On the way to Darwin from Katherine

MSince we couldn't find a room in Darwin to stay, we decided to stay in Bachelor, a little town about 100 km south of Darwin. And what a place we chose ... The Butterfly Farm and Restaurant. The pictures won't do it justice, but I'll try. 

These are where we stayed. 

This is the butterfly room. 

This was definitely an experience we'll be talking about for years. 

On the road to Katherine - June 20 and 21

Time to leave Kakadu National Park and head for our next destination ... Katherine. We took the Stuart Highway because that was the only road there was to get to Katherine.  Stopped at a little gas station/cafe/bar on the way.  Guess they had not received any of their shipments yet because they were out of gas and most supplies.

Saw many large termite mounds on the way.

So back on the road to another small town called Pine Creek and the Lazy Lizard

They had homemade mango ice cream and some Aborinal art souvenirs.  After that short respite, we were back on the road.  Four hours later, we came to Katherine.  A small town by our standards, but a large town for the Outback with 11,000 people.

Checked into the Pine Tree Best Western and was ready for our next adventure.  We walked around town and spent some time in the Aboriginal Art galleries looking at their art and reading their stories.  Ate dinner at the Big Fig. We recommend this place highly.  Then we had a wonderful night swim in the hot springs.  It was pitch black so we had to use our flashlight app to see where we were. Very refreshing, if not a little concerned that we couldn't tell if there were any crocs or snakes.

 

Day two in Katherine, we decided to visit another art gallery on the way to Nitmiluk National Park.  That might have been a tactical error because we started our walk to see the Nitmiluk George in the heat of the day 33 degrees C ... Damn hot but there was a nice tropical breeze blowing so off we went. I think that is the hottest walk I've ever taken.  After about a 3.5 km hike, we reached the first part of the gorge. 

Decided that was all we were going to see today because we still had to get back ... Another 3.5 km. but we kept thinking that when we got back to the Visitors Centre, we could go swimming in the river at the bottom of the gorge.  Just as we got to the river, a croc was spotted about 5 feet from where some people were swimming.  The ranger said that it was a freshwater one and we didn't need to worry, just don't grab it by its tail!  Don't worry. We won't AND we didn't go swimming there either.  Decided to go back to the hot springs and take a look at what we were swimming in last night.  Beautiful area, nicely maintained, 3 pools of water that was like bath water but still refreshing after our long, hot wall.  

Dinner at the Big Fig again.  Keep in mind, there aren't a lot of choices in this small town and the food was exceptionally good and we ate outside around a big fig tree and little lights.  

Tomorrow, we make our way back to Darwin with a stop at Litchfield National Park.  

Ubirr Region (Northeast corner of Kakadu)

Thursday, we decided to visit the Jabiru and East Alligator Region of Kakadu.  Jabiru is the main township in Kakadu but it is very small, with one bakery, supermarket, a school, a hairdresser. 

We did get to see a Jabiru ... A black necked stork. Beautiful colors.

A 2.5 km bush walk at Bardedjilidji (Bar-de-jill-eyed-gee) had us looking at layered sandstone and walking a small path through the bush. 

At Ubirr Aboriginal Art Site, we walked among the various painted Rock Art that is thousands of years old.  

We had a 3 o'clock reservation on the Guluyambi East River Cruise. This was a cruise up the East Alligator River to see crocodiles. Why is it called Alligator river if you only see crocs?  When the first explorer found the region, he thought they were alligators, so the name stuck.  However, the Aboriginals call it the Guluyambi River.  

We saw a sea eagle while on our cruise, plus our Aboriginal guide took us to his people' slander and showed us how they spear fish.  

 

Darwin and Aboriginal Art

Tuesday, we flew from Melbourne to Darwin, 4.5 hours north.  Darwin is the capital of the Northern Territory and is a small city on the northern coastline. After having shopping and some lunch at an outdoor cafe, we got on our way to Kakadu National Park and our next 3 nights accommodation at Aurora Kakadu.

To describe the landscape, it's flat with scrubby trees and that goes on for a lot of kilometers!  We did see a lot of wallabies and a few emu (bush chook) but not too much changed as we drove kilometer after kilometer.

Aurora Kakadu is in the middle of nowhere but the rooms are nice sized and clean and there is a swimming pool. After dinner at the only restaurant within 50 kilometers and a nights rest, we decided to go to the Nourlangie Region of the park to hike and view Aboriginal rock art sites.  

Next, we drove to Anbangbang (Arn-barng-barng) billabong (pond or lake) for a walk to see if we could see any crocodiles ... None spotted yet. 

Even with all that we've done so far, it was only 11:30 so we headed to Jim Jim Falls Gorge Region. There is no way to accurrately describe this trek but I'll give it a whirl.  After turning off the bitumin (macadam), we drove for 50 km on a red dirt road that wasn't the smoothest. Then we still had 10 km to go where we had to engage 4-wheel drive to access it.  Some places had 6 inches of sand, some had cobblestones so rough, I was worried about our tires. But we made it back to the parking area of Jim Jim Falls and believe it or not, there were other cars there.  We had passed some on our way in that were leaving and since it was only a single lane, we had to pull over to let them pass.  

So, here we are, 60 Kms from nowhere but we still can't see the falls. We have to hike back in 900 meters over boulders but the view was worth it. We took a little time to sit on the rocks and put our feet into the water, ahhhh, that felt good.  

Back in the car again, we still had to drive 10 km in the sand and rocks and then another 50 Kms of corrugated dirt road. But, we did get out alive and unscathed but pretty hungry with only a couple granola bars and a few bags of peanuts and 1 apple for the four of us. This is our new diet plan. 

Walking About Melbourne and the Botanical Gardens

Today was another one of those million steps or so it seemed as we trekked over the city to visit the markets, the Botanical Gardens and up and down the streets. 

The Victoria Market is enormous with vegetables, meats, clothes, souvenirs, and a little junk!  

The Botanical Gardens were beautiful even in the winter season. Still lots of flowers in bloom.

We ended our day with a Thai dinner at Tailicious and watching Australia and France play rugby.  

Tomorrow we head for Phillip Island to see the little penguins come out of the ocean.  The weather is turning colder but we're hoping not too cold because we'll be sitting along the ocean.  

Phillip Island - The Penguin Parade

Sunday we rented a car and drove south to Phillip Island, where there are 10,000 people and 32,000 penguins. 

Before we reached Phillip Island, we were just in time to watch the noon feeding of the pelicans at San Remos.  

Next, we walked along the boardwalk at the Nobbies, an area with very powerful waves and craggy cliffs while waiting for the penguins to come out of the ocean.  

Finally it was 5:42 and we were sitting on bleachers waiting for the little buggars to come out of the ocean.  We weren't able to take photos because we might disturb them, so, this pic is from the app I downloaded. It was incredible to see these little 13 inch blue, black and white penguins come out of the ocean where they've been gathering food, come up on the beach, and waddle up the various paths to their burrows.  An interesting tidbit ... These little guys always come back to the general area where they were born to sing to each other. They are very social which makes the area very noisy. There were about 1500 penguins that waddled and talked or sang as they went to their burrow.  

Hunter Valley and Aggressive Kangaroos at the HV Zoo

Not sure we can top this day.  What more could people want ... Wine, cheese, AND patting kangaroos, wombats and koalas.  It can't get any better, can it?  At the Hunter Valley Zoo, we strolled through kangaroo paddocks, patting and feeding the Roos (look for the Joey). We were in roo heaven.  Then we got to pat a koala and a wombat, and see the most colorful birds.  Very relaxing day.  

In between looking at Roos, we tasted Semillion wine at several wineries.  This has now become my favorite wine (sorry Happy Valley Winery) but we don't think we can buy it back home. Drew is going to check with his wine guy to see if he can buy some for us.  

On the way back to Sydney, we took the scenic drive through Wollombi to see some of the original convict buildings and drive on the road they built.  

Hunter Valley Wine Country - June 10-11

After Drew arrived, we checked out of our hotel in Sydney, rented a car and headed northeast to the wine country. Den drove and kept asking if we were there yet. Took about 2 hours. Even though they call their roads highways, they aren't what we think of as major roads.  The road out of Sydney was stoplight after stoplight. Remember Rt 322. It used to go through all the small towns. Was nice seeing the different countryside and towns though. Once we got on the Pacific Highway, we made better time. It was a two-lanes divided.  I think top speed was 100 or 110 km though,  road was still twisty and turns like West Virginia.  

This area reminds me of the Finger Lakes area. Winery after winery.  The little town of Cessnock is where we're staying at the Hunter Valley Motor Inn. Although, in the states, we won't see Roos right along the highway. 

In between tasting wines, olives and cheese, we saw lots of Roos.  This one is for you, Kylynn.

Miriam, what kind of plant is this?  The flower was as tall as Drew. Erin, notice that Totoro is there for you. 

We were lucky enough to have sun most of today so we had a beautiful and very colorful sunset. 

Blue Mountains and some blue skies - June 9

Linda and I decided we wanted to try to see  Blue Mountains one more time before we left Sydney so we hopped the train and two hours later we were there. I could definitely get used to riding trains. 

We were able to take our time shopping in the little town of Leura before we hopped on the Hop On Hop Off train to see the Three Sisters rock formations. 

Just in case you're wondering what causes the Blue Mountains to be blue ...  The haze which appears to surround any distant object is due to an optical phenomenon called Raleigh scattering. This effect, first investigated by Lord Rayleigh, causes the rays of light which impinge on small particles to be scattered in various directions. If a person looks at a distant object with the intervening atmosphere illuminated by sunlight, eyes will receive the blue scattered rays of sunlight to reflect the object itself. The mountains in the distance are filled with eucalyptus trees, which give off a vapor. The hotter it gets, the more vapor is released and the bluer the mountains. (This last came from our in-resident, Miriam Verbeek.  Thanks, Miriam.