Up at 6am and went for a dip in the dark at Bitter Springs. Watched the sun come up and listened to the clamour of birdsong as they all woke up for the day. Went back to the van at 7, dug Judy out of bed and went for another swim, just floating through life not a care in the world, well nothing except that small matter of a 400+ km day ahead.
Left Mataranka after 9, stopped at Katherine just for fuel, kept going, and going. Stopped at Mary River Roadhouse…. what for? There’s nothing there. Kept going. Stopped at Cooinda for a very late lunch, bought our park passes and booked a sunrise swamp tour. Pushed on the last 60km to Jabiru.
Van park used to be called the Lakeside, now the Anbinik, which is aboriginal for something. They have just opened up in the new guise this week, so they're not really on top of the new name thing yet. Anyhow, and despite the fact that we thought we had booked the Kakadu Lodge over the road, it's very nice I must say. It's huge, but only has a small number of van sites (all en-suite).
Falling asleep, had enough fun for one day.
Oh, and one more other thing, today is Territory Day and they all have the day off AND they still have crackers. Huge great things that come in $100 packs and they are going off all over the place - and it's not even dark yet.
 |
| Bathroom visitor, Mataranka |
 |
| ... and this little guy |
 |
| Bats! Jabiru NT |
 |
| and more bats. Jabiru NT |
I've seen a similar spectacle of flying Foxes at Nowra. There were thousands of them. On your return journey, if you have time, I can strongly recommend an overnight at Edith Falls, just north of Katherine. Free stop with solar hot water if it's not all used, beautiful water hole and small falls with lovely walk to top of falls.
ReplyDeleteThe manager of the public pool at Jabiru tells fibs about the temperature to try and convince the locals its warm enough to swim at this time of year.
Funny about that, we went to Edith Falls last year and were underwhelmed, only bright point was the swedish backpacker freaking out over a snake trying to get into her backpack.
ReplyDeletePools are weird. The locals don't swim if the air temp falls below 30, they all go and get a parka to keep warm. As far as they are concerned, when its 40+, the pool will be just fine, for them, because the rest of us have shot through to the south. So, 11 months of the year the pool sits there looking great and totally ignored, even by the children. By contrast, those that think enough of their customers to add a few square metres of solar heating (they get plenty of sun!) have their pools being used all year round and customers with big happy smiles.
Oh well. We had a memorable night there (EF) around a campfire under a brilliant not sky drinking port with scones cooked in a camp oven. We shared this with half a dozen other couples from across Australia.
ReplyDelete