Ok, ok, here’s an update. You can all stop telling me off now! I know it’s been a while, but we really haven’t been doing too much interesting stuff – mainly working, and since I’m not really keen on doing it, I didn’t think you’d all want to hear about it!
The most exciting thing that’s happened in a while is cyclone Helen which is in force over the top end right now, and to be honest, it’s not that bad. We’ve been in worse storms in northern NSW. I’m actually writing some of this post in the early hours of Saturday morning – it’s 3:00am here, and that’s probably because I’m just, maybe, a little nervous about staying in the van in a cyclone, but, we’ve still got electricity, so it’s not too bad 
Bugger – as soon as I wrote the previous sentence, the power went out! It’s now Saturday afternoon and the power has just recently come back on – not sure what time exactly as we were out having a sticky to see what damage had been done. Anyway, we survived Helen ok. I think the tripod and the additional rear legs David made up for the van while we were in Adelaide have really paid their way – the van was rock solid.
During our drive this morning we saw there are a few trees down, but didn’t see any property damage, although we heard on the radio that there were some areas with houses that had lost their roof. There was also a bit of a surf today which is really unusual in Darwin. Didn’t see anyone surfing though. Lots of people were out and about, probably partly because they were having a sticky beak the same as us and partly because it’s so lovely and cool.
Anyway, Happy New Year to everyone. We hope you all managed to have a break over the Christmas and New Year period and spent it doing lots of relaxing fun things. We had a very quiet Christmas this year, spending Christmas day with friends we’ve made up here. It’s the first time we’ve been away from everyone in the family so it was really different for us. However, we had a really nice relaxing day with lots of good food and wine.
For New Year we had a park party and about 40 people in the park (I didn’t even realise there were that many in the park!) all got together.
The downside to the night was that we got broken into – not the van, but the en-suite where we keep our Waeco fridge/freezer and our electric grill etc. We keep the ensuite locked when we aren’t there, but for some reason we both thought the other had locked up. The interesting thing was, all that was taken was a leg of lamb, some marinating chicken wings, a bottle of wine and a few cans of pepsi. Maybe they wanted to have a party too. Strange they didn’t take lobster, prawns, squid and scallops we had in the freezer section! I think we might have interrupted them. At least they put the lid down on the fridge, so all the frozen stuff was fine. Obviously very caring thieves!
We have done a couple of interesting things while we’ve been in Darwin. We went to Litchfield National Park, 130km south of Darwin, and had a great day. Went swimming at Wangi Falls, a beautiful swimming hole and picnic spot. It’s a little daunting when you come across your first sign about the possibility of crocs in the water, but there were plenty of people in the water already including lots of children and babies which we figured would be much more tender and sweeter to the crocs than us, so decided we were safe! The water was fantastic – lovely and cool, and it’s a really pretty area. We decided to swim over to the falls, which didn’t look very far away, but obviously they were because we were shattered when we got there and had to hang around the falls for while until our breathing returned to normal so we could swim back. Maybe a sign, like the ones on car mirrors saying “falls are farther than they look” might be useful or maybe something along the lines of “know your fitness level before you do something stupid” might be even better! Anyway, we, ok, it was mainly me, (David was patiently waiting for me) eventually made it back.
We visited most of the attractions in the park including:
Florence Falls, a double waterfall cascading into a swimming hole which you can access via 160 steps, or you can check it all out from the viewing platform.
Tolmer Falls, home to colonies of Ghost Bats and the rare Orange Horseshoe Bats. There are signs asking you not to enter the falls area as the national park is trying to preserve the Orange Horseshoe Bats habitat.
Buley Rockhole – a series of cascading waterfalls and rock holes, some of which are shallow and others are plunge pools. A gorgeous spot where we spent a few hours – along with a bus full of English tourists.
The Lost City – a fascinating place full of sandstone block and pillar formations which look like the ruins of some ancient civilisation. We were the only people there the day we went. We spent a while wandering around. You can only access the lost city via a 10km 4WD road, but well worth it.
Magnetic Termite Mounds – these mounds are different to the ones in the photos we took on the way up to Darwin. These mounds are broad and flat and their edges point in a north-south orientation. This is believed to act as a built in temperature control mechanism allowing only the least possible surface area to be exposed to the sun.
On the way home from the park we went via Batchelor, (which must be one of the tidiest towns I’ve seen), to Adelaide River where we headed to the pub for a drink and dinner. The pub has a buffet for $16.50 all you can eat. We’re not that keen on buffets, but this one is really worth doing.
The Adelaide River pub is also home to the stuffed (as in taxidermy) remains of the water buffalo that starred in the original Crocodile Dundee movie. I’m sure you have all wondered what happened to this animal – so now you know – he’s well and truly stuffed, and stands on the bar at the Adelaide River pub so tourists can get their photo taken with him.
We had great day, and I’d recommend Litchfield to everyone visiting Darwin. We’ll definitely be going back again. I heard the other day that Wangi Falls is now closed because of the volume of water from the wet – the current is too strong and also, it’s difficult to monitor the crocs with that much water. We’ll wait until the dry season!
Here’s some images of Litchfield and Adelaide River Pub.
While we’ve been here we also went to a Defence Force concert which was really good – these are the guys who go to places like East Timor to entertain the troops. All the acts were really good, but the stand outs, for me at least, were The McClymonts, http://www.themcclymonts.com.au/ and Amber Lawrence, http://www.amberlawrence.com/ so being fans of both these acts we were rapt to see them live. All the performers mentioned how honoured they were to be invited to be part of this group which I thought was really nice.
What else has been happening? Well, wanna see where David is working 
Check it out …
We bought a little boat ( our baby yacht). David sent the motor off for a service and we got it back yesterday – yep the day of the cyclone! We were planning on taking it out today – might wait til the water settles down first. We’ll be buying a canopy and a couple of comfortable seats for it in the next week or so, and then David will put a false floor and some marine carpet in it. It’s a 3.8m Spacer – a few years old, but pretty good condition and we got it at a good price. It’ll be good for going out on Darwin Harbour and down some of the creeks.
We went fishing with friends a few weeks ago, (in their boat) out in Darwin harbour – and I’ve never seen such a variety of fish like we caught (well, ok, I’ve never caught any fish before) but we were catching parrot fish, moon (or bat) fish, little stripeys, Barra, sucker fish (the kind that stick to sharks and whales) and other’s I didn’t know the name of – all of which we threw back (I didn’t kiss them though). The Barra would have been ok except it was undersize at 50cm – they have to be more than 55 apparently. We had a lot of fun and we’re looking forward to taking baby yacht out, and catching our dinner. I’ll show you the photos when that happens!
I’ve wanted to see a crocodile since we’ve been up here, so we went to Crocoydlus Park. They do crocodile feeding so you get to see the crocs jumping out of the water for their food – I never knew crocs could move so quickly or jump so high. We spent just over an hour there and learnt a lot about crocs, the most important one being to stay away from them!
While we’ve been here we have also checked out food places – there are a few good places to eat, but my favourites are the markets where there are a large number of Asian (mainly Thai) stalls selling fantastic food and drinks as well as selling fresh fruit and veg. Hmmm, must remember to take photos of the markets!
One of my new year resolutions is to carry the camera with me all the time – which I’ve started doing. Now I just need to use it
Bye for now