Katherine Calling

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Hi all, we are on the move again after spending 6 weeks in the Darwin area. We had a great time at Berry Springs lots of swimming, relaxing, drinking, meeting lots of nice people and sightseeing, Chris even scored a bit of work, not that he was looking for it. Fatima and Adam who run the bistro at the van park asked him if he could design promotional flyers and menus on his computer, which he can and he loved doing it, in lieu of payment they fed us, at the father’s day lunch with wine, which was much better.

Darwin city is very laid back, lots of Aborigines in the parks and sitting around the streets under the shade of the trees, its hard to remember that this is a capital city, although as they do tell us they do own much of the land up here and they can do what they like, except drink. NT has brought in new laws, curtailing how much alcohol they can buy and trying to clean up the place. They are building a convention centre at Darwin Harbour which will be a very nice place to be as there are great restaurants at the wharf where you can sit and watch the sunset and they will also have a wave pool a bit like what they have done in Airlie Beach and Cairns so it will look spectacular when completed.

We didn’t get to Kakadu, we have been there before and I’m sure it hasn’t changed, having Olly stops us visiting National Parks unless we put him in the kennels for a few days, but we are not keen to do that, we did sneak him into Litchfield National Park, but far too hot to leave him in the car for too long. We also drove to Adelaide river where they do cruises to see the crocs, there is about 4 companies now that do it, well, we didn’t have to pay to see one, there was a 4 metre croc just lying on the bank 6 metres away from us, then in a dam just off the road, we stopped as there was a caravan parked and thought we could have a cuppa but guess what was swimming there, it was a freshwater croc there not as big, it was only 1 metre, but still with Olly not a good place to pull up.

For our last night in Darwin we picked SOK up and went to the Trailer (NOT TRASH) Boat Club and watched a beautiful sunset had Barramundi for dinner and had a few coldies, what a perfect way to finish off a great stay.

When we left Berry Springs we spent 2 nights at the Daly river Mango Farm, which is a popular fishing spot 180 klm south west of Darwin. These places now are almost empty, it is getting too hot for a lot of people to be up here its 30 to 35 degrees most days and humidity is somewhere between 35 to 65 so this makes van parks really enjoyable, at this place there were only 6 vans most of them fisherman who have been up here for 4 months but getting ready also to move on as this place closes in October, that’s when they will start picking mangoes which the trees are in full bloom, it takes 100 days for a mango to ripen from the day of the first bud. Then the rising river is a problem there is a massive weir that you have to cross so people living on the west side of the river which is about 4000 have to get there cars to the other side and commute by boat it would be amazing to see, who knows one day we might. Anyway I asked the owner how safe is it to go fishing off the pontoon, he said how fast can you run, there is about a 5 metre croc which lives under there, he suggested I go to the boat ramp where you are up a little on a bank and it’s a little bit easier to run away, so off we go. I lost a few hooks and sinkers but had a few bites but didn’t land anything and I only got a little concerned when the water by the riverbank started to go muddy suddenly so we thought it a good idea to pack up, somehow I’m starting to agree with Chris that buying fish in a shop is so much more appealing.

We are now in Katherine staying at Springvale Homestead which is in a really nice bush setting with lots of wallabies, probably go to the springs this afternoon. We are waiting on mail to arrive so hopefully it will be here on Monday. Then we are off to Kunnanurra, a place we have never been before so we are both looking forward to that.
There is no such thing as water restrictions up here, sprinklers on all day the grass is green the rivers are full, so every opportunity we wash the car and van as the red dust sticks to everything, at first you felt a bit guilty using all this water but there is so much of it up here it is the norm.


I guess the O’keefes don’t here from SOK very much so I will fill you in. He looks extremely well and fit, he has applied for a few jobs, one of which he got as a pest controller (flick man) earning good money and he would be trained in other fields different to gardening which would help him on his journeys around Australia but he told them he had applied for 2 other jobs and out of courtesy he should wait to see if he gets an interview, which they accepted. The other job he applied for was a FIFO, fly in fly out as a gardener/ general hand person on a pearling farm in Port Bremer try and find that on your maps and he got an interview with them, he didn’t get that one but what he was offered then was also a FIFO job on a pearling farm in the KIMBERLEY, where you work a fortnight on and 1 week off and that will just be gardening, this all happened yesterday so I think he will know in the next few days about this job and he seems very excited or as much as he can get excited about this, we will let you know.

Well its just gone 1pm and I’ve finished the washing, Chris has given Olly a bath, it is so hot I think we will go for a swim.

Bye for now Sue Chris and Olly xxx

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HUGH

PS hope you like the photos