Lee and Jenny’s bushcamp has been such a wonderful
experience, we now wondered what our next caravan park would be like!
We had chosen this Caravan Park even though it was 50kms south of Darwin. It had been highly recommended it was close to Litchfield National Park too.
Some Parks in and nearer to Darwin, were priced at $57 a night.
17 June 2014
We left quite early at 8:50 as one of the other caravanners
had to lower his canopy which enabled us to drive our caravan out. We said our
farewells to some lovely people and made our way towards the Daly River road.
We were lucky enough to see some wild life this morning, a number of wallabies
and a fantastic herd of black buffalo and they were big animals, they bounded off
when we approached. After a ten night stay and not seeing these wonderful
creatures we both commented how lucky we were to spot them this morning.
We arrived at the Tumbling Waters Caravan Park at 11:30 quite
early for us, Jenny (another Jenny) the owner was lovely and informed us that
we had a large package waiting for us! It was our new washing machine, we told
her the story of how we had managed to get a new machine, Jenny was impressed,
and we would collect it later. After towing past the parks fenced off Billabong
that contained two freshwater crocodiles and through the very shady caravan
park we found our spot but unfortunately no shade for us…. It was a newish area
being developed with young palms trees separating the pitches. After setting
up, with just the canopy we decided our shade sails front and side needed to be
put in place as it was now 33C, we had all windows open and no breeze was
forthcoming!! We are trying not to use the aircon in the caravan as we feel we
should get used to the heat! Crazy, it maybe, and we might change our minds if
this heat carries on. We had no immediate neighbours but some very nice people
were around us. Richard went back down to the reception and collected our
washing machine. Lunch was had and Helen sat outside under the shade of the
canopy little knowing what was happening in the caravan, Richard had dismantled
some of the bathroom and was eagerly trying to get the old washing machine out
of its casing but it just wouldn’t budge! He crawled and laid under the back of
the caravan to try and find if it was bolted to the floor/chassis of the van.
It was so hot and a decision was made to re-assemble and put back all the
cupboards/casing back in place and to continue using the old washing machine.
The new one had to be put back in its box and stored somewhere! The only place
suitable is our shower tray. Helen not
too keen on this but had to agree. Once again, Helen sat outside waiting for
everything to be put back in place it was so, so hot…We were invited to “Happy
hour” by our nearest neighbours Mandy and Chris, there was a number of couples
here we introduced ourselves and it is always difficult to remember everybody’s
name. We all sat in the shade of an unoccupied pitch and everyone was lovely, a
mixture of English Aussies and Aussies, some new friends were made. Tonight was the second leg of the State of
Origin and NSW won so now it’s one all!
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| Tumbling Waters Pool where we did Aqua aerobics |
Our pantry was bare so a trip out to the nearest
supermarket was needed. Palmerston is a large suburb 25 to 30 km away but the
nearest to us. There is a relatively new
road (a back route) to Palmerston which cuts a few kilometres off the journey.
This route is also the quicker way into Darwin, these roads were constructed
for the new Gas storage/distribution plant at Channel Island, which is being
built. Inpex is the company. It is the biggest construction project in the
Southern Hemisphere, maybe in the world as there are 6000 people employed
there. On a number of occasion we came across many coaches taking the employees
to and from work. We saw numerous housing estate building going on. Yet, the
house prices in Darwin have dropped this year, but property was quite expensive
we thought, but all relative I suppose. We stocked up our pantry once again so no panic!
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| Happy hour |
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| Wangi Falls, Litchfield National Park |
Richard swam out
to the waterfall and I followed but the closer I got the colder the water was. Wangi
falls has a small and beautiful NP campground it was full too. We had a light
lunch and then walked back to the falls to take more photographs here we bumped
into some friends from down the track Hadyn and Gail, who we had met at Banka
Banka, they had their caravan on the campground here.
We had a catch up about
places they had visited. Gail told Helen about the amazing Rockart in Kakadu
which is a must. They had been in Darwin at a caravan park that was over $50
per night OUCH!!
It was a long drive back to Tumbling Waters but we managed
to get back for Happy Hour a short one as nearly everyone was off down to the
camp bar/restaurant for food and entertainment. Later we had a walk to the bar
and listened to the music and had a drink. The next day new neighbours arrived,
a family with two small boys, they were German and were on a mission to sell
their pop top caravan and Nissan Xtrail vehicle as they had to go home to
Germany to go back to work as teachers. Christian and Hannah had been away from
their jobs for a year. We were to have some lovely times with the family.
We were asked if we would like to join in a pot luck
evening meal one Sunday evening and needless to say the food was exceptional
there must have been 30-40 people sat in the evening sun having a good time.
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| Richard has his own shade |
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| Pot Luck get together |
Needless to say we extended our stay here from 10 days to 3
weeks as we loved the weather and the company.
Helen was persuaded to partake of the aqua aerobics class
three times a week from 9.00 am and so she then managed to persuade Richard to
do the men’s class also, that began after the women. Helen got herself into a
team for the weekly Sunday night trivia quiz, Richard spent the evening
catching up with work that needed doing on the blog as we had lost all of our
photographs from the past posts….
We visited Darwin a number of times even though it was
quite a long way. We did managed to meet up with our friend John who we hadn’t
seen since last December at Lane Cove, he was going to fly out to work on the
oil rig in the Timor Sea for another three weeks. Erica, Kyle and Iona his
family are all in Tasmania, but when John goes back they will get the ferry on
the 16 July and come over the Victoria. Richard and I would love to meet up
with them again maybe next year?
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| A crowd of us at the Tuesday night cheap dinner menu at the Litchfield Pub |
We visited the Military museum which was in a beautiful
area of Darwin here we were able to watch an amazing film showing how the Japanese bombed Darwin on the 19 February 1942, we learned so much today, one of the saddest stories is about the Darwin Post Office where all nine staff were killed in the bombing of their building. Many of the people who were killed in the bombing are buried at a Commonwealth WWII cemetery. We had heard about this cemetery it is at Adelaide River on the Stuart Highway, we decided to have a drive south and check it out.
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| Commonwealth WWII cemetery |
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| This is the section where the nine Post Office staff are buried |
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| Names of the men who lost their lives |
A visit to the Aircraft Museum that housed a massive B52 bomber of
the USAF, what an incredible airplane. Again, another visit to the world famous
Mindil markets held Thursday and Sunday nights at Mindil beach.
There are many trips and cruises that are
available and we decided, once again by recommendation to partake of the
sunset dinner cruise on the boat Cape Adieu it was just beautiful with great
food and amazing sunset at Darwin Harbour. Sorry no pics of the food!
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| The view from our seats on the top deck of the Cape Adieu |
Our stay at Tumbling Waters was so good and we made so many
friends we are considering returning next year, may stay for longer as the
weather is just wonderful. Darwin is a great city too and worth a visit lots to do and see.
Our next move is to Kakadu!
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