Normanton, Karumba and a fantastic short cut via Dixie Road to Coen

From our camp at Leichardt Falls, our handy navigation app suggested allowing 31 hours and 20 minutes to travel the 224 kilometres to Karumba.  We expected to be at Normanton by morning tea time, with only another 80km of sealed road to Karumba.  Did the GPS know something we didn't?

This could take a while

Turns out there is a whole heap to see and do in this part of the world.  We stopped at Camp CXIX (119) for a quick history lesson.

Camp 119 - history lesson

It was from here that Burke and Wills made their final dash to the Gulf in 1861, leaving Gray and King at this camp. Burke and Wills were thwarted by the monsoon (it was February), mangroves and clay pans, and never saw a vista of the ocean stretching out before them. It was a bitter disappointment for Burke.  Whilst we now know how ill prepared they were for the perils of their journey, it is honestly amazing that they made it this far at all.

Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park and Riversleigh Fossil Field

Any way you look at it, Australia is a huge country - and occasionally you just have to bite the bullet and drive.  With the weather up here starting to warm up and get more humid, it is a sure sign the build up to the wet season is approaching - and if we want to get to Cape York before the rains come, we needed to get cracking.

We left Bitter Springs early, with the aim of getting as far down the Savannah Way as possible before we all needed to stop.  We decided to take the blacktop to Borooloola - some 550km from Bitter Springs.  From Borooloola the road turns to dirt, and as we had made good time, we decided to push on to the Foelshe River.

Back on dirt roads again - Rocky was made for this sort of touring!

I am going to miss some of the road signs of the Northern Territory,  This sign is found everwhere the road turns from bitumen to dirt.  This example was found in the middle of a long dirt section - with dirt roads stretching for many miles in either direction.  Just in case you'd forgotten I guess.

Nitmiluk National Park and Bitter Springs near Mataranka

All of us were deep in thought as we hit the road again.  Our past few days had been an incredible rollercoaster and we needed time to stop and process it all.  We therefore decided to push past the famous Litchfield National Park and go somewhere a little quieter.  Now don't get me wrong, Litchfield is beautiful, but Jo and I had been before, and it is close and accessible to Darwin.  Sometimes you just have to make the call to stop and let the dust settle.

The perfect place for a couple of nights to clear the head was Edith Falls.  The falls are in the Nitmiluk National Park, just north of Katherine.  A massive plunge pool with clear water was just the ticket to wash off the dust of the road.  It also doubled as swimming lessons for the school diary.

Swimming Lessons - Edith Falls

Our rest day at Edith Falls started slowly with a good old fashioned sleep in.  In fact it was the first time we had slept properly in days.  We caught up on some school work, and I tinkered with a couple of little odd jobs that had been neglected for a while.  It was lovely.

And now for something completely different

The next part of our adventure was not particularly far from Darwin as the crow flies, but it is a long 400km journey by road.  Almost half of the drive is on an unsealed corrugated track, littered with burnt out cars.  We were visiting a part of Australia that is far from the tourist circuit - indeed it is an area often singled out by the politicians and media outlets for all the wrong reasons.

Unsure what to expect, we were nervous about making the journey here.  I was concerned for not just our safety, but for the impression this place would leave on our boys.

I came away with a strong feeling of hope.  

Our destination was a former mission that was established in the 1930's, and relocated to its present location in 1942.  It became a meeting place for many people, with land assigned for each family group within the mission boundaries. This has created an extremely diverse community undergoing a massive cultural change, and this upheaval hasn't always gone to plan.  Our destination was Wadeye (Port Keats).

I wont pretend to even attempt to understand the challenges or issues here, suffice to say they are extremely complex.  There is no simple solution.  

We were visiting Chris and Emily, family friends who had taken a two year contract to teach at the school here.  They are 18 months into their contract, and are considering extending their contract for another two year period.  Chris and Emily played the part of gracious hosts, tour guides, chefs, and translators.  We were extremely fortunate to have such wonderful friends to visit here, who went out of their way to ensure we all got the most out of our visit.

The road in was littered with burnt out cars - because the cost to recover broken down vehicles usually exceeds the vehicle's value.

Darwin - a city transformed

I was looking forward to returning to Darwin after a long absence.  Darwin is a city that for its whole existance could be described as a modern city.  Established as a settlement in 1869 it was soon Australia's link to the rest of the world with the first overseas telegraph station opened in 1872.  The city was rebuilt after being bombed in 1942, and then again after being destroyed by Cyclone Tracey in 1974.  In the past 15 years the rebuild has been more gradual, but we found ourselves in a city we barely recognised - and that is not altogether a bad thing!

We had decided to come a day earlier than planned into Darwin, and spend a day relaxing after our busy tour through Kakadu.  We were all a little weary of travelling, and a bit of caravan park luxury (and washiing machines) was very much in order.

Our first stop was the Rapid Creek Markets.  The tropical fruits and vegetables on display, coupled with the aromas from the food stalls was vaguely reminiscent of a South East Asia market - without the enthusiastic haggling!  We enjoyed a fruit smoothie - first treat of the day.

Mmmm... Rapid Creek Markets

Our next stop was Casurania Shopping Mall, a typical mall with all the same shops you find everywhere - but we weren't here for the shopping.  We had a little surprise for the boys up our sleeves.  We told them we were looking for a new pair of shoes or some such guff.  When we went up the stairs to the cinema, the game was eventually up, and we took the boys in to see a movie.    They didn't know the movie until the opening scene - and were thrilled with the choice.  How to Train a Dragon 2 was extremely well received.

Kakadu - a definite must do!

Kakadu is one of Australia's largest National Parks.  It is an impossibly large area that requires years of exploration to see all of its features in all its seasons.  All we had was a week - and after our big few days on the road getting up here, taking it easy was a big priority.

We came in from the south on the Kakadu Highway, and stopped at the Park Entrance Station to pick up a pamphlet on the park.  

I don't pretend to be a historian, but the history of Kakadu is tied up closely with Aboriginal custodians coming to stand up against mining interests who threatened to destroy their land.  One way or another there is a lot of uranium, lead, mercury and arsenic in these hills - and the Aboriginals knew much of this area as 'Sickness Country'.  Interestingly as geologists mapped the area, the areas with the highest concentrations of those minerals correlated strongly with the sickness story.  

The small display at the entrance station did a good job to introduce the many eras of Kakadu's history, from the ancient geological processes that formed its landscapes, the Aboriginal history here, and then the pastoralists and miners.  It is a complex story with many chapters.

Relics from the Uranium Mining at the Park Entrance Station

Our first camp for the night was at Gunlom Falls.  A good gravel road deteriorated into a rough track leading to the camping area.  A stunning plunge pool at the base of the falls looked inviting.  We had heard that the active monitoring and trapping process for keeping Estuarine Crocodiles out of this pool was assisted greatly by a big male crocodile nick named 'The Gate Keeper' who lived downstream.  The irony that a crocodile kept this pool crocodile free wasn't lost on us, and we chose not to go for a swim that evening after we set up camp.