Wednesday 15th May

12^th May

Yesterday was an early start, we drove 50+ kilometres to Yellow Waters for the 6:30am sunrise cruise on Yellow Water lagoon and wetlands river system, saw a lot of interesting birdlife and a few crocs, a full blown buffet breakfast was part of the deal when we returned from the cruise around 8:45am – I didn’t need lunch yesterday. On the way back we visited an aboriginal rock painting site that incorporated a small hike of 1½ kls it was worth the stop but by the time we finished we were a lather of perspiration, Nancy was grumpy as she had to wait in the car.

Back at our base I took the opportunity to clean up the van and wash off all the red dust and mud we had gather over the previous few weeks so it all looks nice and shiny again.

Late afternoon we drove to another popular art site with some stunning rock paintings and a rock promontory where you can look out over wetlands in the direction of Arnem Land to the east and to the west over placid wetlands to a beautiful sunset. As it turned out the park rangers and local indigenous people were carry out back burning of undergrowth for bushfire control so there was a lot of smoke everywhere. It was interesting to watch the numerous Black Kites wheeling in and out of dense smoke plumes waiting to pick off small prey as they fled from the fires.

The lowest temperature while we were in Jabiru was 27C in the middle of the night.

Today we made Darwin and being Sunday enjoyed the novelty of the Mindil Beach sunset market then sat on Mindil Beach watching the sun disappear over a horizon of sea for a change.

 David flies back to Brisbane tomorrow morning so life should get a bit easier for us, for one thing I won’t have to get a tent on and off the roof rack and put it up and down each day, then drag sleeping gear etc in and out of the caravan. Doesn’t sound much but it’s amazing how much it adds to your work load each day.

14^th May 2013

David got home safely we put him on a plane at 0640.

We had a busy day re-arranging gear, packing up the tent, sorting out the van, getting washing up-to date and cooling off in the pool but basically it was a nice quiet day. 

Wednesday 15^th May 2013

Today is maintenance day on the van, brakes and bearings and hopefully the fridge plus a couple of other small issues.