The holiday you need when you are on holidays!!

Catching lizards

 The Dry has definitely arrived and what was green and lush, is now brown, dry, and a lot of the landscape has been burnt, mostly from burning off and arsonists. With the dry has come a welcome relief to the heat with cool mornings and warm sunny days.  No need to check the weather at this time of the year, every day is the same!  With the cool weather we pulled out our long sleeve tops and fleece jumpers, and purchased some new donnas (ours didn't survive the mouldy, humid weather).  When the morning came that we actually had to put on a jumper for the first time in months, Flynn asked 'whats this Mum?'  With the dry weather also comes a month long holiday for schools, and for us! 

We made it to 'cracker night' for Territory Day, where a pretty spectacular fireworks display took place on the Batchelor oval.  In true territory style, the night was not cancelled due to a total fire ban in place.  The fire ban was simply stopped at 6pm so that hundreds of people could let off fire works 'willy nilly' in the towns and bush, and the ban recommenced the next morning!!  And let off crackers they did!  I was on call at the fireworks along with the other fire and emergency volunteers.  It was handy that we had the fire truck there, not because of any mishaps with the fireworks, but because Flynn freaked out with the noise and was quite happy sitting in the safety of the fire truck to watch the display!  

The crossing at daly River

 Our first stop for the holidays was meant to be the Douglas Hot Springs, but we didn't pay enough attention to the map and ended up closer to the Daly River by the time we realised that we missed the turn.  So first stop was the mango farm caravan park right on the Daly River.  There isn't much there to do if you don't have a boat to go fishing, so luckily it was a really nice caravan park and we were happy to do nothing for a few days to recover from our busy 'two parents working' experience!  Nick had a few attempts to fish for a barramundi, with no result (sorry Mums, there is still talk of not leaving until he has caught a barra.  Can I recommend a fishing charter as an early birthday present?)  

Flynn relaxing at the Hot Springs

 We headed off to Douglas Hot Springs next (and got there!).  We passed a very large bushfire and lots of emergency services activity, including a plane that had landed on the road.  The pilot had a bit of excitement with his plane malfunctioning whilst surveying the fire and he had to make an emergency landing on the road.  The Douglas Hot Springs was a great place to stop we had some lovely neighbours with older boys who played soccer with Flynn and Aidan and shared their marshmallows by the fire with them.  The hot springs were gorgeous; the water very shallow and surrounded by creek bed sand which was a great place for the kids to play.  There was a large olive python that came out a few times to sun itself alongside the creek.  It lives in the roots of a large tree and was quite gorgeous.

Umbrawarra Gorge

 Next stop was Pine Creek, a small town with some close-by mines that keep it busy.  It is about the same as Batchelor with a service station, a few pubs and a general store. The Sunday market had a grand total of four stalls. However!!!!  Pine Creek has a cafe!!!  So I went over and ordered myself a coffee (not fantastic) and a big slice of baked cheesecake (yum!) and sat and read a magazine in air conditioned comfort!  Can you tell by all the exclamation marks that going to a cafe is pretty exciting when you live in Batchelor?  We also went to the rodeo that was held at Pussy Cat Flats, just out of town (cute name).  Having been to a rodeo in the last few weeks, we were 'in the know', so we backed the car arena side and had various supplies to make children happy, including cushions to sit up on the roof racks and observe the show.  It was amazing the perspective that you get up there.  You can see the kids on horses riding around the back with their friends and preparing for their event, you can see the guys working with the steers and bulls, getting them ready, and behind the scenes.  So we were looking like we were regular rodeo goers! Except that poor Nick nearly speared himself on a bush getting off the roof of the car, to which the ute full of cowboys next to us gave him loads.  Poor Nick!  It was a bit funny!!  So as the night wore on, the crowd got rowdy, and the cowboy neighbours got rowdy and were assisting to 'shoo' the bulls away to get them back through the gates.  The language wasn't sensored for our boys, as you can imagine.  Flynn picked up a few new words that night, and as a bull was staring at us from the other side of the fence and as the clowns tried to get him back through the gate, Flynn screamed out 'Piss off bull".  To which the cowboy neighbours thought was hilarious!  

The next day we visited Umbrawarra Gorge which was really gorgeous with a sand bank and shallow water and red gorge walls surrounding us.  We stayed for a few hours and the boys played and we swum and had a picnic.  There was meant to be some aboriginal rock art there, but we couldn't find it.  I can imagine it being a place that aboriginals used a lot during the dry, it was a beautiful place!

The track to Jim Jim

Rodeo at Pine Creek

Jim Jim Falls

We headed off to Kakadu and found it pretty hot for the first few days so we snuck into a pool at the Cooinda resort, up the road from our camp ground.  We visited Jim Jim Falls, which was a difficult walk for the boys, so we made the decision to take it in turns of walking to the falls while the other one entertained the kids in the car park.  This didn't prove to be difficult with lots of dirt and boulders and rocks to drive toy cars around!  (the boys were really good!)  Jim Jim Falls is spectacular and the walk takes you around a pond with pretty views and through woodlands and then leads right underneath the falls.  The pool at the bottom of the falls was deep and dark, being in the shade.  I didn't want to have a swim (scared!), but Nick decided to brave it.  Nick was a little hesitant until a gorgeous European backpacker said she would go in if he did, she then got the heaby geebies half way to the waterfall and swam back!  Why does Nick come back with stories of gorgeous women wanting to talk to him, when the only person who talked to me was a 70 year old in a man-kini?

Croc trap

Above Gunlom Falls

 The highlight of Kakadu for us was Gunlom Falls, where we spent four nights.  It was a bit of a trek to get into there but worth the effort.  We were advised that the road was very corrugated and it certainly was.  We had to drive very slowly with the caravan as we didn't want to rattle it to pieces, but also because we were sliding all over the road at 30kms per hour.  So it took nearly two hours to drive 38kms, but it was the most beautiful drive and going at that pace you don't miss anything!  We were lucky enough to have Mayra, a friend from Melbourne, her son Markito and her new man, Simon, come and camp with us for a couple of nights. Poor Markito was called 'Mosquito' by Flynn for a few days, but they got along like a house on fire!  We had a really nice time chatting around the camp fire and swimming in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall.  We all walked to the top of Gunlom to swim in the pools above.  The two boys did really well to walk all the way up and down the steep, rocky track which was a bit tricky in some bits.  I did well to carry Aidan and Nick did well not to fall over the edge!!  (Nick really needs to write a few blogs to get me back!)  We went on a couple of ranger guided walks and saw various animals including some wild horses and learnt a lot about aboriginal culture and way of life, which is quite strong still in Kakadu.

Beck and Mayra, top pools, Gunlom

Flynn and Markito

Gunlom Campground

Aidan finds some mud!

We decided to have a night in Pine Creek on the way home just so that we could watch some Monday night TV (no reception at home).  Unfortunately when we arrived, Nick realised that his mobile phone was missing, so he drove back 110kms to look for it.  It seems that it is gone, and Flynn has a story about Aidan being a naughty boy and throwing it in the bin?  The next day we didn't want to go back to Batchelor, so we stopped in at the hot springs again and enjoyed a day lazing around in the springs.  It was a fantastic holiday!