Darwin (Part 3) and Daly River, NT.

 We returned to Darwin back to Free Spirit, which we are starting to get a little bit sick of, but it is convenient and we get a good TAWK discount for the kids. Everybody is feeling ok. Bridie is just tired and thirsty so we a getting her to drink lots of small sips of fluids. We stopped into the shops on the way through to restock and we called into Chris Archbald's Op Shop to pick out a new outfit for Abby's birthday party tonight. It is a Flower Theme - the girls are super excited!! They have found outfits that they love, they have painted their nails, and made the most elaborate birthday cards for Abby that you have ever seen.

We are arrived a bit early to see Abby before she is busy with lots of guests. The kids were thrilled to see a big Balloon sign saying ÄBBY 36 hanging from the carport and lots of balloons and streamers. They also just happened to be the first ones on the karaoke, singing Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus songs.



Dinner was a delicious spread of Phillipino foods, and a handbag cake and cupcakes. We all tried new foods and ate way too much. Always a sign of a good night!


After a slow start the next day, we headed to the waterpark. Not ideal on a Sunday with every table filled with a kids birthday party, but it is closed Monday/Tuesdays so we didn't have a choice. Elsie just scraped through the height requirement on the giant water slide - and Zara and Elsie got to go down together on the inflatable donut. Thankfully Bridie was content just splashing around in the sprinkler pool. We ran into OurWeeClanInAVan and the girls got to swim together again. 

Home for lunch and a rest, and we were out again to the Deckchair cinema for a fundraiser for the Palmerston Game Fishing Club. We had a BBQ before the movie and watched "Storks"which was quite a good cartoon - if not a little too much of an emotional rollarcoaster for Elsie. (And yes, Elsie wore her party dress again! )


After two late nights in a row, the next day we just did some window shopping through the CBD, and explored the Parliament House building.


Then we headed off on an adventure to the Daly River Region  which is where John has gone many times for the Barra Nationals fishing competition. John and his good mate Dave came with us for the trip and they took us to Banyan Farm.  It was so nice to see the place we have all heard so much about over the years. It is now the off season so we basically had the place to ourselves. The kids loved patting the horses, looking for the peacocks (and any dropped feathers) and they were fascinated with a statue at the main entrance of an eldery man and lady reading a book and holding a cat. Every time we would walk past, Bridie would stop and pat the cat.


It was little oasis and a very relaxing few days. Really great amenities block - coming in a close second behind Derby - again, great music, fans, open ventilation. It was very hot days while we were here and while Saul, John and Dave went out fishing in the boat each day, Kylie and the kids hung out at the pool, made craft, did some school work and played with Banjo the young kelpie. He loved his ball, but still not quite as much as our Tommy pup.


Being the off season for the Barra, Dave wasn't sure how they would go out in the boat. But turns out with some local knowledge, they had success and John caught a 62cm barramundi, which we cooked up and all shared for dinner that night.



The girls went exploring one day and visited the Nauiyu community. The kids had a play on the playground and we visited the art gallery which sells work from local artists. Zara bought a pair of earrings made by an Aborginal Elder named Bridget. 




We also visited the causeway which used to be the main access road before the new bridge was built just down the river. Luckily for us, the tide was low and we could walk across and have a good look, being careful of the trucks that still use the crossing.


On our way out the drive way headed back to Darwin, the peacock gave us a  grand salute GoodBye. The kids spotted him and we reversed the caravan back to see him walk around in circles waving those magnificent tail feathers.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cleaverville, WA.

Image
 Next stop for us is the Peedamulla Campground. We had originally booked 4 nights during our rush to plan this busy area, but soon realized that there is not much to do in this spot. We would have liked to go to Onslow for a day or 2 but we were restricted by our over-due car service. So we reduced our booking to 2 nights, but ended up staying just the one night.  The campground itself was very nice. Nice and spacious sites, beautiful rocky views of the plains, and modern clean facilities with pretty native landscaping. The push button showers were a great idea to help save water. We ran into Harriet and her family who we met at the Fingers Fingers Beach. They were staying at Peedamulla as well. The girls had a great time playing together again. The next day we drove on to a free camp just south of Karratha called Miarree Pools. Our camp at Cleaverville is first in, best dressed to pick your ca...
Read more

Heading Home - VIC

Image
We boarded the Spirit of Tasmania again to head back to Victoria. We loved Tassie so much, we will be back again, I'm sure. This time around because Tassie has no COVID we were allowed to walk around the boat and see all of its beauty! We went outside and watched the land disappear and watched the sunset. Then we ordered Pizza for tea from the restaurant. There was a playground for the kids plus a TV with cartoons. This was hit after a big day waiting around for the boat.  The decorations on the walls from a book around collective nouns for animals. Kylie enjoyed this a lot. It was a bit windier than our trip over but we all slept OK and woke up early back on main land Melbourne soil. We had some breakfast on land then drove to Pa's house in Newborough and we were reunited with Tommy Pup!! We had all been waiting for this day for so long and constantly talking about it. T...
Read more

Timber Creek, NT.

Image
 We say Good Bye to Western Australia after 3 months and Hello to the Northern Territory!! Things back home on the east coast are starting to get a bit crazy again with COVID but thankfully nothing recently in WA or the NT. We didn't even think to check the news before we left at 7.30am, and we drove straight across the border towards Katherine. We drove for 2 hours without phone reception and as soon as we got close to Timber Creek our phones started to beep with messages. There was now a snap 3 day lockdown in the NT affecting the Darwin and Katherine areas. So we stopped at the Big Horse Creek Campground 10km West of Timber Creek and decided to wait out the lockdown just to see what happens. As much of a shock as it was, it turned out to be a great place to stay for a week. We made some great new friendships and we even had a special person arrive and camp with us. Greg and Dennis and Neville and Sue and Rocky were camped here too and they now have Greg and Neville's sister ...
Read more