Northern Territory.... What a beauty!

What National Park to choose on the Top End of the Northern Territory? Kakadu, Litchfield or Nitmiluk? We couldn't choose so we did them all!

We drove from the Red Centre of Central Australia to the more tropical Top End and it got indeed warmer (finally warm evenings so we could eat outside!), unfortunately they have the mosquitoes to go with it and the rivers got some water in them and aren't as dry as the ones we passed on the Red Centre.

First we went to Nitmiluk National Park (close to Katherine) and here we enjoyed a dawn cruise in the Katherine Gorge. There are actually 13 gorges (narrow passageways for a river through rocky area), but we only saw the first two. The Top End has two seasons the Dry (approx. April/May till Oct, from Oct till April is called the Wet). In the Wet sites are often closed as roads can be flooded, as recent as 6 weeks ago the gorges we went through were under a couple of meters extra of water!
A couple of years ago the streets in the town of Katherine where three meter under water and when they where clearing the local supermarket they had to fight off a three-meter long crocodile who apparently found a new home there....
In the dry you can explore the gorges by canoe as well but as the Rangers haven't given the 'clear' yet (meaning that all the saltwater crocodiles (=dangerous to humans) that went into the gorges during the wet have been caught and releases elsewhere and only freshwater crocodiles (=if not provoked not a danger to humans) are left).
We saw a crocodile during our tour and marvelled at the stunning scenery.






We had clear blue skies and finally the girls had a change to swim! Well, they did that near Uluru as well but the water was way to cold for York and me to join them. Now a dip in the pool was nice and refreshing!






Australia is inhabited by lots of native animals but also by lots of different animals that were introduced here by the settlers to liven things up, for sport or for business. The camels we rode in Alice Springs were brought to Australia between 1870-1900 to be used to build the railway between Adelaide and Alice Springs. When the work was done the animals were set free and now about 100,000 camels the deserts in Central and Western Australia (apparently the only place in the world where one-humped dromedaries exist in the wild).
In Nitmiluk National Park there are buffaloes grazing the plains and wild horses.

From Nitmiluk we continued to Kakadu National Park.





This beautiful park is owned by the local Aboriginal people who have lived here for at least 25,000 years.
The park is 20,000 sq km, which almost half the size of the Netherlands. You can imagine that there are several different areas (eg woodland, wetland), with lots of animals and rock art.
We took a Yellow River wildlife cruise and saw lots of birds and about ten 'salties' (saltwater crocodiles).
Despite the heat (approx 34 degrees) we resisted the urge to take a swim this time.....

In the gorgeous Litchfield National Park there are several waterfalls and plunge pools where it is safe to swim, which we did of course. In the water of the famous Wangi Falls there are fresh water crocodiles, but as there are not a danger to humans (they would try to avoid us anyway) so we dared go in the water.... and we didn't see a freshie anyway (to Cleo's relief as she was trying to spot them as we were swimming towards the waterfall).




Florence Falls, but only partially seen from this direction.

Now we are in Darwin, our last stop in Australia before we head off to Singapore this Sunday. We loved the Mindil Beach Market, where we sampled international dishes, enjoyed a fire show and just hung out on the beach watching a beautiful sunset.




Our girls are not used to the hot weather yet, so they are in for a treat in Asia.....

Outback

The past week in the Australian outback (well as far as we dared to venture into remote Australia with three little girls in a hired campervan) was just amazing.

We started in a relaxed way by taking the Ghan long distance train from Adelaide to Alice Springs. We got on the train as backpackers and had to spend the 25-hour journey in a so-called Red Day/Night Seater (the girls wondered we just couldn't travel in the Gold or even Platinum section (answer: because we could probably fly home for the price of a Platinum private cabin)), which wasn't really that hard. We enjoyed the scenery that passed by or window, a nice meal in the restaurant carriage, we played a few games and the girls even did a little bit of homework!



The next morning we celebrated Cleo's fourth birthday while we were marvelling at the sunrise during a stop at Marla.



She had muffins and presents and that night we had a great dinner at an Italian restaurant in Alice Springs.
In Alice we visited the Desert Park where we had a very interesting talk about Aboriginal life in the desert.






Finally I got to visit the Royal Flying Doctors Service, something that brought back memories from all those episodes watching with my mum about life in Coopers Crossing. I am still amazed by the work they do out there.


The girls liked the 'School of the Air' (long distance learning for children living in the outback) where we could view a live teaching session with children who sometimes lived 900 or 1600 km from Alice Springs! The School of the Air teaches about 125 children in a classroom of 1.3 million square km (that's roughly an area twice the size of France)!

As a birthday present for Cleo we made a camel sunset trip in the West MacDonnell Ranges.






Of course we couldn't skip a trip to Uluru (Ayers Rock) when we are 'around'. A detour of about 1100km brought us to this magnificent national park where we saw the enormous rock as well as the huge boulders (the Olgas) at Kata Tjuta. We didn't climb the rocks as, although not forbidden, it is discouraged as the indigenous people and owners of the area don't want it as the rock is sacred.
But we did a few walks and had front row seats during sunset and sunrise when Uluru is at its best.


Yesterday we left Uluru and started to make our way to Darwin (only about 2000km.....).

It's a real experience driving through the so called Red Centre. You can drive for km without seeing a single car and every 100 km there is a road house where you can get petrol, food and a camping site. Today we had to refill our petrol three times! (mainly because we just wanted to be sure that we would not run out, but also because we covered 700 km (with three girls in the back crafting reading and an occasional game on the tablet)).
We have spend a few nights now on rest areas along the highway where you can camp for 24 hours.

The temperatures are definitely rising now, the next few days we will be getting into the low 30's.

Kangaroo Island

Well, Kangaroo Island hasn't disappointed us as there were many, well, kangaroos!
We saw them hopping in the wild, fed them in a wildlife park and saw many who ended as roadkill.....





We also petted koalas, held a python, other reptiles, saw a lot of Pelicans being fed and predator birds.










The girls learnt a lot about all these animals and so far Kangaroo Island and all it's wonderful wildlife is on the top of favourite places we visited during this trip.

Great Ocean Road

Wow, we have had an amazing week driving along the Great Ocean Road!
After all the beauty in New South Wales, our long drives were rewarded with more stunning scenery.
In Mallacoota we went on a small powerboat in the beautiful waters of the Croajingolong National Park. Here even the girls could try their hand on the steering of the boat. Finally we had blue skies, no rain and for three hours we cruised the estuaries.









On our way to Melbourne We visited small seaside towns like Metung and Paynesville, from where we took a quick ferry to Raymond Island. Here we wandered around looking for the koalas who are to be found all over the island. We spotted 10 of them high up in the trees!



Big city Melbourne was next on our list. Here we spend a wonderful, albeit an overcast, day walking around, eating take-away Japanese food on the steps of the State Library and staying in a ramshackle camping in historic Williamstown.



Then the most scenic drive so far started as we made our way from Torquay on the Victorian coast via Aireys Inlet (where we visited a beautiful lighthouse (I love lighthouses), Lorne, Apollo Bay (with a nice rainforest Boardwalk) to the Gibson Steps and the famous Twelve Apostles (which are actually seven or eleven stacks of rock at the most) in Port Campbell National Park.



Although it was getting late we managed to visit the Lord Ard Gorge, where two young survivors of a wrecked ship washed ashore in 1878. We had to watch for the tide as the girls where almost washed away as well! 😉






This day along the Great Ocean Road had been amazing but the next day we were treated to more fantastic views when we saw the so called London Bridge and the Grotto!












On tiny Griffiths Island (Port Fairy) we spotted a few kangaroos while walking towards another remote lighthouse.



Unfortunately Australia doesn't have a 'freedom camping' policy as New Zealand does, so most of the time we are 'forced' to stay in a holiday park. As we arrive between five and six pm and leave after breakfast we don't use many of their facilities. So we were very happy to discover that there are a few places where you can free camp in a self-contained vehicle (aka campervan) for a limited period of time (often 24 to 48 hours).
We had this opportunity in the Coonawarea Wine Region and this was the perfect stopover, so the next day we could visit Naracoorte Caves National Park, the only World Heritage-listed site in South Australia. The girls loved the Wonambi Fossil Centre here with impressive megafauna display of all the long-extinct animals like the marsupial ion and the Dioprotodon australis (koala meets grizzly bear).
The Wet Cave was accessible with a self-guided tour and it was great to be able to view this impressive cave without a guide.
Luckily we had already booked our spot at one of the campsites in the Coorong National Park (a complex series of soaks and salt pans) (you can only stay when you book online, so we had done that the previous day) as it was busy at the campsite.....with kangaroos!
There were only 7 camping spots, but we were the only guests besides a large group of kangaroos.
We had a great time watching them and even had time to go for a walk to the beach and be blown away (literally) by the winds.



After a nice drive via the amazing autumn colours of the trees in the Adelaide Hills we arrived yesterday in Adelaide itself where we are spending two nights before heading off to Kangaroo Island (more kangaroos?) tomorrow.






After being in the state of South Australia for more than 24 hours we realised that we crossed into a different time zone. Although we thought we were quite prepared for this trip, we were a bit surprised that the time difference with the zone we just left was only half an hour! So the time difference with New Zealand is now 2.5hours and with the Netherlands only 7.5 hours.

What a road trip so far!

They say Australia is one of the driest countries.... well, not when we are here apparently.
We have had quite some rain so far, but that didn't stop us from having a great time!

After our not-so-long flight from New Zealand (normally everything is far from NZ!) we spent 2.5 days in Sydney. We walked around the harbour, viewed the Harbour Bridge, The Rocks (the place where the first Europeans settled) and the famous Opera House.



The girls loved the 360 degrees view of the city from the Sydney Tower Eye, the day trip to Manly by ferry and the visit to the Sea Life Sanctuary were a big hit too. But most of all they loved the Circus Factory at the Powerhouse Museum. I never knew I was so good a spinning plates, I can always change careers if need be. And lily could show off her hoolahoop skills on stage!




It was great to meet our friends Amber and Andrew (and there adorable children) whom we met in South Africa!

After three days of drizzle rain we headed to the Blue Mountains in our campervan! Oh boy, the famous Three Sisters were nowhere to be seen due to the heavy fog. In the Jenolan caves the mist didn't bother us, so we spend a few hours visiting these 400 million years old caves, which are one of the most extensive (350 caves!) limestone caves in the world.
The winding road there was pretty narrow and steep at times, very smart idea to make it a one way road during the busiest hours of the day, because I don't think I could have squeezed myself past a big tour bus on that road....

In the late afternoon the Three Sisters were visible so we enjoyed a glimpse of them, but our hope to visit them the next day as well and go for a walk in the Blue Mountains was again squashed by the heavy fog.....




Nevertheless, a wonderful trip along the Bells Line of Road to view a bit more went in and out of the mist (wow wonderful, hmmm heavy fog, oh look there, hmm can't see a thing....).
On our way to Booderee National Park were we camped for the night we again visited a friend from South Africa, this time Mahala and her two cute little sons in Wollongong.

Yesterday morning in we had an amazing early morning walk in Booderee NP to a stunning, deserted beach. Finally we had a beautiful day, warm (25 degrees) and blue skies! We saw our first wild wallabies and we even found an (empty) shark egg!









On our way to our next stop in Eden (what's in a name) we past several lovely little towns, too bad we couldn't visit them all, we really need at least 6 months here! It is already so difficult to decide what national park to visit and what to leave for another time....





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