Timber Creek

Day 25
Up at 5.30am again cannot help it especially since we are going to bed at 8pm each nite. Even tho up early it is still 8am before we finally hit the road. We have to back track to Katherine some 300k before we take the Victoria Hwy towards Kununurra. We have planned to stop at Sullivans free camp but arrive there at 1.30pm so decide to push on to Timber Ck where we have stopped at the van park behind the pub. We get in at 4pm a quick setup for overnite, Wendy has made a meal in the dreampot so no need for any cooking. We make a cuppa and head down to the creek for the 5pm croc feeding

Day 24
 Had a big nite at Skycity, a really great smorgasboard meal was seafood nite so pigged out. We gave the pokies a nudge but managed to walk out down $40 which included  our meal and drinks.
Wendy a withgain had a day of retail therapy and I hope she is now cured as I think I am overdosed.
Have spent the remainder of the day chillin out in the pool then packing for our departure. Tonite we went to the local pub for a meal and some drinks, another great meal with a band and a pub full of real NT characters.
 

Day 22
 As I said earlier the park is very full, the amenities are great the toilet block near us is set up with individual compartments containing a toilet,shower and basin which means we can both use at the same time.

We headed into Darwin city today to do a bit of retail therapy and so we could familarise ourselves with the way in and back. We strolled Smith st mall with many other tourists, had coffee then some souvenir shopping.We also stopped at The Deck for some well earned beers and a plate of beer battered chips.Then we walked back along the foreshore before heading back to the park to refresh and get ready to go to sunset markets at Minidal beach.

Day 23
We have again ventured into Darwin via the shopping centre at Palmerstone where we stocked up with some more 10lt casks of drinking water. We have visited the waterfront area this morning and enjoyed coffee overlooking a truly beautiful area.

Back to the park for lunch and time to get ready for our visit to Skycity tonite, after this one we will have now been to every casino in Australia ( bigtime punters that we are )

Darwin

Day 21
We are up at 5am, something has been crawling on top of camper roof these past 3 nights always at about 4am we do not know what but it has woken us every time. So we are on the road by 7am we stop at Windows on the Wetlands for an hour a very informative centre.

We arrive at Howard Springs caravan park at 11.30am a large park and very full, we again manage to get a great site with no neighbours and next to a gas barbie, setup and a quick trip to Bunnings to buy a fan,tarp and 240 light.

Day 20
We have decided to spend the day around camp, it is again very hot and the beer is cold. We are packing camp today and doing it over the whole day as the heat is too much to do it it in on go.After lunch of jaffles we take the walk down to Mardugal billabong,Wendy's head is on swivel as she cannot stop herself from keeping an eye out for crocs. We are finally all packed with only the camper to fold down in the morning so we treat ourselves to diner at Cooinda lodge, pizza and chips with drinks is a great atmosphere with  entertainment has rounded off 4 fabulous days in Kakadu. Tomorrow we head to Darwin for 5 days.

Kakadu

Day 17
On the road again a refuel then a short trip to Kakadu, we have planned to get there early so we can get a good camp site. We arrive at 10am and pull into Mardugal campgrounds, there are 2 sites here one for generators and the other for non generators. We opt for non site and after looking around we settle for a site beside fireplace and table, perfect solitude until later in day when another camper arrives and sets up 20m away.

 A lazy afternoon we drive into Cooinda to have a look see and check out the yellowwater cruise
Day 18
 Very hot here today we are off to Gunlom Falls is roughly 70ks from us and 33k in. I did not realise how bad the corrugations were and we shook our way all the way in. Once there it was worth the trip

We have decided to do the walk to the top of the falls, it is a steep climb and i have to encourage Wendy that she can do it and yes she does so proud of her. The top is so beautiful and the pools so inviting, now Wendy is pissed she did not wear her swimmers.

the drive home is long and hot but we are back early enough to get fire going and have a barbie. We are booked for the cruise tomorrow a 6.45am start 2hrs followed by a buffet breakfast so an early nite.
Day 19
 Up at 5.30am a quick cuppa then a 10 min drive to cruise

Nitmiluk Gorge

Day 15
Only a 45min drive from Katherine town to the gorge, we are booked on the 2 gorge cruise and are lucky enough to share it with 23 people from the Air Australia tours ( they are grey nomads who are past being able to drive). A most spectacular trip and well worth the money. I could not help myself and asked the driver if I could have time to take a quick swim and I did the only one from our tour.

Day 16
A day spent in town I had to buy a new battery but now feel confident we have the power to survive, shopping for supplies as we have 4 days in Kakadu ahead of us. We spent the remainder of the day packing up for an early start and before we knew it was 8.30pm so a trip to town and Red Rooster for tea.

Katherine

Day 13
arrived in Katherine about 2.30pm, we rang thru to Nitmiluk campground but there were no powered sites available so we have to stay in town. We went to the Tourist info centre, very helpful staff, most caravan parks were booked out but they found one that had a few powered sites left and luckily we managed to get in to All Seasons a nice park we are right next to amenties block so not far for Wendy which is a blessing for her lol. We set up and by 4.00pm the coldies were going down fast is so hot here.We have repacked the car and moved all our winter clothes to the roof top carrier and broken out the swimmers, very balmy nights.
Day 14
 A day of R&R purely a bit of shopping and enjoying the town, the batteries seem to be charging ok so might be ok just need to make sure I set up solar system to keep them topped up.
A coffee at the local Coffee Club, fuel up the car is only $1.53 for ULP and $1.09 for LPG a lot better than the $2.00 at Uluru.
Have booked our cruise for the gorge tomorrow

Day 8
 We are up early as we have a 2hr trip to the "rock", we have a fixed wing flight booked for 10am courtesy of Kristy & Shane our kids. After paying our $25/head to enter park we then find that the flight originates from outside park. So we quickly backtrack and locate their office only to find that all their aircraft are down for maintenance, we have had this booked for nearly 6mths and they failed to notify us not happy. They got us to wait for an hour until the pilot arrived and luck have it they gave us a sunset helicopter flight over not only the rock but also the Olgas, cheering now. The flight was not till 4.45pm so we went back to park and did the tour of the aboriginal heritage tour and the Marli walk around the rock. Was pleasantly surprised at how few people were about.
 A great place and we ticked another to do off our list.

 Day 9
God its bloody cold this morn, up at 6am -2c and the fingers will not work as we pack for our drive to Alice.

Have booked into the G'Day Mate caravan park, a great park and we got a good site, met a lot of fellow travellers here even a couple whose car had broken down and had to be towed in. We managed to land here same time as the Alice show was on so town was pretty full of aborigines just camping in the Todd River. We have 3 days here and will spend one day touring the West Macs and another the East Macs

Day 10
We head off to see Simpsons Gap and Stanley Chasm, Wendy handled the gap walk ok but the chasm walk up a river bed was a bit to much for her as she failed to wear suitable socks and her shoes rubbed. We had planned to keep going to Glen Helen but time had beaten us we decided to head back and stop at the Desert Springs Park.

Day 11 ,
A lazy start today first priority is to get all our washing up to date, so by 11am we are off to see Jessie & Emily Gap then Trephina gorge all only max of 45min from town. I have promised Wendy that upon our return we will go into town so she can do some souvenir shopping and some much needed food restocking, oh and alcohol. While doing this I found a camping store that was selling hiking walking sticks on special only $39 so grabbed one for Wendy.
The both gaps were spectacular and only a very short walk to both from carpark. The gorge was a bit further but the return trip we took our shoes off and walked back in the water so refreshing.

Day 12
 Again an early start as we need to make up a day as we spent 3days at Alice instead of our planned 2, we had planned to make the trip to Katherine a 2 stop but now we will do only 1. We stopped at Banka Banka station and it was magic, great facilities great showers and great hosts, was pretty full but still enough room to not feel crowded in. They have a nightly fire but we were to tired and went to bed early as we need to be on the road again early to get to Katherine at a good time.
 Our first misshap we have run the batteries mt so will now need to stay at a powered site so I can recharge.