Aug 14 ... Darwin

The time difference between WA and NT is really quite significant and we find ourselves sleeping in a bit here. The 1.5 hours earlier means that the sun is not yet up at 7am and it is lovely and cool, but we were still on the road before 9am.
All around Timber Creek and through to the Victoria River Roadhouse, the escarpments are quite dramatic. Sometimes we also caught glimpses of the river and the kapok was in full flower. This plant, which can look a bit scrawny because it loses it's leaves, is everywhere in the northern part of Australia and it has bright yellow flowers. It develops seed pods which contain the white fibre, "kapok" originally used to stuff mattresses and pillows, and when these burst, there is white "fluff" everywhere.

The native kapok tree

East of Timber Creek

We again stopped at the Durack Memorial, in recognition of the family who settled more than 2.5 million acres on the Ord River called Argyle Downs. I have always been quite fascinated by the feats of this family who in 1883 overlanded more than 7000 cattle from QLD to WA.It is their property that is now flooded by Lake Argyle.

The Durack Memorial

We also stopped in at the original crossing on the Victoria River. To get there we had to walk down a track lined with speargrass and we were able to get a better idea of the height this grows to even though it is now all dead and waiting for the wet. This was the only way of fording the river until the bridge was built further up stream.

Garry in front of spear grass

The original Vic River Crossing

The Victoria River

Not far from here we stopped at the Victoria River Roadhouse. It is a lovely spot and it has a nice small park attached too but there is definitely no swimming. We enjoyed a coffee and a sandwich then took a walk across the old and the new bridges for views of the river.

The Victoria River

Perfect place for crocodiles!

From here it was a boring monotonous drive into Katherine where we stopped to do some grocery shopping. Katherine is quite a nice looking place, the third largest city in NT, with a huge indigenous population. It was a Saturday and there seemed to be lots of aboriginal people in all the shops and parks, some of whom had been pretty "thirsty".

Leaving town we drove a few kilometres to the Springvale Homestead. This is the oldest home still standing in the NT and it was built in 1879 by Alfred Giles and Alfred Woods who aspired to establishing a new pastoral empire in the district. To this end they brought over 12000 sheep and 3000 cattle overland from Adelaide but the distance to markets eventually defeated them. This homestead stood in good form until 1995 when it was inundated by a flooding Katherine River and very badly affected. A lot of restoration work has taken place and it was worth the look. In the front yard were four massive South American Rain Trees planted by Ms Giles,one for each of her children, and they were even more impressive!

Springvale Homestead

Overshadowed by a Sth American Rain Tree

Also at the homestead was a tribute to John McDouall Stuart who explored much of the area around Katherine. In my opinion, he was the most remarkable of all the Australian explorers. He led 6 expeditions and survived terrible circumstances and conditions. To his credit, he never lost a man and so tends to be overshadowed by other explorers like Burke and Wills who had tragic deaths and so make for a "better" story. Eventually, in 1862, Stuart successfully crossed Australia from Adelaide to Chambers Bay on the Gulf and it was his exploratory work and careful notes that allowed the overland telegraph to be built. Whilst an exceptional man for his focus and strength, he seemed to have only one purpose in life and as soon as he achieved this, he went back to England and died from ill health in 1866. Stuart named many of the landforms of central Australia and his adventures were truly exciting.

It was still relatively early in the afternoon so we continued on to Pine Creek. This is a lovely little place and we felt lucky to find a nice shady park in town, attached to the service station and across from a cafe and a hotel. It was an historic township and we went for a walk around before heading up to the lookout over the now defunct gold mine.
This was the Enterprise Gold Mine that was worked from 1985 to 1995. It was an open cut pit and when it was closed, Pine Creek was diverted to fill it with water. It took over 14 months to fill and the base of the pit is now 135ms below water level. There is still a LOT of mining done in this region and the town is really a mining village.

The Enterprise Gold Mine Pit

What a night! We found there are some disadvantages being across the road from the pub on a Saturday night in a mining town. At least the music was pretty good ... which was lucky because it went till almost 1am. By then we had serious trouble getting to sleep so this park turned out to be not quite as good as it looked. On the positive side though, we were across the road from Mayse's cafe which served the biggest and cheapest Sunday breakfast we have had this trip. The cafe has been set up as a semi-50's reproduction and it had all homemade cakes, pickles, biscuits etc. What a find!

Mayse's Cafe

Sunday breakfast in Pine Creek

It was a late start but there was no hurry as we were not far from Darwin. We turned off the highway and took the "scenic" route into Adelaide River which was longer, slower and very dull! I'm not sure what we were supposed to find "scenic".

There was a small market happening at Adelaide River and then we went on to the War Cemetery. Buried here are the servicemen killed in the area during WW2. The cemetery includes a civilian section where the people killed in the bombing of the Darwin PO are buried. It was a lovely memorial and both of us were very surprised by the extent of the bombing of Darwin. I had thought it was just a few raids but it was fairly constant and significant for more than 2 years. It must have been pretty scary living here then.

We still had plenty of time so we took a detour to check out the Northern Territory Wildlife Park and Berry Springs. Both looked excellent and we will return. Garry went for a quick swim in the Springs while I got lunch, it was a bit too crowded on a Sunday for me but I look forward to spending a few hours here next week.
And soon after we were in Darwin. We stopped to shop further at Woolies before booking in at the park. We have a good site but it is bloody hot! We are in full sun ALL day and we did try to change but there was nothing better to choose from. On the "good" side, the heat will force us to be out most days so we should see a lot of Darwin... and there seems to be a lot to see here!