March 17 - Alice to West Mac Ranges

March 16 - Tennant Creek to Alice Springs

After an uneventful night in tennant creek in our "usual" hotel - ie we stayed there on the way up so of course two stays become the 'usual' ;-)

Another long day ahead to Alice Springs, at least today the scenery will be somewhat more interesting - at least once anyway - Devils Marbles !

the outback had turned on a stunning day for us the blue of the sky is unbelievable - just like the pictures in magazines - its amazing.


we arrived in Alice mid afternoon, checked into the hotel - possibly our last creature comforts with 5 stars or less :-) for alittle while. we found the highest point and took a look around the city with pizza and beer the order of the night.

March 15 (2009) - a sad farewell to Darwin

the first day of our journey home, bidding a sad farewell was harder then we had thought it would be. Even in our catbox we had grown quite attached to little big city - humidity and all. we loved the sunshine and the outdoors, the scenery is unbelievable and we had had the best of adventures and made some amazing friends and except for the high cost it was definitely a city we could see ourselves living.

we somehow managed to squeeze and push and shove all our stuff - camping gear included into Noddy for the long ride home and long day ahead - the long and straight road to Tennant Creek, a reasonably dull 10-11 hr journey


another road trip was beginning - this one a mammoth 2 month trip taking us through the center of the Australia, to South Australia, Victoria and back home to NSW.

there seems to be a pattern forming :-)

its seems that we start off blogging really well then ......... yep we don't get back to it and this little adventure was no different .. as you can see there are no details about our wonderful 2mth road trip home from the wonderful and beautiful land of Darwin

will try to fix that up and add a few pics as we go

A return trip to Litchfield

We couldn't leave without re-visiting Litchfield. So when the sun rose and the sky was blue weekend before last we headed straight to Litchfield with the first stop - Termite Mounds.

Driving into the park we were admiring the height of the Spear Grass without really thinking too much about it ... then we arrive at the boardwalk ... the boardwalk to view the magnetic termite mounds that look like a graveyard ... only thing being the Spear Grass was like 12 feet tall and there was nothing to see ... sucks to be those tourists turning up for the first time !!!


After the mounds we headed deep into the park to Wangi Falls where the water was thundering over the falls. So we took a walk around, up and over the falls which was great and had great views over the park.

From Wangi we went to Tolmer for another walk around the Falls and then onto Florence falls where we walked through the streams - ahhhh very relaxing - but again umm crocodiles people - nope they don't seem too concerned at all

Frequent Flyer

A few weeks of travel for me for work - Canberra then Adelaide - with a lovely dinner with the lovely Boss - so great to see you Nic; then Sydney - and a chance to catch up with mum and dad (and also offload some crap that we didn't need on our trip home ;-0 ) then Canberra again

So a quite weekend or two was in order with a nice relaxing BBQ at friends of Tash's from work - Rod and Janet

A return trip to kakadu

we head back to Kakadu to see what the Wet has transformed. Our first stop Ubirr - our favourite from the last trip - but the wet strikes again the Magella River is flooded and the road is impassable. We stand at the edge of the river bewildered by not only the water that must be around for this crossing to be under water but also the local children swimming , right next to the Beware of Crocodile sign and the man with his son fishing in thigh deep water - we must be getting to old or just big sooks cause you wouldn't catch us dead in that water, but then maybe local knowledge is gold !

From Ubirr we headed around to the Cooinda to the lodge we stayed at previously and then in search of a sunset. We found a bridge and set about getting some sunset shots all the while trying to fathom the water we were starring at - last visit these rivers had been barely been mud puddles now the water is about half a metre below the bridge, even seeing it we cant get our heads around it - its a volume that the brain cannot compute

The next morning we headed out to Yellow Water for another cruise and again the water just spread for as far as the eye could see, the banks and tree trunks that were vi sable last trip our now one to two meters below water - only two crocodile spottings on this trip and no brolga's or jabiru's - which mate for life did you know ! :-)

this billabong is beautiful and i am not sure that there would be anytime of year that wouldn't be magnificent but we both agree somehow the timing for our first trip was just perfect - the water was up so the birds were flocking the crocs were breeding and the river was just beautiful. This trip the water so high the birds were pushed further inland the crocs had no banks to laze about on.

After the cruise we headed to Nourlangie rock stopping just before it at Nourlanga rock - for a short but steep walk with a rewarding view of Nourlangie rock and the wetlands spread out in front of us.

We then slowly headed out of the park taking in all the sights including the rising water levels of the South Alligator River before leaving the Park for the last time and making our way back to Darwin