even had the park owners park the van on our site for us

Darwin 2012 - Darwin

We finally made it up to Darwin again. The aim of this trip overall was to visit Rebecca, Rachel and their families in Katherine. With Rachel, however, having 4 small children it has been difficult for her to get out and enjoy some of the local attractions. With this in mind we found ourselves staying at the Coonawarra Defense base again. For $80 p/n we have a containerized cabin with three bedrooms, lounge/kitchen, laundry and bathroom. All of this located in a safe and secure place, on a Navy base.

 

 

Arriving on Friday we did the first thing I am sure many remote town people do and headed for the local shopping centre, Casurina. My sisters do much of their bulk shopping here before heading back to Katherine, which has a very basic set of shops.

On the Saturday, Rachel and David went to the Adelaide River Queen Jumping Crocodiles tour, something we have done in the past and is well worth anyone visiting. The tour takes you up and down the Adelaide river, which host many Saltwater Crocadiles as well as many other forms of top end wildlife. As we did 4 years ago, they fully enjoyed it.

Mum and Dad hosted the kids at the "Playshack" for nearly 5 hours whilst I did a runner and headed into town.

During my escape I went to the Darwin Museum and Arts centre, where they have a great set of exhibits showcasing aboriginal art and craft, local prehistoric animals and megafauna, fisheries and a cyclone Tracy exhibit. I came mostly for that but ended up spending quite a bit of time wandering through all of the exhibits. The visit is free and I think people of all ages would enjoy it. Unfortunately but understandably no photos were allowed inside.

 

Outside the museum there is a great view across The water, and being a fantastic day I spent some time taking it all it, as well as photographing a beautiful dragonfly that was abundant in the grasses, the Graphic Flutterer Dragonfly (Rhyothemis graphiptera). I expect if I stood still enough I would of had many landing on me as well as the grass.

After all that, and a quick tour of the main Darwin mall, I returned to pick up the parents and kids for lunch back at the cabins.

Lastly for the evening we had dinner at a recomended restaurant, Tim's Surf and Turf, the servings we large and well cooked. The kids ate free before 6:30pm and their servings we also large so all in all it was a great meal. The restaurant itself has a great atmosphere and the hosts were friendly and inviting. I would definatly eat there again when in Darwin.

Aft tea we headed down to Mindil beach so the kids could have a run around. We got their on the last bits of sunset but we still had great views and the kids loved playing in the sand. Unfortunately the Mindil beach markets don't start until dry season has fully started, like many thinks in this part of Australia, so we missed out this trip.

 

17April2012 - Edit: Update for return trip to Katherine

Our second/last day in Darwin was very subdued. A couple of us Adults travelled out to see the “Oil Tunnels” in the center of Darwin. The tunnels, built during the War and the bombings of Darwin by the Japanese were dug out by hand with little in the way of tools, however by the time they were completed the war had ended so they wee never fully commissioned or used. It was a very interesting, self guided tour with many photographs showing the many servicemen and planes in and around Darwin.

 

We also had a Coffee at Darwins take on the Docklands, the Darwin Waterfront Precinct,  with a great environment, protected beach and Wave pool. I looks to be a great investment/holiday opportunity.

On the monday we travelled back to Katherine, stopping at both Hayes Creek and Edith Falls. Hayes creek as a great looking Big4, in the middle of know where but from the vantage point of the petrol station at the top of the hill, it looked to be a great, shady, quiet spot with its own swimming hole.

Edith Falls was significantly different from last time we visited due to some large floods through there last Christmas. Dur to the risk of Salt Water Crocodiles swimming was also not allowed.

 

 

Lastly some instagram photos from the weekend.