Wednesday 27th June to ... The Bungle Bungles.

On Tuesday, we left Wyndham with all the boys in the family getting a good nights sleep and having a light breaky and the girls still well, so thought it was safe to move on. We stopped for a few days at Spring Creek Rest Area, a gorgeous natural spot beside a clear running creek, located right at the turn off into Purnululu National Park, home to the Bungle Bungles. We know we are back inland tonight after the sun goes down as it is freezing! It must of got close to zero overnight and we had all the blankets out again! We can't complain though, as the days are just glorious.

On Wednesday,  after warming up in the sun, we unhitched the van and left for the day to exlplore the Bungle Bungles. The 53km dirt road in is 4wd only and takes a good 1.5 hrs to drive, with 13 river crossings, some water up to door height, so we had lots of fun just getting there! The domes start appearing on the drive out, and as you get closer to Picininny Creek, their size, colour and number are just majestic! We take a walk around the beehive domes and to one of the gorges, trying to take in some of the magnificence of these rock formations, something again, you just can't capture in a photo. After lunch sitting under the domes, we head back for another bumpy, rough drive before the sun sets. A great day.

We decide to stay at Spring Creek another night as the kids are having a ball playing around the creek and its such a nice free spot. So on Thursday, after schoolwork, they spent the rest of the day doing just that.  We finished off the day with a great campfire and damper for dessert. On to Halls Creek tomorrow for the weekend before exploring more of the Kimberley.

Thursday 21st to Sunday 24th June 2012 - Over the WA Border...

We left Katherine late on Thursday, after needing to check in at the Post Office before leaving "the big smoke" again for a while.

Our second stay in Katherine has been very relaxed at Springvale Homestead, waiting to get our car serviced again and celebrating Issys 11th Birthday. We visited the Museums and Edith Falls, swam again in the Hot Springs a few times and just enjoyed our site (although very dusty this time around with some overly-friendly ducks!) but with a beautiful natural billabong, flowering lillies and warm, springfed pool.

We stopped at a free camp spot for the night about 100km west of Katherine on Thursday afternoon and watched after we parked as it filled up with so many caravans and buses for the night! The nomads have definately arrived now and we are a bit more aware of getting to freecamps by early afternoon to secure a good spot!

Friday morning we are packed up early to head to Timber Creek for a look and then on to Big Horse Campground in Gregory National Park, just west of Timber Creek. Gregory Nat Park covers a massive area, and has many access points off the Victoria Highway, similar to Kakadu, and you could spend months exploring it, but we have chosen to just get a glimpse of this one and spend time at a  spot lying beside the grand Victoria River. Another beautiful sunset moment on the riverbank in the evening. Reuben is not very well so we do not venture on any big bushwalks. The Boab trees here are extraordinary and are filled with birdlife.

We have had a pretty sleepless night with Reuben having diarrhoea and vomiting, and us being in a Nat Park with a drop toilet and no hot water!!! What a night! Poor Reub was so good considering, but I am dreading it going through the family as we travel, but not sure we can avoid it in such close quarters. We pack up and head to Kununurra today, crossing the WA border, our 4th Border Crossing so far. Just up the road is Gregorys Tree, a giant Boab tree inscribed by Gregory on his early expeditions along the Victorian River. And yes, Captain Slow again bumps up and down the 4km stretch of corrigated dirt road to get there and makes it! The rock formations of Gregory Nat Park continue as you drive to almost the border, where we are 'checked out' incase carrying fruit, potatoes, onions or honey, God forbid! Pretty strict quarantine on this border.

Kununurra is the first WA town and is a busy place, but not that inviting when everything is barred up , so much so, its difficult to tell if a shop is even open and so expensive! We decide to have lunch here and move straight on to Wyndham, the first and northern-most town in WA, where 5 rivers meet and go out to sea. Reuben is still feeling poorly and needs a flushing toilet, and we need to wash and clean, so we stop here for a couple of nights to do so. There is a resident donkey in the only van park in Wyndham (the town only has couple hundred population) who was rescued as a baby when the rest of his herd was shot. He and a wild horse used to roam around the park and town until the horse died close by and now the donkey doesn't roam too far from here. He goes van to van collecting food as well, so quite happy here I think!

Reuben is feeling lots better on Sunday morning, and has had a good nights sleep, although we are all up early due to the big time changes again. Today we drive up to say hi to the giant concrete salty in the main street, then head up to the 5 Rivers Lookout, which is pretty amazing to see. We drove back down to check out the port we saw from the top and watch the water from the 5 rivers rushing out to sea on the tide. Interesting to see. The Afghan Cemetary is also interesting to see, as the lead camel was buried with the cameleer making the graves pretty big! Not much more to Wyndham really, but a great little place to visit.

So far, no one else is sick, so we will move on tomorrow and begin our camping in the Kimberley.

Tuesday 5th June to Sunday 10th June 2012. Kakadu National Park and Barunga Festival.

Our first stop on the Arnhem Highway is Window on the Wetlands, our classroom for the day, sitting on the edge of the Adelaide River and wetlands. This visitor centre is a fantastic, free interactive learning centre about the NT Wetlands, and we had a great time exploring them hands-on with the kids. We followed this experience with something else very 'close-up', a Spectacular Jumping Crocodile Cruise along the Adelaide River.

The cruise included an hour of slowly travelling down the river on the lookout for big salties! It didn't take long to see some and then watch them as they swim around the boat, climb up onto the banks and jump (or more accurately, vertically swim) up beside the boat to grab their bit of meat! It gave us all such an appreciation for these magnificient creatures, and no encouragement to swim in Kakadu!!! They are true beasts and kings of this part of the country and deserve to stay that way. We thought this cruise was so worthwhile, especially listening to the respect and passion the guides have for these beasts and their territory.

We continued our drive up to Merl Campground, Kakadu, where after some challenging driving (and a small dent in Captain Slow from a treebranch) we were finally settled for the next couple of days. But hang on...whats that low drone sound we can hear while cooking dinner??? Aaagh, the mozzies that were promised in Kakadu!!! The mozzies are thick and vicious, coming in about 6pm and not leaving til midmorning the next day!They try and bite through clothes, in ears and under your glasses! You do not dare get out of the van during the night for a pee, as Dwayne soon found out, or you will be attacked! We had coils, repellant, candles, fire, the lot, and only just survived the onslaught each night, something you need to be prepared for if you want to see Kakadu.

On Wednesday morning we drove the short distance to Urbirr, where there are many Aboriginal rock art sites. We really enjoyed the guided talk and walk through the different sites, part of our school for today, and the grand finale of climbing to the top of Ubirr rock and looking out on the flat, green plains and wetlands of Arnhem Land...absolutely breathtaking! We sat and absorbed this experience for a while, what a morning tea spot, on top of Ubirr Rock, Kakadu!

In the afternoon, we drove down to the Bowali Visitor Centre, which had a great walk through display of Kakadu flora and fauna information and library, where the kids caught up on journals and reading.

On Thursday, after hitching up again, we drove down the Kakadu Highway and stopped at the Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre where we had the priveledge of learning from Violet, about bush tucker, making damper on a fire, and making string from pandamus palm leaves to make dilly bags. After sitting and learning from Violet, I made my first piece of string...but have a long time to go before I can make a whole dilly bag! We all had a go at eating water lilly buds and bush celery, quite tasty! The cultutal centre display inside was brilliant as well, so much to take in and learn. We have noticed since travelling that the NT is very good at free, learning centres/visitor centres and we have used these a lot as classrooms with the kids.

So, apart from the incredible amount of mozzies, we really loved and appreciated Kakadu, even though so many told us not to bother if we had been to Litchfield. I recommend if you get the opportunity, to see both as they are so vastly different and both equally special places in their own ways.

We made a quick stop in Katherine to stock up on food again on Thursday afternoon before settling at King River Rest Area for the night before heading SE to Barunga Aboriginal Community for their annual Cultural Festival Weekend. Barunga is about 60km SE of Katherine, so on Friday morning we continued out and camped on land just outside the town area (a school and a small grocer shop) with other caravans and tents, ready for the weekends events. On Friday night we sat and watched an Indigenous HipHop Crew and some dance offs with the local kids which was pretty fun and of course, included all the camp dogs! Their was even an Aboriginal Michael Jackson! Its a cold night for the NT, and I have never seen so many campfires in one spot, everyone has one or more going in their frontyard or at their campsites, little orange flames speckle the whole community tonight, keeping everyone warm and a wee bit smokey! Saturday was filled with cultural activities, including learning damper cooking and basket weaving from pandamus palm leaves for the girls, didgeridoo making and spear throwing for the boys. Brie and I tried our hand at basket weaving...pretty tricky and requiring lots of patience...my work is about halfway to being a coaster, a long way from a basket! In the evening, we were treated to a great concert with traditional and contempory dancing, fire dancing, and several Aboriginal bands from all over the NT. We felt so priveledged to be able to be a part of Barunga Community for the weekend and participate in their festival. All very exciting, but by Sunday we were ready to hide away from everybody and process what we have seen and learnt over the past week, as we felt so overwhelmed and overstimulated from both Kakadu and then the Festival! We also could not wait to have showers! It has been a week...don't worry, I have been washing with a bucket, but so nice to shower again! The lovely Katherine will be a great place this week to gather our thoughts and get ready to go west!