For many years I have thought of Darwin as a place “in the far flung outposts of the British Empire”; and indeed it is a long drive to experience the northern part of Australia’s civilisation. But I found a very well organised city with good roads and many new buildings and shopping centres. Cyclone Tracey did the north a favour in many respects. Sad to hear the stories of the “wind that blew the town away”.
The other major catastrophe for Darwin was the Japanese bombings during the 2nd world war. The experience of the event is depicted in movie form and virtual reality of the attack on the harbour. This is at the waterfront of the harbour and is included with the Flying Doctor museum and display.
We stayed out of town for 7 weeks. The little Suzuki came in handy for when we wanted to see the area around Darwin and to do shopping etc. A good buy indeed. Hitching it on the back of the motorhome eventually became a breeze.
Darwin was sunny every day; 32 degrees was mostly comfortable. No clouds for 11 weeks straight. We saw a couple of the famous Darwin sunsets: one at Mindil Market and the other at Cullen Bay.
It’s hard to find accepted take off points for the drone in the territory and I don’t want to offend the powers that control who can or who can’t. I only used the drone twice in 7 weeks.
The swimming holes at Berry Springs are a refreshing spot to visit on a hot humid day. We took a couple of visits there; one with Diane and James. The springs at Litchfield National Park were also fine. I had a bit of a panic attack (the accident I had does that at the wrong time) there on our first visit and wasn’t able to join Lyn in the water.
There are some good restaurants in Darwin. Our favourite one became “The cool spot” in Fannie Bay. They make the best rocky road dessert you could imagine. Here’s the three that we each downed while in the town; on different days, of course. The one in the round cup was at a market one night. They poured a liquefied ice cream mix onto a freezing cold stove top and literally scraped it off into ice cream rolls. Delicious too, of course.
By staying at a campground for 2 months, you can’t help but get to know other campers who have ventured to Darwin to get away from winter too. Almost the whole guest list turned up for what followed the daily 4pm happy hour, a game of darts. Two teams of 15 to 30 members each brought “soul” to what could be a dull two months. The fortnightly “dress up to a theme share dinner” brought a few laughs too. A number of us are still in contact to be updated with the darts score.
Our turn to head south came too quickly as the warm sunny weather became the normal, more enjoyable lifestyle than being in winter clothing, even inside, that awaited us on our return. We would have stayed longer if our trip to Croatia wasn’t just four weeks away.
We spent a day cleaning the inside of the motor home before heading for the Stuart Highway that was to take us south via Alice Springs, and Port Augusta. We decided to take a different route to home via Mildura and then south to the Yarra Valley via Bendigo and Seymour.
There are many places on the Stuart Highway where travellers can “free camp”. We took the opportunity twice before arriving at Alice Springs. Just north of Alice are the Devils Marbles. We arrived to a full camping area so we moved on 80 Km further along the highway.
In Alice Springs, we met up with Glenn and Kyung who purchased their Paradise Motorhome 6 months after us but we have met up a few times in Melbourne. They left Melbourne after eventually selling their business and getting on the road to do a lap; they are in the 16th month of exploring and came up to Alice Springs following some time on the Eyre Peninsula, South Australia. We camped in a campground out of Alice Springs where it is safer for tourists. We managed to time our visit with the arrival of the northbound Ghan on a Thursday.
There are a few really well cared for tourist spots near The Alice; Simpsons Gap and Standley Chasm. Take a look.
The highway south of Alice Springs also has some free camps and we traveled with Glenn and Kyung stopping at the SA/NT border, train spotters camp, and Lake Hart near Woomera. There were 5 trains that went past our camping spot at Lake Hart and none at Train Spotters.
Port August became the town of farewell as we said good bye to Glenn and Kyung, and headed to Berri for the night beside the Murray River. As we were walking around the free camping area deciding where to set up for the night, a lady in a campervan drove over to us and asked if she could stay close to us for the night as security for her. This was the first time she had free camped since her husband had passed twelve months ago; she even called it her “virgin” trip. Of course we were happy to help and had a nice happy hour together going over places we both had been to. That’s the way grey nomads live most of the time – helping others who lack the experience.
When you get close to home after a long journey, you start to “hot foot” and get home sooner. After leaving the Murray, we took a short break in Mildura and thence to Wedderburn. This was to be the last night of this trip to Darwin for 2023. We found a free camp just near to the town and settled down to watch tv. The morning would see us arrive home soon after mid day to reorganize the house after the last of the renovations had been completed the week after our departure 15 weeks earlier.
great life - got nothing on 