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Sept. 9, 2007
We spent the morning doing some computer work and then went into Darwin and did a walking tour. The port of Darwin was hit by two Japanese bombing runs in February, 1942 and the attackers where from the same fleet that had attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii just two months earlier. Over two hundred people were killed and many ships sunk or damaged. Many residents of the city fled and the town was hit many more times before the tide turned against the Japanese military.
Darwin has also been severely damaged by cyclones, most recently by Cyclone Tracy in 1974. Many old and new buildings were destroyed and the town has been rebuilt once again.
In the late afternoon we headed to Mandil Beach for the twice weekly evening market. Many, many stalls line the walkway along the beach, selling every kind of food from "bush tucker" to raw oysters to Sri Lanken food. There was also live music at several different venues, all timed not to overlap. We spent about five hours there, sampling the food, watching the sunset and people watching. Much of the music incorporated Aboriginal sounds and instruments, like didgeridoos - a kind of trumpet made from hollowed tree branches.
We spent the night "city camped" on a traffic-quiet residential street where we could hear what we think were possums, screeching all night long.
Sept. 10
Getting up very early so as not to disturb the residents, we drove to a shopping center where we picked up coffee and pastries for breakfast. We then hit the phones to make appointments for maintenance on the truck and to get information on business locales. We ran our errands and finished up with everything late in the afternoon, a ways out of the city. Since we had one more errand to run in town in the morning, we decided to stay at the campground closest to the center. Although it wasn't a BAD place, it was expensive and it turned out to be right under the flight pattern for the international airport. And of course they had really big planes taking off in the middle of the night. Aargh!
Sept. 11
| We ran our errand in town in the morning and then got out of Dodge. We headed toward Litchfield National Park, with its beautiful waterfalls and interesting termite mounds. In Australia there are more than 100 species of termites that assist the ecosystems by breaking down plant material. Two of the species that we found here are the cathedral termite and the magnetic termite. The cathedral termites we also found on Cape York. They build giant mounds with buttressed columns that can support a mound exceeding 6m (19.5 ft) tall and 1.5m (4.75 ft) wide at the bottom! |
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| The magnetic termites are only found in the area around Litchfield Nat'l. Park. They build wedge-shaped mounds that are nearly flat across the top, and generally about 3m (9.75 ft) tall. What is most strange is that their mounds are generally uniform in shape and aligned in the same direction, usually north/north-east. |
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Our last waterfall for the day was Wangi Falls which also has a large plunge pool that you can swim in. There is also a nice campground, so after picking a spot, we changed into swim suits and headed to the falls where we spent the afternoon in cool splendor. |
Sept. 12
We took our time in the morning and drove back out of Litchfield the way we came in. We stopped in the cute town of Adelaide River for lunch and continued on to Katherine where we once again stayed in a campground, mainly because we had a package shipped there, and we felt it was the right thing to do. The stretch of highway from Darwin to Katherine is signposted with references to the World War II bases, airfields and hospitals that lined the route. The only relics visible were concrete foundations and old paving left over from the old landing strips.
Sept. 13
| This turned out to be a lazy day in Katherine as we didn't make it out of town until nearly 3pm. During our stay we met more Fuso owners, Brett and Naomi, who are traveling around Australia with their two girls looking for a new place to call home. In the meantime, they are living in their customized camper. |
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We picked up our new Nature Pure water purifier supplied by the Aussie representative of our sponsor General Ecology. We also made some phone calls trying to arrange for new batteries for the living quarters of our expedition vehicle. Ours are getting old and not holding a full charge. After some calls and emails we got the great news that we would receive two new Deka batteries, again courtesy of the local representative of our battery sponsor East Penn Manufacturing. We spent the night in a nice quiet rest stop.
Sept. 14
Today was a driving day as we had already passed this way on our drive north. However, as we were passing by Daly Waters we saw a sign announcing that there was a rodeo beginning today. We stopped for lunch and watched an hour of the rodeo. There were nearly as many women drovers cowboys/girls) as men, all from the surrounding ranches. It was fun to watch but the group we saw wasn't doing very well. But it was a good way for them to get together with their friends from the other stations to socialize and have some fun.
Sept. 15 and 16th
| We drove back through Tennant Creek this morning. Leaving town we are now driving over new territory as we head towards Alice Springs. We explored the interesting round boulders at Devils Marbles which is also an Aboriginal Sacred location. There are thousands of huge, rounded granite boulders, many of which are precariously balanced one on top of the other. The Warumungu people, the local Aboriginal group, believe the rocks to be eggs of the Rainbow Serpent, a creature from the Dreamtime creation story. |
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Just down the road we stopped for a visit at a different type of sacred location, the UFO Centre of Australia. No we didn't see Elvis, just a couple of little green men and lots of articles featuring stories about UFO visitations and abductions, oh yes, and lots of flys! It would have been fun to see a UFO, but we decided against spending the night there. |
We passed the 50,000 mile/80,000 km mark on our odometer today and celebrated having visited 18 different countries to date on the World of Wonders Project.
Driving along the next day, we took breaks along the way to explore yet another funky roadhouse, little changed despite the passage of nearly 70 years. We also spent time examining the fabulous Aboriginal artwork for sale in the community of Ti Tree. Our campsite for the night was, unintentionally, right on the Tropic of Capricorn. This is the fourth time since the start of the Project that we have crossed this imaginary line, twice in South America and twice in Australia.
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