Week Five: Banka Banka/Daly Waters/Mataranka/Katherine/Kakadu National Park

How times have changed...I rate a spot by how good the showers are!  Banka Banka may be in the middle of nowhere, but for a pretty good price, it has terrific spring water (you can even wash down your van if you like) and good hot showers!  It did fill up quickly; we all park on a big grassy oval - not having much idea about cattle stations I wouldn't like to begin to guess what it once was...but it looked like a showring.  Because of the configuration of the vans, it makes for a very social atmosphere.  And the showers:  well, there is a shower curtain separating the shower cubicle from the drying space (a rarity), hot water (another rarity), and a good shower head giving good flow (also a rarity).  I know I have a shower in the van, but that is also the toilet, so work has to be done after the shower to get it dry.  We bath the boys in there most nights, but shower in ameneties blocks ourselves whenever we can...unless it is all too hard or icky, in which case I...don't shower at all!!!  Close friends, be amazed :)  Anyway, there isn't a heck of a lot to do at Banka Banka, so it makes for a very relaxing time.  It has changed hands so the stuff of legends (singing border collie, emu that thinks it's a dog, slideshow) are no more, and there are a number of stories floating around about what happened...so it wasn't the Banka Banka of legend, but it was still pretty good.




We attempted the walk to the waterhole...
but it was 1.6km of this (uneven ground and hilly)
so, this was the first time the boys mutinied on a walk!

 Van after van pulled out the next morning, pretty much all us heading for Daly Waters. I mentioned in the last blog about the amount of flowers around after the big wet season.  This stretch was an impressively pretty one...so many wildflowers growing in abundance on either side of the road.  So lovely. 
Around 300 km later, turning off the highway, we came to an oasis in the middle of nowhere.  Daly Waters pub has to be seen to be believed...they are really great at 'taking the piss' to coin a good Aussie phrase, out of themselves, and don't hold back on doing the same for guests as well.  There is a great friendly atmosphere, a big emphasis on having fun and a laugh, and plenty of good food and drink to be had as well.  The 'world famous' beef and barra meal is worthy of it's legend status, there is a great happy hour from 4:30 to 5:30 pm, flip a coin and if you pick the winning side you get your drink for free...Tony won 3 times so was pretty bloody pleased with that (took the pain out of the $27.50 each for the beef and barra!), there was great entertainment...a lovely singer, and then Chilli the musician/comedian had us in stitches!   The van park was pretty much full as we were there the Thursday before a rodeo weekend, so the atmosphere was especially good, I think.  But...this is one place I didn't shower!

Chilli entertaining us...I only had my iPhone, not a good zoom sorry.

A Tony shot:  an absolutely cuter than cute photo of Matt.  Classic Matt!



This photo is another one of Tony's photos with the Nikon...this is the bar!
 So interesting!

  A lot of fellow travellers opted to stay an extra night or two, to check out the rodeo.  But we needed to press on so headed out early the next day to Mataranka.  It wasn't too far up the road (about 2 hours drive) and we headed for the bush camp that had been recommended to us.  This was within walking distance to the Bitter Springs - beautiful clear water at a lovely 32 degrees celsius.  The boys had a great time swimming and looking through goggles at all the little fish.  Sadly, there were no turtles to be seen as there had been quite a big flood through the area (the flip side to travelling after a big wet season).  Where we camped was right next to a great fishing spot and Tony and Charlie, while not quite wetting a line, at least had a good go at catching these huge prawn things (scampis???) with a net. 

Bitter Springs...not bitter at all :)  and it was really nice to
be in temperatures warm enough to swim!  Hooray!

Off again the next day to Katherine, an easy hour and a half drive up the road.  Another van park that had been recommended and it didn't disappoint.  It was just like being back home in Duncan Street with all the palms around us, and we had a lovely big spot.  Oh, and the showers...to die for!!!!!

Katherine Gorge was a bit more difficult to get to than the Gorges around Alice Springs...and sadly a cruise to go and see it is not within our budget, so we headed off to see Cutta Cutta Caves, with Charlie just about beside himself with excitement about the possibility of seeing some bats and snakes.  The cave itself is quite big, no tight spaces or crawling required - otherwise you wouldn't be able to convince me to go in.  It is really quite beautiful...the photo just doesn't do it justice. 


Absolutely fascinating seeing what nature has created.

It seemed to take forever to drive into Kakadu National Park...thank goodness we had decided to stay at one of the spots as you drive in...this still seemed to take hours to get to, though:  Kakadu is so BIG!  We will have only barely scratched the surface of it in our few days here.  The other factor influencing how much we could see was a late wet season and therefore still a lot of flood damage, and the number of crocodiles still at large throughout the park.  There were a number of roads and walks closed.  We managed to do some walks, saw some cave art, and also drove a looong way to Ubirr, right up the top near Jabiru, to see a sunset.  It was very beautiful, but also very scary being up on that mountain with two wild children who think rocks are their playground.  We got up very early one morning and boarded the boat to cruise a little way down the Yellow Waters billabong and part of the Alligator River to see sunrise and the animals greeting the day.  This included the birdlife ...and the crocodiles, much to the excitement of the boys!  It was very beautiful and spectacular... I hope my photos can give you a small taste of the beauty to be seen at Kakadu. 

Charlie watching for crocs!

Sunrise:  ain't it grand?



Crocodile!!!!!!!!

A gorgeous sea eagle.  There were a pair hunting, that morning.

Sunset over Ubirr.



The birdlife really do like to live dangerously, there was a croc nearby!

A highlight of our time at Kakadu has been having neighbours with 2 boys of similar age to ours:  they have had a great time playing together and it has been nice for the adults to have some catch up time as well!  The lovely Somers family were great neighbours...they have a blog too:  somers1999.blogspot.com  Check it out and you may get even more inspiration to travel as we all are! 



Riley and Charlie having a blast!

Well, we are off to Darwin tomorrow...and to be honest we are ready to leave Kakadu.  With the amount of closures and the distances you have to travel it has been hard yakka; plus the boys will benefit from being a little older next time we visit.  And the showers aren't that great, either ;)
a BIG thanks to those we have heard from, we really do love having comments and news from home.  Keep it up, please!
 I will leave you with two more photos:  one of Charlie I took today on one of our walks, and one of Patchy checking out the sunset...too cute to hide away on Patchy's page!