Timber Creek, NT.
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 Sandra and her husband John with them as well. Saul was lucky enough to go out fishing with Greg and Neville in the boat a few times on the Victoria River. Not many barra were caught, except one nice 57cm by Neville, but they did well catching lots of mudcrabs and Saul caught a shark. Zara and Elsie went for a ride in the boat one day to do some croc spotting. They didn't have to go far with a big croc sunbaking directly opposite the boat ramp.
One night we had a big cook up of barra bites and mudcrab for dinner. It was very delicious.
On our first day at Big Horse Creek the kids met Pearl and Onyx and immediately became good friends. They had loads of fun over the next 5 days playing, making games, craft and special choc chip slice. We had some very fun adventures together exploring the Original Timber Creek Police station, walking the track down to the Hickey beach (which isn't actually a beach but a little oasis next to the creek) and finding hidden treasure in the Geocaches in the area. Pearl and Onxy are travelling in a big orange converted school bus, which is now a "Cool Bus!!"and the kids were lucky enough to get a tour of the bus before their new friends moved on to their next camp spot. Zara and Elsie definitely agreed that the bus lived up to its name of being very Cool.
The camp ground itself was surrounded by lots of bird life and boab trees. There were corellas and cockatoos nesting in the Boabs and there was a bowerbird making a nest with the boab nuts near the boat ramp. The kids loved collecting the boab nuts and opening them up and making games with the remnants.
We enjoyed pancakes one morning complete with real maple syrup, jam and chocolate spread, and all put together on the grand rock next to our campsite.
Halfway through our stay, Kylie's Dad John arrived and the excited levels hit sky high levels. The kids followed Pop in his car all the way to our camp from the entrance and I think every person in the camp now knew that Poppy had arrived!!! He drove 400km on dirt via the Buchanan Highway to avoid the Katherine lockdown, but arrived safely just before dusk.
One night siting around camp we had a tractor pull up looking for a camp. There were a group on travellers from WA travelling the country with their tractors and caravans raising money for the Royal Flying Doctors Service. The kids had a great time climbing up in the tractor.
We were having bucket showers all week, which the kids love and still enjoy the novelty of the experience, but this camp is very sandy and dirty, so we were all in desperate need of a real shower, so we went into Timber Creek and paid for a shower at the caravan park. Our friends Lauren and Steve and Harriet and Frankie were at this caravan park so we called in to say hello to them and have a quick look around - and just casually went for a walk over the bridge and saw a Crocodile!!!!!
The Katherine lockdown was extended for 1 day but then was lifted after 4 days, so we were free to move on, however we ended up staying one more day just because we could. For an unexpected extended stay, it was a very fun and relaxing week and will remain a highlight of the trip!
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