great life – retired got nothing on – Page 3

9. Great Life lapping Australia 2024

Yellow Water Cruise – Kakadu

To take this cruise, you need to buy tickets and check in at Cooinda Lodge where you are taken to the mooring site for your departure to an ever changing landscape of the Yellow Water billabong. If you’re in Kakadu National Park, it is a “must-do” evening cruise finishing off with another brilliant Northern Territory sunset. Yes, you can do a sunrise or “during the day” cruise, but the end of the day is the most popular one that you will enjoy. What are the guides looking for? Well, crocodiles would be the guides first “look for” on his list during our cruise; from the departure point, we headed straight across the billabong to a lazing crocodile taking in the afternoon sun; big and handsome, some would say.

The birdlife is exceptional with many whistling ducks and egrets wandering around the banks of the billabong, scattering as we make our way closer to their breeding grounds. One standout bird in this area is the Jabiru; skinny pinkish legs with long toes, he roams the “kingdom”, as if it were his.

The cruise wanders around the billabong and leaves the area where the brilliant sunset is best seen until last point of “take a look at this”; what brilliance the sky presents each and every evening in the Northern Territory!

Cahill Crossing – Kakadu

We had a previous notification that Cahill Crossing isn’t just for cars and trucks to cross the East Alligator River; salt water alligators also use the crossing to get upstream to catch fish for dinner lunch and tomorrows breakfast. The tide comes up stream and floods over the low concrete bridge enabling access for the alligators. This has become a popular tourist destination for tourists to view crocodiles in the wild as you can see from some of the videos. I was particularly taken in with the guy “surfing” up stream on the “tidal wave”. We stayed at a camp nearby for two nights which enabled us to see two episodes of the naturally occurring event. Add it to your bucket list; all included in the Kakadu NP pass.

Hey! Surfer Joe!

Corroboree Billabong Mary River National Park

Further towards Darwin and on the west side of the Kakadu National Park is the Mary River. This area is well known as a “wetlands” National Park with plenty of billabong birds and wildlife. It too has a large number of crocodiles to view their lifestyle and “activity” during the daylight. We took the evening 5pm – 6:30pm cruise, said to be the better cruise because it too includes vantage points for great sunset photos. There is also a sunrise cruise.

Yes, the first stop was to view a crocodile on the billabong bank waiting for something to consume. And the whistling ducks were close by. A prominent bird in this region is the Jabiru also. A nest high up in the trees revealed a Jabiru caring for its eggs, or young. There were many of these “kingly looking” creatures which make a fabulous display as they leap and fly into the sky for finding another searching pad for fresh fish and other water creatures. The video of three pelicans in synchronized movement was a surprise.

Our guide spotted a water buffalo in the distance bathing in the sludgy waters. On our appearance, the bull buffalo thought it a good spectacle to “get out of the bath” and head for greener pastures. Thanks Billy!

Darwin Black Night Air Display

For our time in Darwin, we have decided to take a rest from each other and do “our own thing”. Lyn and I have chosen a camp north of Darwin near the shore where we get a continual light breeze to keep the temperature at a bearable level.

However, on Thursday evenings the Mindil Market is a market all visitors to Darwin have to visit. So find our way to the market during the daylight was ok, but our return back would take a lot longer. We knew the crowd would be enormous as the 2024 RAAF Pitch Black exercise was to present a 90 minute flyover exercise over the Mindil Beach. This was made up of over 4,400 military personnel and over 140 aircraft from 20 participating nations. The exercise involves air, sea, and land contingents and is held each two years. Another for your bucket list in 2026. Really really good.

The beach was wall to wall people viewing military aircraft and “show-off” movements just close to the beach. The event was held up twice while people tried swimming and another sent up his drone. A definite no no at an event like this. Silly duffas.

8. Great Life lapping Australia 2024

Mataranka – Bitter Springs

The town of Mataranka Springs is rather small and only has the basics in shopping and commercial activity. The “supermarket” only has bread available a few days a week. Eggs for a meal are a rare event. We stayed at Bitter Springs, just 3 or 4 km away.

You do not have to make a site booking here; it’s first arrival gets the next available site. So around 8:30am, campers start arriving at the reception to commence living a Bitter Springs lifestyle. Fortunately, we were able to site side-by-side, three across. The springs are an easy 1km stroll away. They are warm and you hop in the river and float down on a “floatie” to a “get out” point and take a short walk back to the starting point for another lap or two.

Unfortunately, I must have had some bad food or nasty water and was sidelined for two days with nothing going down and everything coming up. Even the charcoal tablets were not wanted. All good now but with a looser belt.

Katherine

Katherine is a very busy town, with the gorge close by to the east, and the highways heading north to Darwin and Kakadu, south to Adelaide and Queensland and west to the Kimberlys and Perth. The supermarket is full on flat out as it is the only one to feed the thousands of tourists that drive through each day in the busy season. Fuel stations are used by all tourists to top up the fuel, for you never know when the next road house will be supplying fuel.

Some friends we met again last year, were on a mission to catch us and spend a day with us before they headed out west to Broome. Their departure from Wollongong was a month after we moved on from the Gold Coast. They caught up just as we were departing Mataranka for Katherine.

Katherine Gorge Cruise

The gorge cruise is always a bright spot to visit on a clear blue sky day, and we did just that. It is a well known “bucket list” item in the Northern Territory and offers a number of relaxing cruises at various times of the day. The rock walls offer varying colors that at different times of the day. We chose the 10:00 am cruise.

The commentary used phrases like “5.3 billion years“. It’s hard to imagine how anyone could accurately say how old a rock is or when major things happened to the region’s geography. Nothing has been written down; in fact there were no pencils and books in those days.

Kakadu National Park

We have entered Kakadu from the south where the roads are much, much better than the roads in many country states to the south. We found a bush camp and stayed the night with millions of stars looking down on us, proving a spectacle one will always remember. In a short period of time, you can count 15-20 satellites orbiting the earth.

Next post, we’ll have completed the Yellow River cruise and then into Darwin.

7. Great Life lapping Australia 2024

Outback night skies never disappoint.

Camooweal Billabong

I have tried to find detail of the regular residents of the Billabong but all I got was a “quack quack”. In other words, nothing. Not even a signboard to say what types or brands of water birds come here. Do any migrate to here or just pass through on to some other breeding region? Can’t tell you. Wikipedia didn’t enlighten my mind either.

So to do better than the “signboards” just come and experience the wonder of the activities of the birdlife in this out of the way billabong in outback western Queensland.

There is strong talk amongst the human grey nomads that this billabong is being closed. The decision to close the sites for camping is to protect cultural heritage and was made following discussions held between Mount Isa City Council and local landowners.

However, it is still open to short stay Grey Nomads. This lagoon is really owned by the many varieties of birds that inhabit the billabong and make it a busy natural place to live. They make the culture of Camooweal Billabong real and full of life. They are an exhibition of how we too should get along in the places we call home. Thank you birds and nature.

I said earlier that night skies in the outback never disappoint. I wrote that before I got out of bed for today’s sunrise. I guess we have to “endure” lots more of these stunning expanses of morning and evening colour, during our time in the outback.

The Northern Territory

Barkly and Frewena Rest area

The last we saw of Queensland is Police stopping traffic to do searches of the vehicles. Don’t know why, but they were very active around the vehicles they had stopped.

For those Hawkes supporters- Barkly Homestead.

No sign of any customers at three ways NT.

A sleep over takes on a new meaning when you’re driving hundreds of kilometers in a day.

Daly Waters is a well known town located around the goings on of an old country pub. Yes, everything is old and mostly broken, left to rust and never to be moved; aircraft, buses, trucks, cars windmills, and anything else that doesn’t need to be used again. The owner runs around on his quad bike making sure all is happening to his plan. He is a big guy and on the back of his quad bike, he has installed a sign “wide load”. He owns 3 or 4 other camps/pubs of similar value and “mission” in the Northern Territory. The meals provided are high quality. He has entertainment each afternoon and evening. The staff are the most helpful and courteous group of young people you could want to employ. They love what they do and so does the owner. If you are in the area, plan a two day stay to enable you to take in the “different” way people live in the NT. We stayed just a few hours including lunch, but I wish we could have stayed longer for that “Daly” experience. The restaurant and shop is very different to other roadhouses.

A Jeff and Sheri Easter song for pub afternoon entertainment.

Just a few hundred kilometers north from Daly Waters is Mataranka. We have set up camp there for the weekend. More next post.

6. Great Life lapping Australia 2024

Kynuna QLD

Known as the Blue Heeler, this pub is very busy with one night stays of passing nomads and farm contractors. Before arriving at Kynuna, we travelled through wide open space of grasslands and rocky mounds. The pub was very old fashioned and the food wasn’t something I would go back for again.

McKinlay

This town is known for a lot of laughs; crocodile Dundee laughs. Amazingly, while we were using the outside dining area to have breakfast, sharp on 10:00am, the doors opened for tourist business. There are many memories from the movie, all relating to the humour style of Crocodile Dundee.

The jalopy car hadn’t been brought back from the McKinlay horse races held two days before our arrival; the car standing outside the “Walkabout Creek Hotel” is a great memory we saw last year on our Darwin trip.

Corella Dam

We had passed the turnoff to this dam last year on our way to Darwin and the reports told us not to miss out on this hidden gem. On arrival, after shutting the farm gate entrance and travelling a dirt road just a short while, we realised this was not a one night stay but at least a two night stay location, even longer. With a blue lake before us and many spots to camp at along the shore, we made the decision to do just that.

Lake Corella is a concrete faced rockfill dam built between 1956 and 1957 on the Corella River to provide town water for the Mary Kathleen Uranium Mine. The dam originally had a gated control structure which was removed in 2004, lowering the spillway and reducing the full supply level. When full it has a surface area of 200 hectares and holds 10,500 ML of water.

Mary Kathleen Mine

Mary Kathleen was a mining settlement in north-western Queensland, Australia. It is located in the Selwyn Range between Mount Isa and Cloncurry.

With the mine long closed, the structures of the township have been all but removed. Mary Kathleen’s secrets are not hard to uncover, you’ll find the old town fountain, outline of the pool and the concrete slabs where homes once stood. Follow the road to the abandoned mine and marvel at the sheer expanse of the pit.

The entry road is good for having the motor home do the rock and roll, in slow motion. Even at almost walking pace, the motor home rocked with every divot in the road. You drive about 2km into the now ghost town of Mary Kathleen. In the 50s, 60s and 70s, Mary Kathleen was the town where the miners of the uranium lived.

There are literally hundreds of concrete slabs to camp on. We found a parking spot beside what was the floor to the cafeteria; I’m still waiting for service. I’d like some hash browns for breakfast, please.

Many countries in the world have benefited from the uranium for their energy needs but Australia has reneged on using this clean energy resource.

History tells us that politics has played a major role in allowing the operation of the mine in the past and then politics eventually stopped the mining of uranium for domestic energy purposes. Always something to “wonder why” when you’re a logical thinker, which I tend to be.

Mary Kathleen open cut mine

Hold on! Three in the front of the two door Suki

The night skies do justice to the statement “the heavens declare the glory….”

Mt Isa Qld.

This town has been a lead mining town for many years. The mine is central to the town’s business area.

Our mission in Mt Isa was to collect a parcel at the post office that had been sent from Tamworth to enable us to use less power on the Starlink setup. The parcel was initially to arrive on Monday next week, but came into Mt Isa on Thursday this week. Good service Australia Post.

We had a bit of a hiccup coming into the town. The steering sensors went on the Iveco and showed an error on the screen. Fortunately, the Iveco service Center was able to rectify the problem and after $330 worth of computer checks and labour, we were on our way.

There are quite a number of free camping rest areas along the Barkley Highway. We decide on the WWII Historical Site Rest Area for a two night stay. We have missed out on a stunning Friday sunset, sorry to say.

5. Great Life lapping Australia 2024

Mitchell Qld

Just before Mitchell was a small village that proudly showed off a Model T Ford. It was “encased” in its own building and was extremely well preserved and displayed.

The main reason we stopped at Mitchell was because the sister’s maiden name is Mitchell. Secondly, the third sister had planned to meet up with us there and to continue the Lap 24 venture. And thirdly, Mitchell has some Artesian Heated Pools available and we thought it was time to have a shower. For those who don’t free camp, the shower amenities are normally not provided.

The Neil Turner Weir is a free camp site with more than 100 spots to park and have a pit fire. The toilet block was a long walk away, so far that when you made it to the amenity, you forgot why you were there. Age does funny things to funny people. The Friday evening sunset was a treat when fluffy pink tinged clouds filled the evening sky. Outback Queensland knows how to show off at this time of the year when the grey nomad masses pass through.

Saturday, we decided on a camp oven cooked stew. (Poking around the fire is a great stress reducer and we wished we had a homely fireplace at our place. The TV would be left alone.) Camp damper came out and was added to the stew.

Artesian pools are a great alternative to the open air bush shower and a 3 day pass for $18 became a good spend. Scones with jam and cream were on the cafe menu but we had to contend with banana bread instead of the scones.

When Lyn came in from the meal, she noticed her glasses were missing. Found, outside in the dust near the fire, with a broken frame. (More later)

Might have to get a special frame for this photo.

Morven Qld

Arriving at Morven, you are greeted with a bright pink painted truck selling coffee and bags. The entrepreneur has become an icon in the area as “the bag lady”. Her wit and Aussie slang is an added freebie. Apparently the town used to hold goat races (the ads still show on the public toilets) but went out of fashion as time gets in the way of daily life.

Augathella Qld

Tambo Qld

Many of the free camping grounds in this outback Queensland territory will be total bog holes when it rains. The weather man is very kind to us and there’s no rain due while we are enjoying the water holes and big expansive camping grounds filled with grey nomads from the south. Tambo is one such town. However, Tambo offers chicken races each night from 5pm. The local pub sends out a bus to collect us to, go experience a different game of chicken. It’s a great way to get customers from free camping to be donors to the Flying Doctor Service. Pick them up and drag them into the eating and drinking center of the town. Oh, and while they are there, we may as well have a chicken race. The publican has washed his chooks in colored dye and auctions them off calcutta style, with the highest bidder “owning” the chook for the race, when we eventually get to the starting point. If the chook wins, the owner gets half the total money collected and the rest goes to the Royal Flying Doctor Service. To date, they have raised over $70,000 for the RFDS. (We will visit their display in Darwin in a couple of weeks). The winner tonight took away $640.

After the race, your preordered meal is ready to enjoy. The menu? Chicken Snitzel or last night’s race looser.

Now here’s a chicken race of note.

Barcaldine/Ilfracombe

Barcaldine is the starting point for the Australian Labor Party. I have to be careful here because I’m not one of the party’s avid supporters. In the Main Street are 5 hotels. How fitting! There’s a monolithic, 3 dimensional wooden structure, which replaces the old cathedral, country towns often used to be proud of when the bells sounded each Sunday morning. Today, they have a wooden clunk sound whenever the wind blows through.

Longreach

There’s two major tourist attractions in Longreach that all visitors make a point of experiencing. As we had visited the Qantas museum and the Stockman’s Hall of Fame last year, we had a “relaxing” day of catching up on work and flying the drone. Rod and Earlene took the tours over two days. The “sun on body” got a little bit of a workout too.

If it were to rain at the Apex free camp near the Thomson River, there would be at least 120 RVs needing to be pulled from the ocean of black mud. A quagmire of mixed up vehicles is the last thing any grey nomad wants.

The sunrises and sunsets in the outback have been special moments of sky beauty. Each has its special commitment to performing on a wide open stage. If there’s some cloud in the right form and position, why would one not want to shoot the memory.

Driving into town to refill our gas bottles, we found this exhibition of women’s bras on the fence of the local radio station broadcasting location. Must have had a fund raiser for breast cancer at some point.

You’ll remember Lyn “lost” her glasses around the campfire in Mitchell. Optometrists are hard to find in the outback and if you find one, they are only in town a day a month, or some other outback arrangement. Lyn’s was in the right town on the right day. She now has her old lenses in new frames, at outback prices.

Winton Qld

Winton is well known for the “Waltzing Matilda Museum and the history of the writer, Banjo Paterson. It’s a very tourist active town with interesting opal shops and of course, a number of quaint pubs. The outback is famous for the old pubs that all towns seem to use for not just pictures or writings on the wall, but general gabbing on about bygone days of “what and how we used to do things out here”. Each town, or even pub, has distinct characters who are symbols of those times.

We found a free camp just south of Winton that gives us a few free nights and lots of birdlife to enjoy. I hadn’t seen a spoonbill for years so spent a few walks around the weir looking for him to include in my memories of our lap.

We kept up, what has become our tradition on this trip; brilliant Friday evening sunsets. This one was glorious in a new and different way. The colour stretched from the horizon back across our heads and to the horizon behind.

4. Great Life lapping Australia 2024

Evans Head NSW

We had spent a week at Evans Head last year and felt it was worth more time to explore the area. It worked out a good place to stay as one of our party had their drivers licence suspended due to an error on the GP medical report to the licence authority. The authorities needed some time to sort out the problem and correct what had been reason for the suspension. We enjoyed the meals at the surf life savings cafe; John found the lentil burgers were his favourite. The town is in need of increased retail trade to get it ‘going’ again after a long lay-off of holiday makers. There is an RSL with a busy restaurant and also the bowls club has an asian menu most nights of the week.

Evans Head NSW

While driving north towards Evans Head, Earlene called to say they passed a Paradise Motor home in a rest area, so we pulled into the same rest area and parked beside the Paradise. Paradise owners tend to have lots in common and since I run a Facebook Page for Paradise Owners, we were on to meeting up with these guys. After an hour of chit chat, we said good byes and on to Lennox Head.

Lennox Head NSW

Lennox Head is another coastal beach town in the northern part of NSW, just south of Byron Bay, the young people’s capital of Australia. We noticed each day, schools had surfing and board riding classes for sports activities; how lucky they are. An hour before sunset, the surfing zones were very busy as the sun was setting. Pelicans gracefully pass to another location to sit out until it was time to vanish for the dark hours. ‘Dive-bombing’ marine birds were very busy gathering feed for their young on their return to the nests hidden somewhere.

Byron Bay is an expensive yuppie town. There are many good eating places run by the alternative lifestyle fraternity. Housing is expensive as is the camping facilities for visitors. We took the bus up to Byron, and first strolled through the alternative, or natural, farming markets before going across to the beach to meet up with a surprise visitor from New Zealand. You may remember our story of meeting up with another guy with a brain injury, and his wife, in Zurich. Well, after Lyn posted to Facebook that we were in Lennox Head, MerryLynn noticed the post and called to say they had come to Australia for a family meetup and holiday at Kingscliff just north of Byron Bay. We had to meet again. They drove down to meet us for a meal at Manna Restaurant. What a catchup again … and the food was excellent too. The plan is to meet up again in Tauranga in January while we are cruising New Zealand.

Next are we are visiting is the south west corner of Queensland.

3. Great Life lapping Australia 2024

The rush was on as many left the grey nomads convention we had attended for last ten days. Attendees headed in various directions, some even headed home. Why would you not tour a little to see more of the great landscapes Australia has to offer before arriving home? We headed north for two hours through Coffs Harbour to Grafton to spend a few days with our daughter. Many left the convention with varying degrees of flu or Covid. We had runny noses and Lyn had a throat cough. But now we are on the mend.

Grafton is a small town widely known for the annual Jacaranda Festival. The streets are bathed in purple during November and full of Asian day tourist catching the colourful streets as backgrounds to their selfies. While there, the son-in-law cooked a very tasty meal using his camp oven expertise.

Brooms Head is just an hour away from Grafton on the coast from McLean NSW. Our arrival welcomed us with brilliant sunshine. The campground has both powered and unpowered sites but the unpowered sites have the best location right on the beachfront. We’ve chosen the unpowered site but didn’t realise that we have a large Norfolk Island pine tree smack in the middle of our view and, the solar power source for our house batteries to top up. Lucky our daughter was joining us from Grafton in a few days so she was able to bring a remote solar panel for us to plug into and set away from the motor home in the sunshine. Problem almost solved – but we got through.

And so Brooms head is our spot for a few days

Once set up, we had some beautiful days with warming sunshine. The views of the ocean and coastline were clear and colourful. Pelicans entertained us as they flew around the lagoon finding a spot to fish or get away from other menacing birds. I wanted to see a morning sunrise and got up to check it out and when I went outside, there was a family of kangaroos feeding on the grass close to the beach. Worth getting up for.

I got up to shoot the sunrise. These guys made it a great sunrise shot.

Interesting runway for a drone.

Great spot

Our next stop is at Evans Head

2. Great Life lapping Australia 2024

Welcome to the blog of our trip around Australia.

Our first day of the lap was done with sunny skies and that rare feeling of “bye home, we’ll see you in 6 months”. We have travelled this road many times up inland Victoria and into New South Wales along the Hume Highway. We are more eager to get to our first camping spot at Jugiong than to take notice of what we pass. Toilet stops are frequent in the mornings but the one at Lake Nillacootie now has a coffee trailer that provides ’not bad’ coffee and chai latte. This became our first “extended” stop off.

Jugiong is over 500km from home and a regular overnight stop. There is a large recreation ground that the community makes available at a small donation fee. Camping is available along the Murrumbidgee River or on the oval. The autumn colors are still showing before dropping to become mulch for the ground. There is a cafe that provides good old country meals which we always enjoy. Some friends happen to be here and we have a good time reminiscing old days; Fred went to the same school as me back in the 60s.

We decided to stay a second night as the morning provided blue skies again and the weather report said lots of rain ahead towards Sydney. Lyn has run a travel agency for over 30 years and now works from the motor home while traveling. She has some of the best office locations one could want for. Today was the first time we tried our Starlink internet system while traveling. It provided excellent speed and access which made Lyn happy.

On days we travel, we find it better to wake up, pack up and get going for an hour before having breakfast. We make our way onto the Hume Highway at 7:30am in the morning chill, but the promise of a good day. The Hume Highway is a divided highway and is used continuously by trucks or lorries carting produce between Australia’s two largest cities Sydney and Melbourne. Today is very busy and at times we have 5 or 6 trucks passing us at once (we travel 10 or 15 kph slower than the trucks).

Normally, we make sure Lyn is the driver through the busy city of Sydney to save $90 in tolls while I sit in the passengers seat giving directions through suburban Sydney. Today we decide to do part of the drive through Sydney paying tolls and part on a renowned section of road that used to be a very congested part of the journey. Having 5 or 6 semi-trailers around you as you’re driving can be very daunting.

We head further north up through the distant regions to the north of Sydney, and to the Pacific Highway which runs up the eastern coastline of New South Wales and into Queensland. On last years trip north, we found a new campground that is just 400meters off the highway where we stay for the night. Due the recent high rainfall, the owner of the campground requested we set up on the road to prevent ground damage in the camping area.

The following morning, we had made a meal reservation at an Artisan Restaraunt. This restaurant was built by a guy with a ‘dream’ to provide a highway stopover providing food all grown on his property. The meal is delicious, again.

While we were at The Artisan Farm, Lyn’s sister and husband caught up to us from Melbourne, and we travelled on to a free camp near a tavern for a night of rain and cards. Our short journey took us to a convention site where we will be for 10 nights before travelling on to Grafton, NSW.

1. Great Life lapping Australia 2024

A lap of Australia in our motor home GR8L1F, has been on our bucket list for quite a few years. Covid prevented us from doing it when we wanted to but we have set this year as the year for us. Many in Australia plan to do it sometime in their lifetime either as quick as possible (I’ve heard some in 3 weeks) others, 10 years. We have decided to leave near the end of April and return around the end of October. There is a map of Australia suggesting the best months to be in various parts of the country. We are going to follow that as a basic plan.

There are various ways to do the lap, but most do it clockwise or anticlockwise. Doing it anticlockwise, some say, uses less fuel because of the following westerly winds across the Nullabor plains from Perth towards Melbourne. Doing the lap clockwise uses up noticeably more fuel. Fuel prices on the Nullarbor become very high at some roadhouses.

The list of things to do before departure becomes longer as you get closer to the day of departure. We have a pristine garden, and enjoy working it, but we still like to have it in good order for the gardener who cares for it while we are away. The hedges need a ‘final’ trim, the edges of the lawn make a good yard a better yard when trimmed right. The motor home and Suzuki 4wd, which we tow, need to be washed and polished (did you hear there is less drag when the vehicles are polished?). We try to leave with only clothes for all seasons that will be used many times before, maybe, throwing them out on our return.

We were busy getting our garden ready for absolutely no one to enjoy. Isn’t that silly?

Our itinerary is only ‘rough’ as we leave, but generally, we will firstly head north to Stuarts Point in New South Wales (NSW) for an annual Grey Nomads convention we attend each year. Our daughter lives in Grafton NSW so a few days of catchup will take us there. Then our lap really begins. We plan to head up to Toowoomba, Queensland (QLD) then to central west QLD and on to Mt Isa. From QLD we will slowly move through the Northern Territory (NT) to Darwin, then across to West Australia (WA) down to Perth. In October, we then take the Nullarbor Highway back to Melbourne.

I’ll start posting a weekly blog each week. I hope you enjoy and make a decision to do the same when time allows.

Darwin 2023 – for 7 weeks then home.

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.

Here’s comes the Ghan with the wrong engines today.

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.

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