Darwin NT

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Happy Birthday Muriel!

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Narooma NSW, Australian Fur Seal, Stingray, Mill Bay Boardwalk

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Egad! Our penultimate day on the loose. What is a body to do? These bodies decided to take a little run up the coast to Narooma. The first thing you notice is how much the place has changed in the last few years, especially around the main tourist area. Big wide road, roundabouts, off street parking. First we had a poke around Black Bream Point, where we spent a few days back in 2002 when we had the boat. Black Bream Point is the name of the cabins and the point out on the back lake where we stayed. It's still there, which surprised me a bit and even seems to be a bit more up market than before, and certainly the prices have moved northward. Our favourite memory was cruising around the lake and going over to the cafes on the other side for lunch. Is there anything more satisfying than tieing up your boat at the cafes own jetty before strolling in for lunch and coffee? But Narooma to me means the breakwater and the bar and the rock with the Australia like hole in it. We drove ar...
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Arnhemland 2016 Tour - Seven Spirit Bay and Darwin

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Day 10 - Seven Spirit Bay and Port Essington For me, today promised to deliver one of the highlights of the trip: a visit to the Victoria Settlement, popularly known as Port Essington. This is the ruins of a fort established in1837 to protect Britain’s claim to Australia against the French and the Dutch. It was established strictly as a garrison town, as opposed to a free settler town. The idea was that it would be easier to maintain discipline and morale if they excluded free settlers who would want to by freehold land and indulge in commerce. As it was, the position was strategically chosen: the guns were mounted on a not-so-high cliff overlooking the water course, with a reef on the other side, thus forcing any vessel entering to come into range of this guns. Not that they were ever used in anger; now there’s a recurring theme in Australia's defence history. Anyhow, it was established and many prefabricated building erected on stone bases, such as the store, the marri...
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Arnhem Land 2016 Tour - Arafura Swamp

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Day 3 - On the road Nhulunbuy to Arafura Swamp First things first. Greg-the-guide had to go and collect Marjorie from hospital while we had breakfast. She has a really bad bruise below her eye and is a bit ‘woozy’. Still, she was good to go and we set of on the trek to the next Lodge. Basically you head out of town on the one road and keeping in the general direction of Katherine for 300 or more km before turning north again for what felt like about 300 more. We stopped for morning tea a a disused quarry, ate our cardboard-box lunch at a bit of a creek, took afternoon tea somewhere along the road. Our last stop, to stretch our legs and ease our aching backs and spinning heads, was at the Goyder river. One can only imagine this trip before they out this bridge in. And all of that was before we turned off. In all, 9 hours on the road saw us turn up at Murwangi Lodge, built on the old Arafura cattle station and right next to the Arafura swamp.  When we say swamp, it's a billabong rea...
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