Darwin and the National Parks

Arriving at Darwin felt in so many ways, like coming home. This was our second visit to this unspoiled land and we just love it, this time in particular we were looking forward to celebrating Territory Day which many people had talked to us about, I guess personally, I was looking forward to setting off some fireworks as they are legal during Territory Day, only between 6-11 pm though!

We managed to arrange cheap accommodation, well a site, through the facebook page of caravanning with dogs, this was a private property that leased space, still not only was affordable but also had a shower and toilet.

The place was not far from Palmerston, one of the bigger, newer suburbs and it had already other families staying that had kids, I think altogether at one stage there were 17 kids … heaven! We arrived on Thursday, the Irish family was already there (we met at Gregory Downs) and our first priority of course was to settle down and organise ourselves some fireworks.

The pop up stores selling fireworks were everywhere, we went to the closest to us and they had everything, from kiddie ones to “The Thunder King”, as fun as the second one sounds, of course we decided to go for the middle-of-the range pack and not only were they cheap but when you bought them (had maybe close to 25 different types of fireworks) you got one free, life could not get any better.

The day came, Saturday 1st of July, we decided to join the other families from the camp and went to Mindil market which, without any kind of celebration is already a happening place. Mindil market is by the beach and from our last trip, memories of the biggest sun at sunset came flooding in, I was extremely excited. The market had a stage set up on the beach, so after a walk around the stalls and grabbing some food we made our way to the stage, the atmosphere was just electric!

They had a hip hop band to be followed by Neil Finn from crowed house. As I stood there, watching the sun go down, dancing to some music, seeing the kids just having so much fun, I felt so glad to be right there and then just as I thought life cannot get any better Neil Finn comes on, by this time the sun had set and the fireworks had started, these were not the show ones, rather they were personal ones and they are going off everywhere.

To my surprise I actually happened to know many songs by Neil so I am singing along, not knowing where to look as everything is so spectacular, the fireworks, the beach, the show… Carlos grabs me by the waist and looks at me and without saying a word I know exactly what he is thinking, the blessing of our family, what we achieved together, the righteous choice to do this trip…we hug the kids and at that particular time we could not be any closer, this was without doubt a very special moment. At 8:30 the fireworks show started, there were four boats out on the sea which is where the fireworks were set off from, like always they are amazing however these were choreographed to music. An indigenous song came up, I did not understand the lyrics however the tone and sound of the song just seem to go right through me, I had goose bumps on my arms and it was then when I could not fight it any longer, I was completely overwhelmed by emotion, my heart swelled to the point of explosion and tears of happiness flowed through my cheeks, this is where I was meant to be. Even typing this down now, nearly a month and a half later, I am still getting goose bumps. So far in our trip, this has to be, undoubtedly one of the most heart felt, memorable experiences, one that will be with me for the rest of my life. To finish off, we still had our own fireworks so after the show we went back to our caravan, grabbed our fireworks, went to a clearing and set them off. Even though we were exhausted, the look on the kids faces made it all worth it. Happy Territory day Darwin.

After such a high from territory day we took some days to recover and went off exploring Darwin. Due to always been so hot, Darwin has done really well in providing cooling places (human water holes) accessible to everyone. They have two free water parks, one in Palmerston, 5 minutes from where we were staying, they have a wave pool in town and since we were there during school holidays, they had plenty of entertainment free for the kids.

What no other place does better than Darwin is the markets, Mildil of course, I already spoke about Mindil, but there is also Parap on Saturday mornings and even Palmerston has one every Friday. This was just perfect as we often went to the library in Palmerston and the market was set up just outside! Delicious food from all over the world, a lot of Thai, we were loving it. I must mention Ken’s Crepes, well my dear friends from Melbourne, his brother Ken sells Crapes in Parap market, absolutely to die for, I missed out last time we were in Darwin so I had been literally been waiting to try these crepes for 3 years, and they were worth it!

From Darwin, we tried to do Kakadu National Park, to do National Parks this time has proven a little challenging as I have the dogs, but we managed. We left early in the morning and drove to Ubirr where the look out is, this one in particular is quite special as you can see over Arhnem land.

Kakadu has defiantly made its mark through the number of aboriginal rock art, simply amazing galleries with oh so interesting dreamtime stories, incredibly enough, the kids remembered a lot from our last trip which is amazing as they were so young.

We had planned to do the whole park but it was impossible, it was a long day and we decided to do the rest when we come back down towards Katherine.

An amazing surprise was to see my dear friend Soula and her husband Nick from Melbourne, as much as I am having a ball in this trip, I do miss the interaction and friendship from my patients in Melbourne. It was really a highlight to see them and made my time in Darwin even more special.

We left Darwin after two weeks, ready to keep moving. On the way down we stopped at one of the hot springs called Berry Springs, once again since it was school holidays we attended a talk on crocodiles and the kids got to hold a snake.

The negative of being school holidays is that it was packed with people, so after a quick dip, we moved along. We stopped by the free camp by the Dam and said hello to Gary and who comes and parks next to us, you won’t believe this… Deb and Daz (from Panorella park - Cape York- Karumba and now Darwin) we were so excited to see them and spend a good night catching up on all the adventures, including driving through Savanna Way, they actually dropped a bag with $600 worth of stuff, again, we are going the same way so who knowns when we will see them again.

We drove in and turned right towards Litchfield National Park, a lot of people like to compare it to Kakadu but they are so different. We went to our favourite falls, the Wangi Wangi Falls, tried the upper pools of the Cascades (that was a really hard walk) and Florence falls, did lots of swimming and even though there were many people (except for the cascades as it was just about impossible to get there) we had a lot of fun.

We drove on and this time we stayed just outside Kakadu but on the other side south of Darwin, we planned this so we could the bottom part of the park which we didn’t get to do last time. Gunlom and Maguk waterfalls, Gunlom with such an amazing climb to get to the top of the rock pool but once you get there you are rewarded with an amazing view of the park and Maguk, I have to say, we enjoyed this more, the walk to get there was an adventure but not impossible and the waterfall had a small rocky cliff where the kids could dive from, maybe about 8 meters high, absolutely loved it and the kids quickly learnt the right way to dive, me, in the meantime, just cruising on my noodle.

As we left Kakadu, part of me wonders when I will be back, there is still so much to be done including Arnhem land, feeling a little sad but also excited with thought of coming back again.