Directly to Darwin

We are now in Darwin.  It’s lovely and cool compared to Kakadu.  We have ended up in a caravan park that has three swimming pools, camp kitchens, laundries, restaurants and a big jumping pillow.  We are very happy!

After all our crocodile watching yesterday, I had a dreadful dream last night involving a deep, clear billabong, lots of crocodiles, and my children all lined up along the edge, watching these fierce creatures.  It was a bit distressing!  Dominic had a similarly bizarre dream about large spiders and a bus.  Must have been a very warm night.

Top of Ubirr, looking out over the flood plains between Kakadu and Arnhem Land

After much dragging and complaining this morning, we all had a lovely time looking over the rock art at Ubirr again, and climbing to the top of the rocks where we had a good view of the wetlands and Arnhemland.  It was very pretty and we saw some rock Wallabies with joeys in their pouches. We saw Marcus, the aboriginal ranger, and also Joel's girl friend, the ranger from Yellow water.  They are a very friendly bunch up here!

In front of Rock Art at Ubirr

We rushed back to our campsite to take part in a traditional painting activity, and discovered how aboriginals made their paint brushes, and how hard it actually was to produce the rock art we had seen that morning. Everyone really enjoyed it, along with seeing our friend, Ranger Pete from Philip Island, again.

Painting with the help of the ranger and his two traditional owner teachers.

Some of our Rock Art painting

Next we packed up the van again, to drive the 300 or so kilometers to Darwin.  I drove and Grant read all the information from our lonely planet guide about what was good to see and do in Darwin and beyond!  I only had to pull over about five times to get phone chargers from the van (kept getting the wrong one!) and to make a toilet stop!  The road from Kakadu heads directly west – just one long, straight highway.

But here we are.  And Maryanne has already taken Katie to youth group and I’ve done two loads of washing and been for a swim in the pool with Nadine and two frogs.

Joseph is so glad to be back in suburbia.  He had his laptop and phone chargers plugged in within minutes of us arriving on our site!  Don’t think he will be the original bush man when he gets older.