The Dinosaur Trail, Country Towns Near Extinct and Desecrating the Temple

The towns of Winton, Hughenden and Richmond seem to eke out an existence on the back of tourism to their dinosaur shrines and what remains of a once burgeoning sheep farming industry. The Hughenden Visitor Centre doubles as a museum of dinosaur bones and history of the area. A map outlining the decline of the sheep farming industry is rather dramatic, illustrating the number of sheep stations once operating compared to today. Whereas the whole area was essentially utilized for sheep farming 100 years ago with what I’d estimate to be maybe 60 to 80 properties and millions of hectares, today only 4 or 5 are still in operation. The underpopulated and dilapidated towns seem to reflect this – the Hughenden Grande Hotel is not looking so grand these days. We’ve taken for granted the accessibility of reasonably priced fresh food on our trip and found ourselves almost barren of supplies on a Sunday in Hughenden without a supermarket open until Monday. Fortunately the bakery was open but only had white bread on offer – something I wilfully try to avoid desecrating my body temple with due to the highly processed flour and high glycaemic index akin to a sugar cube. I’ve gotten to the point now that the smell of foods such as your basic fatty, salt-enriched snag, KFC, Maccas and deep-fried chips actually make me gag a little - white bread is getting there. We were out of fruit and fresh veg as well and I could feel my body start craving these items but alas none was available in the immediate vicinity.



Having made our way through the Muttabarrasaurus exhibit and other fossil finds on display in Hughenden we headed to Richmond, some 110 kms back towards Mt Isa – the self-proclaimed capital of the dinosaur trail! Our concerns for nutritional deficiency in our diet were wiped clean as we entered town with a “FoodWorks – open 7 days“ sign beckoning us in to the main street. It was a meagrely stocked grocery store but had the essentials which would see us to the coast. The carrots looked like tubers on steroids – massively thick things but surprisingly tasty. Stocked up we ventured back down the street to the main attraction – the Kronosaurus Korner – complete with life-size Kronosaur out on the front lawn – amazing and scary! Richmond was once right in the middle of the Eromanga Sea which stretched from the Gulf of Carpentaria down to the Great Australian Bight – effectively dividing what we now call Australia, in half. As a result, it has become one of the most proliferative areas of complete and partial dinosaur finds in the world. Back in the 60’s a Kronosaur was uncovered and over the past 10 years one lucky farmer has found two near complete fossilized remains of a plesiosaur and pliosaur (marine dinosaurs) on his property. The Kronosaur is touted to be larger than the T-Rex and “would have had him for breakfast” our recorded tour guide proclaimed. It was the top of the food chain in this sea and would have feasted on whatever he/she could hunt down. The collection here is utterly amazing and kept us spell-bound as we wandered to each exhibit and learnt about the different finds and dinosaurs. Before heading back to camp we decided to have a go at fossicking for fossils at one of the designated areas the town has organized. There were literally thousands of fossilized shells and organic debris in the area and we each found a prized specimen to take back and chisel away at over the next couple of weeks. Our dinosaur trail at an end we trekked back to Hughenden and began to get organized for our next stop – Townsville.

The Birthplace of Waltzing Matilda and QANTAS, Country Music Has-been, some Bush Poetry and our Dinosaur Trek

After some administrative work (faxes/emails) and a quick sticky-beak into the Cloncurry, Royal Flying Doctor Service museum – I felt obligated to go given my profession but didn’t stay long as we needed to get back on the road – we headed out towards Winton. Winton is not only the home of Waltzing Matilda – the iconic song of white Australia, and apparently where QANTAS staged its first passenger flight (the plane only had space for one passenger at the time!) but is also the start of the Dinosaur Track – a self-driven tourist track to three towns which have had significant dinosaur finds. We fell into a bit of luck when we arrived as we managed to arbitrarily pick the caravan park with all the evening entertainment and a roast dinner to boot! It looked to be a great afternoon! We arrived at the Waltzing Matilda museum – the centrepiece of the town, at about 3:30 pm so only had about 45 mins to see what usually takes 90 minutes to complete. In retrospect – young children can probably only stand about 45 mins or less of such a place so again we inadvertently lucked out. The first thing to see in the museum is a life-size diorama of the scene for the song. A large television angles out of the billabong and a seemingly hazy, ghostly image of the swagman relates the story and a bit of the history of the song. It was all quite moving and both Jen and I were brought to tears by the end. ‘Waltzing’ is apparently a term derived from the German – ‘auf der walz’ – and in the early Australian context essentially referred to someone tramping around or traveling. ‘Matilda’ is the term which refers to the traveler’s swag bag that he carries over his shoulder and is essentially what he sleeps upon. Banjo Paterson borrowed the tune from a Scottish ballad his then fiancée was playing on the piano and fashioned the words to it. In the 1960’s (if I recall more or less correctly) a national poll had 9 out 10 Australians wishing it to be their national anthem. When an Australian first won a gold at the Olympics, it was played when they were receiving their medal. It has been recorded over 100 times in numerous versions and you could actually purchase a CD at the museum with 14 different versions - not sure how long that would last in the car stereo! The rest of the museum was essentially a conglomeration of recent artwork, a detailed history of the life and times of Banjo Paterson and Waltzing Matilda, and then room upon room of antique relics from ages bygone including an actual steam train engine and passenger car. We zipped through it all with much appreciation and headed back to the caravan park to enjoy the evening festivities. An aging country music ‘star’ was playing a host of his ‘award-winning’ songs and the kids enjoyed watching for about 5 minutes and then ventured back to the caravan to play monopoly – guess they’re not country music fans (thank god!). Piper did return and her blonde hair and cute smile negotiated her a spot on the stage playing tambourine for the last song of the day. She was pretty enthralled and received a signed poster from the country star (Graham Rodger). The roast dinner was a treat – like having a home-cooked meal back at the Mitchell dining room table and was followed by a bush poetry show. The poets were both Australian Champions in their art and captivated us with a number of yarns and poems, both humorous and tragic. The kids were invited to participate at the end and were in their element playing for the crowd. All was well until the local party-house got into full swing, complete with dup-dup music, the occasional electric guitar and loud drunk squabbling or perhaps relating a story they felt all should hear into the wee hours of the night. Needless to say, Jen and I slept rather poorly but dragged ourselves out of bed the next day for a full on adventure of the Dinosaur Track.



We had to pack up the caravan before leaving as the caravan park proprietor had agreed to allow us to leave it while we drove into Lark Quarry – home to the only evidence of a dinosaur stampede ever uncovered. The road was fairly rough in sections so we were glad we had left Gertrude back in Winton. Deep in the middle of nowhere a large eco-built shed rises from the surrounding scrub and reddish earth with a 50 metre walkway leading to the front door. The shed was built to protect the fossilized stampede which has been revealed under the limestone by the removal of some 60 tonnes of rock and dirt by hand. An opal fossicker was picking around the area in the early 60’s and came across a few small fossilized footprints he felt were simply from a small bird. He eventually showed a colleague of his and eventually got around to sending a sample to Queensland University. It resulted in a full on dig of the area and discovery of over 3000 other prints and a story written in the ancient clay. The prints suggest that a mass of two different types of bird-like dinosaurs – one the size of a rooster and the other, an emu, were drinking at an inland body of water which existed in the area at the time. As they were drinking a large carnivorous therapod (T-Rex) happened upon them and his/her sudden appearance led to a mad scrambling of dinosaurs out of the area. The large prints stop near to where the edge of the water was posited to exist and the palaentologists theorize he/she must have caught some tucker in the process. It was a phenomenal little window into ancient times and was well worth the 110 kms into the scrub. After collecting Gertrude and finding your typical grease-filled, crappy-food country-town café and feeding the troupes something akin to a chicken burger – we headed towards Longreach to the Age of Dinosaurs laboratory. It sits atop of an outcrop of rock on a property that was donated by the landowner upon which a massive find of dinosaur bones have been uncovered. The bones were discovered in 1998 simply by happen-stance while the farmer was mustering sheep. The bones were actually visible on the surface. Since then a shed has been built to house the bones and various volunteers and paid workers work on chipping rock from the bones and piecing together the creatures. Interestingly, the project is not affiliated with any university and operates predominantly on volunteer workers who join the crew for the digs and in carefully unmasking the bones from their rocky coverings. As per usual we’d arrived late and joined the small group for ‘the meat’ of the tour – seeing the volunteer palaeontology-wannabes strip away the bones and the replica models of the beasts that have been thus uncovered. It’s almost as if they’ve uncovered something akin to an elephant’s graveyard, the bones seem so thick and ever present. Thus far they have a good 5 years of work stacked in their storehouse waiting to be cleaned. They have discovered at least two new species of Sauropod (like Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus) and a large raptor carnivore – very scary looking. Ironically, they’ve named one of the sauropods, Wade! It was fascinating and the kids were rapt. One year we hope to return to join them in a dig but we’ll see how things go. Finally, we clamboured on-board Bessie to head to Hughenden some 214 kms north of Winton and continue our dinosaur quest. All was well until the rather vocal caravan park attendant decided I needed her assistance parking the van. This has occurred three times in our sojourn and each time it has driven me secretly crazy! I think they assume that due to perhaps my youth, collection of bikes on top or the Canadian sticker on the back that I am incapable of backing up the caravan into a spot. In my typical rebellious-style, I tuned my loud-mouthed attendant out and essentially got down to parking the van as per usual. It led to her essentially yelling at me from only metres away – I’m sure the whole caravan park stuck their heads out of their vans wondering what was going on. If I wasn’t a peaceful sort, she would have copped a few choice words if not more. I managed to park it in the end and right where it needed to be.

Camooweal, Mt Isa and Cloncurry - Enclave of John Flynn and his RFDS

We’ve hit the prairies! The Nullarbor has nothing on this country – at least there were trees and the occasional elaborately decorated one – here all we get are rolling plains and far too many dead roos being scavenged by the occasional massively winged bird of prey. The road is so flat and scenery unchanging it’s like you’re on a gerbil treadmill never quite seeming to make it anywhere but somehow magically do. As the driver it becomes mind numbing at times – remote, idyll distractions are coveted but often discouraged by my navigator as they are deemed illegal by her driving law-book and often result in severe threats and reverberations. We hit a milestone as we crossed the border of NT into QLD as now we had officially graced each state and one of the territories with the gradually thinning tires of our faithful stead and her homely companion. We were onto the final leg of our arduous long journey. With mixed emotion we sped onto Camooweal – a smallish enclave without much zeal or memorable adherent other than the fact that the local store had adopted a ‘green light’ system of identifying healthy foods. Despite the fact that there weren’t too many items on offer, a number of green signs were posted over foods deemed of sufficient nutritional value to warrant highlighting. Not sure whether it will lead to improved selection and buying practices but I suppose any attempt to curb sustenance from junk foods is worth the effort.


Without much ado, we packed up and were off to Mt Isa in the morning – probably the largest town in the area, well known for its mining and fossils. The massive smelter could be seen a few kilometres from town and no matter how you slice it is truly an eye-sore. We headed into the information centre which just so happened to house the Riverleigh Fossil Museum and laboratory. Not far from Mt Isa lies one of the most fossil-dense limestone deposits in the world housing millions of years of natural history. From massive marsupial bear-like creatures to carnivorous kangaroos and distant croc relatives, the fossilized information is overwhelming. They run a session with the in-house palaeontologist twice daily so we signed up for the arvo session. In the meantime we ventured afield to find the largest kids park in Queensland (if not Australia !!!) It was opened in 2009 so was practically brand new and was phenomenal as kid’s parks go. There were essentially 3 main areas of jungle gym apparatus, tricked up cycling paths complete with jumps, ramps and bumps and two flying foxes. The kids had a ball trying everything and were difficult to tear away for the palaeontology session back at the info centre. We did make it back in the nick of time though and were rapt by the discussion and info provided regarding the nature of the fossils in the area, how they are processed and how the palaeontologist manages to fit these sometimes tiny little puzzles together. Having had our fill of fossils for the day we finished with a short sojourn to Cloncurry – home to the original benefactor of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, the Reverend – John Flynn. Whilst in Mt Isa we picked up the latest Top Gear magazine which came with a free DVD so we concluded the evening with a spot of British humour and automotive insight. We rarely get to watch much TV anymore so it was a treat to have a short spell of it over a bag of oranges and mandarins – nothing like a touch of Vitamin C to end the day!

 
 

Tennant Creek, The Devil’s Marbles and Battery Hill

It was cold as buggery when we woke and early to boot so instead of rugging up and trying to cope with numb fingers and toes while sculling some breaky we decided to pack up quick and head into Tennant Creek for some morning sustenance. The Aboriginal Arts and Culture Centre had advertised in the tourist brochures that they had a café and with any luck it was hopefully going to be open and have a proper coffee machine. Prior to getting there though we thought we’d fuel up so I pulled into the local Mobil which seemed to be having a bit of a run when I arrived. The poor cashier in her controlled haste managed to plug in $553.86 rather than $53.86 on my AMEX and didn’t know how to remedy the situation. Needless to say, Jen popped her head in about 20 minutes later to see what was going on and I was waiting for the head honcho to show up and fix the matter. It eventually got sorted and I’m hoping I still got to keep the QANTAS miles despite the refund (I know – unlikely). Anyways – we made it to the café and were the only ones there so didn’t have to feel too self-conscious with our rather overzealous children. The lattes were so good we had to have two each! The Arts and Cultural centre was great on the latter and rather poor on the former. The artwork looked as though someone had provided a class of year threes with some paints and told them to have at a canvas – it was seriously that bad (no offence to year threes!) We feel as though we’ve become near experts in determining good Aboriginal art from bad after visiting so many galleries and shops over our trip – you really can tell which is quality and which is crap – fair dinkum! (Oh how Aussie I am). The cultural side was actually quite intriguing and filled in some of the details we didn’t know about the “Stolen Generations”. From 1910 to 1970 the Australian Government essentially removed or ‘stole’ 45,000-55,000 kids from aboriginal families and put them in state institutions or under foster care with the misaligned thought that this would ultimately lead to the improvement of the Aboriginals as a whole – bizarre thinking at best! The authorities would visit aboriginal communities and tell the families they were taking their kids on a government sponsored picnic and the families would never see their kids again – it was incredibly cruel and short sighted. As a result of this failed social experiment, whole families and communities essentially self-destructed and the repercussions will be felt for decades to come as communities re-structure and family units reform out of a mess of alcoholism, non-communicable disease burden, and psychiatric distress.
We had decided to camp the night in TC as the Outback Caravan Park hosted a fellow by the name of Jimmy Hooker every night who was supposed to provide some yarns, bush poetry and talk to us about some bush tucker etc. Sounded good so we booked in, dropped the caravan off and headed south to Karlu Karlu – the Devil’s Marbles. Freed up from the load of the van we could travel at NT speed limits – 130 km/h! We didn’t quite get going that fast but it was tempting. We made it to the Marbles fairly quick and were immediately entranced by their incredible shapes and seemingly impossible balancing acts. Some were perfect spheres which appeared almost glued to the smooth rock underneath by mud and other rocks no bigger than a cubic metre. Further into the field of boulders some pill-shaped boulders had cracked as if precisely sawn or chiseled by a gigantic tool. You couldn’t help but stand gape-mouthed at some of the positions of the rocks – truly amazing. Having had our fill of the place we ventured back to TC to the information centre which just so happened to be located at the old Battery Hill Mines – now a tourist stop complete with guided tour of the old ‘practice’ mine (where they taught novice miners how to blow things up). They were just starting a tour when we waltzed through the door and the kids were keen so we headed on in – hard hats and all. It was actually quite interesting and we were shown some of the machinery that used to be employed in extracting the precious minerals (primarily gold or copper) from the rock. I still find it hard to come to terms with mining although I knowingly enjoy the fruits of mining endeavours in my everyday life. It just seems like such a greedy – self-fulfilling enterprise with short term gain for potential long term catastrophe – personally and environmentally.
Our field trip complete we made our way back to the caravan park and got to work on dinner. With heavy darkness shrouding the camp and our bellies full we found the campfire and ‘Jimmy’ or ‘JH’ as his friends call him, feeding the fire, dolling out bush ‘lemongrass’ tea and keeping an eye on some damper in one of the fire pits. I get the impression he’s a bit of a fixture here in Tennant Creek having moved here on a whim back in the late 60’s before it was much of a town at all. He’s a bit of a lucky lark as he is admittedly illiterate and from the sounds of it has an issue with the grog from time to time but has managed to have someone transcribe his poems and yarns into a small book which he sells at his shows and has also had an article written about him in ‘That’s Life’ and ‘Take 5’ – those trashy women’s magazines so often found on the nurses desk at the hospital. The article was essentially a sensationalized account of him being ‘attacked’ by an 18 inch freshwater crocodile one evening whilst walking home from one of his shows. He felt a nip at his ankles and thought perhaps it was a monitor lizard so strode home to get a boomerang and give it what for. When he returned he heard it bark and realized it was actually a croc so ran home and Steve Irwin-style, threw a blanket over the juvenile bub and carted it home to his bathtub. 5 maybe 6 or more beers later he stumbled into bed and was awoken early by some Aboriginal girl he knew who came knocking at his door having just been released from prison. He let her in and he went back to bed. She naturally found the croc in the bathroom and eventually they managed to get a park ranger out to manage the situation. The ranger wasn’t all together croc savvy either though and in trying to put a noose over the nose to contain the bite seemed to be making the croc more and more agitated so Jimmy simply picked up a towel, covered the croc up and carried it to the waiting cage. Jimmy was a bit miffed though as he never managed to get a photo with his attacker and had to borrow some pet crocs for the photo ops needed for the magazine. They also covered the event on the news and had a fake croc on a string to try to demonstrate the so-called attack – apparently a bit of a sham in the end. All in all it was an interesting couple of hours and the damper was actually quite good. We again cozied into our beds and prepared ourselves for the last leg of the journey – onward to Queensland!

Mataranka, Stir Crazy on the Stuart and Banka Banka

From Darwin we made our way back to Katherine for lunch and supplies then headed further towards the centre to Mataranka, a small town known for its thermal pools. We’d only traveled some 400kms south and could already feel the cooling effects. Humidity had virtually disappeared and the temperature was at least 5-10 degrees cooler than the top end. It was pleasant for a change. Arriving early in the afternoon left us time to check out the springs a few hundred metres up the road from our caravan site. It was nestled in amongst the trees along a gravel walking track. The water was clear, fallen trees slimy with algae and stream moving with a fairly strong current. None of which seemed to deter our adventurous children. Piper pretty much dove right in and scrambled about barely able to battle the current pulling her up stream. There were a couple of small piers where we entered and further up the stream such that you could let the current carry you down then walk back. Some had actually brought their snorkel and mask to do the trek while others had their floating noodle to carry them lazily down the 34 degree stream. We did it the hard way without either and despite hitting a few hidden logs along the way managed quite well with only a few episodes of faux drowning. At the end there was a bridge and ladder to climb to exit as well as an easier route up some well placed concrete stairs – naturally the kids opted for the hard, more exciting route – the ladder. Contented that we’d had our fill, we trudged back to the caravan – now feeling a bit of a chill on our quickly drying bodies. Some lego and a good meal later, we finally clambered under our sheets (something we hadn’t done for weeks due to the heat) and had a restful evening.

Sometimes it seems we move through places so quickly it’s hard to keep track of what we’ve done or where we’ve been. It always takes me a few moments to gather my bearings when I sit down to write the blog as the past often seems a bit of a blur. We had a travel day in store, heading about 500 kms towards Tennant Creek. By midday we’d made it to Daly Waters, a former fueling stop for Qantas planes in early commercial aviation history when it took a good 15 stops and a few days to get to London. It was also used in WWII as a stop off point for soldiers heading up north to Darwin. Now it’s a drinking hole a few kms off the highway with a terrific reputation for being a true outback pub complete with nightly entertainment. The inside of the pub is decorated with assorted memorabilia such as ID badges, company cards, bras, men’s and women’s undies, t-shirts, caps, license plates and much more. I asked if Bill Bryson had left his undies here when he visited but the Irish barmaids hadn’t a clue. The menu consists of barramundi and beef in different forms – burgers, steaks or bites and there are about 5 different beers on tap. We stayed for some lunch and enjoyed watching a group from a tourist bus set up a bowling alley in the middle of the street to have a go. Would have been an interesting place to spend an evening at but alas we had kids and had to get back on the road.

We had decided to stop short of TC (as the road signs refer to it) at an old cattle station called Banka Banka which promised a slide show in the evening for entertainment. It sounded more appealing than our images of TC which we envisioned to be not much better than Hall’s Creek of past experience – fairly rough and tumble. The road was long and straight for the most part and as per usual we had to make a pit stop for the kids to unburden their bladders. While packing everyone back in the car I had a moment come upon me – no one was coming in either direction on the highway on which we could see a good 3-4 kms either direction. Feeling liberated and a bit crazed from all the driving I leapt out onto the highway and danced around freely – waving my arms like some maniacal lunatic just released from the asylum. It lasted only a moment but released the demons of driving that seem to gradually become pent up after many kms. It reminded me of the days I’d spent tree planting in my youth when the flies became too much and we would simply drop our shovel and bags full of trees and run screaming onto our block of land. It didn’t change the fly situation – only our feeling of control over it – regardless how obviously misaligned such a conjecture was.

To fuel up we pulled into Renner Springs, a small roadhouse in the middle of nowhere and were struck by the highway robbery prices of petrol. Darwin was selling your basic unleaded for a measly $1.26 per litre, here in Renner, they were charging $1.97!!! En route to Banka Banka we had noted a veritable parade of caravans trekking north. For every car or road train a good 10-20 caravans would pass – it was like there was a convention for grey nomads somewhere up north and everyone wanted to take part. We were again struck by the numbers when we pulled into Banka Banka – a small stop on the side of the highway with very few amenities and no powered sites – completely packed with caravans – we weren’t sure we were going to get a spot! The evening slide show covered the history of the cattle station and its various trials and tribulations with different owners and the local aboriginal population. One former owner took it upon herself to set up a school for the local aboriginal children and managed quite successfully to expand this venture over time. As she aged and had to move on, she attempted to have the future owners carry on with her vision but alas, her school eventually went to ruin. It seems almost tragic that such a noble and well-intentioned woman – truly a hero for the community which she managed to create and serve, and yet so under recognized in the area and Australia at large. Seems a shame that wealthy selfishly driven industrialists can so easily rise to the order of Australia whilst true heroes of the people like this landowner, flounder in anonymity. The slide show was enjoyed by all - the kids included - and afterwards we cozied into our blanketed beds to weather an even cooler night.

Darwin never visited his namesake, more Crocs, canoe trips and free swimming!

After a leisurely morning of laundry and school work, we made our way to the Museum and Art Gallery of the NT. We were struck by two things: 1) it was entirely free, and 2) it was one of the best museums we’ve ever visited. Most museums are sort of old and stodgy with room upon room of ancient artefacts or stuffed, wired-together beasts. This place followed the same principal but the representations of the animals and artefacts were displayed in unique ways, often in action with other animals – almost bringing them all to life. A crocodilian exhibition had been held over due to its popularity and had the history of Charles Darwin’s ventures to Australia outlined at its entry. He was an amazing fellow, embarking on his round the world voyage at the young age of 22. After sailing through South America and the Galapagos where his theory of evolution developed, the Beagle made its way to NZ and Australia but never to Darwin. Darwin, the city, was named by Charles’ superior on a later voyage with Charles never actually making his way to the city of his namesake. He only lived fifty years and although both of his sons were knighted, his controversial theory remained too political during his lifetime and as a result the powers that be kept him on the sidelines. He kept his theory of evolution a secret, confiding only with close associate academics and only got on the ball to publish his ‘Origin of the Species’ when another scientist was espousing more or less the same theory and Charles was encouraged by his associates to publish his work. His evolutionary theory came about in a time with no knowledge of genes and mutation and considering the time period was revolutionary, setting up the foundation from which much of modern biology and science has developed.



The crocodilian display was amazing. It essentially followed the origins of crocodilians through to today. They were a split in the evolutionary tree with the dinosaurs and survived the mass extinction of the dinosaurs due to their ability to survive for months on end (up to a year) without eating. At one juncture in their past they were related to the deinosuchus, a massive 10-15 metre beast touted to be larger than T-rex and just as deadly. From our visit to the Crocosaurus Park we’d learned that estuarine crocs have a bite strength almost double that of the T-Rex – perhaps something they’ve retained from their deinosuchus days.



From the Crocodilian exhibit we wandered through some doors at the end of the hall into a massive hangar filled with boats – most from the islands and countries directly north of Australia. A 15 foot (or thereabouts) canoe was of particular interest in that it began its journey on a small island in Indonesia en route to another small island a few kilometres away but unfortunately missed its port of call and after 10 days surviving off rain water and dried fish managed to make it to Australian waters. There were 10 people on board including a 9 month old baby – all survived. Although a number of such accidental voyages have occurred from these islands and communities into Australia – only two have gone the other direction. One of note was by an Australian Artist (Ian Fairweather) who ended up paddling/sailing in a small craft some 400 kms to somewhere in Indonesia after going off course near the tip of Darwin. A plaque outside the museum details the events of his voyage and life.



Feeling well and truly cultured and invested with knowledge we made our way to the Leanyer Water Park some 30 minutes away to take in yet another free activity offered in Darwin’s precincts. We were awed by this facility as it made most leisure centres where you would pay substantially for entrance, look dismal in comparison. Not only did it have three impressive slides (one with an inflatable raft for two) and a large shallow beach-like pool complete with a section of smaller pools cascading into one another, but also a large water park with water cannons, smaller slides and water-play areas for the younger kids to enjoy. Beside all of this was a massive jungle-gym park fully covered from the UV by a massive shade cloth umbrella. It was hard to believe that all this was absolutely free. Perhaps the benefits on health and potential for decreasing the cost of inactivity, beach related injuries et al on local health care expenditures made sense for such a venture. Whatever the reason we were glad to enjoy it with the other multi-cultural subset of the population taking advantage of its incredible facilities. Back at the caravan we looked sadly upon the collection of generally aged and obese inhabitants of neighbouring vans seemingly perpetually locked into their small zone of existence with TVs blaring and nothing much else to do but sit. With so much to do and see it didn’t make sense to sit on one’s laurels wasting the time away. I remember a cynical old teacher of mine once stating, “every minute is one minute less” – a bit dark and morbid but perhaps a good way of taking in every moment we have to live and taking advantage of the opportunities we have when they arise. I think we sometimes push the ticket a bit too much as there is rarely much downtime in our agenda. Our biggest challenge will be finding the balance without giving up too much.

Rocks on Fannie Bay

Off to the Top End to visit Charles

Darwin seems to be on this virtually never ending highway which eventually takes you into the harbour and CBD. We wanted to see the Big Boxing Croc in Humpty Doo on the way in but after touring its main drag and not finding it gave up and continued our journey to Howard Springs – just outside of Darwin and where we’d booked a caravan site. Finishing our trek into the city we made our way to the wave pool at the wharf precinct for a cooling off and to let off some energy. It’s a beautiful little complex on the foreshore and produces waves you can actually boogie board down and cruise into the shallows. We’d paid $15 in Coober Pedy for a family visit to a rather basic pool with a few pool toys, here it was $12 for an amazing pool complete with boogie boards and inner tubes with which to enjoy the waves. For dinner and entertainment we ventured to the Mindil Beach Night Markets which occur every Thursday and Sunday. It was absolutely packed! From your usual trinket, t-shirt and odd junk stalls, there was also ample multi-cultural food booths, fire-throwers, Michael Jackson dancing wannabees, amazing didgeridoo/percussion bands, street entertainers and your mandatory overpriced jumping castle amusement section. It was an experience to say the least and we enjoyed some wonderful South Australia Oysters, brick-oven pizza and Lebanese Chicken wraps.

Friday came with an early start to organize ourselves for the day and head back into Darwin. Piper and Cole had an appointment at the Travel Clinic to get some jabs for our Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos trip. After some well timed doses of chocolate and the occasional firmly held limb, Piper managed to get through all four of her vaccines but not without a struggle. Cole braved to the task and with some deep breaths and a mouthful of Freddy Frog got through his two. For the afternoon we ventured to an inner city Crocodile Park called the Crocosaurus Cove where you could feed the juvenile crocs with fishing lines, swim adjacent their pen, divided only by some plexi-glass, and watch some courageous tourists jump into the ‘Cage of Death’ – a plexi-glass enclosure they lower into the bigger croc pens. The crocs were a bit bored of this exercise it seemed as no matter what the occupants of the cage did, the crocs simply wouldn’t cooperate with a snarl or leap. The park also had a fish and reptile enclosure so we were able to watch some feeding of the massive barramundis, the archer fish (and witness their incredible ability to spit), a sword fish and some rays. In the reptile enclosure we all had a go handling the olive python, bearded dragon lizard and blue-tongued skink. It was probably the best crocodile park we’ve been to as it wasn’t just about getting the big crocs to jump or attack and had a bunch of other exhibits for us to see and enjoy. We almost had to drag the kids away they were enjoying it so much. We wandered the city a bit and read about the bombing of Darwin back in 1942 – it would have been a scary time as they were caught unaware and had 188 Japanese Zero fighters bearing down on them, bombing any and everything in sight. After the first wave retreated a second bunch of 54 planes came in to finish the job. There were only 5 American Spitfires to try to defend the area! We headed home with schoolwork to complete and dinner to have, crashing like a tonne of bricks again after a muggy, busy day.

We’ve got but one more day here and then will trek southwards again – aiming for Mataranka for our first stop to enjoy the thermal springs located there. We’re hoping it will get cooler as we make our way south so we can start using our covers at night again. Today we’re off to the museum, some fish feeding and hopefully some water-slides – should be a buzz!